DOJ Indicts Southern Poverty Law Center

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche proves his continued, unwavering loyalty to Donald Trump

By: Austin Abbring

May 17, 2026

Todd Blanche, acting Attorney General. Image credit: Bruce Shaff, no alterations to image, Wikimedia Commons, Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

In what appears to be a weak case, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and the Department of Justice have indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). On the surface, this seems to be another assault by the Trump administration on social justice. The Southern Poverty Law Center is a nonprofit legal advocacy group that fights white supremacy and hate groups via litigation and anti-bias education, especially in the southern states of the U.S. The Department of Justice’s indictment alleges that the SPLC committed fraud and money laundering, using donor funds to pay informants who were part of extremist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). MAGA and its pundits have already run with this story, claiming that the SPLC is actually behind far-right extremist violence and is essentially financing “forced” bigotry in America.

In my estimation, this is an exceptionally dubious proposition at best. Now, paid informants by the SPLC are not a new mechanism. Practically, since the inception of the nonprofit, it has used a paid informant scheme to infiltrate hate and extremist groups and gather intelligence. This intelligence is shared with various police agencies at the local and state levels, as well as with federal law enforcement. These paid informants are a vital part of the non-profit program, which appears to have saved dozens, if not hundreds, of lives over the last several decades. 

In a recent development, a whistle-blower from the DOJ informed House Democrats that the case was rushed and there are “serious concerns about the strength of the case.” This may serve as a litmus test for Donald Trump regarding Todd Blanche. The acting attorney general is simply proving his loyalty to the administration, and what better way to do that than to rush out a weak case against a social justice organization? 

This is nothing new from the second Trump presidency, which has repeatedly attacked and slashed DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs and training in government agencies, banned trans people from serving in the military, threatened to restrict funding for schools that include gender or diversity in their curriculum, ended racial data collection from SNAP, weakened EPA protections, which disproportionately affect minorities, and has repeatedly attacked voting rights. These are just a select few examples from the first year of this administration. Instead of expending resources to engage in eliminating far-right extremists and white supremacist groups, let us indict the group that is actively working with law enforcement to prevent them. Brilliant.