House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on April 23 gave the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) until April 30 to hand over documents regarding its relationship with the Biden–Harris Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI, as part of a federal prosecution of the civil rights group.
In a letter to Bryan Fair, SPLC interim president and chief executive, Jordan wrote that “publicly available documents revealed how the Justice Department partnered closely with the SPLC during the Biden-Harris Administration, including scheduling regular meetings, giving the SPLC early access to federal law-enforcement data, and allowing SPLC employees to train federal prosecutors.” The letter was also posted to social media.
The chairman’s demand came two days after a grand jury in Montgomery, Alabama, returned an 11-count indictment alleging the SPLC had committed wire fraud, made false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspired to conceal money laundering.
The indictment accuses the SPLC of funneling more than $3 million between 2014 and 2023 to no fewer than eight paid informants in violent racist organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan, the United Klans of America, the National Socialist Movement, the National Socialist Party of America, the American Front, and the Aryan Nations-aligned Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club. Prosecutors said the group set up accounts under fictitious names, such as “Fox Photography” and “Rare Books Warehouse” among them, to hide where the money came from.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche alleged that the SPLC had used “paid operatives within extremist circles to incite and intensify racial tensions,” arguing the civil rights organization “fostered the very threats it claimed to fight.”
Jordan’s letter tells Fair that the committee is investigating whether the SPLC shaped federal policy during the Biden–Harris years, highlighting a now-withdrawn 2023 FBI Richmond Field Office memorandum, dating back to when Christopher Wray led the bureau, that treated “radical-traditionalist” Catholics as given to violence, citing the SPLC as a source.