The Southern Poverty Law Center put out a video this morning announcing that they are under investigation by the Department of Justice.
The Southern Poverty Law Center said in a statement Tuesday that it is under investigation by the Justice Department for its use of paid informants.
The statement from CEO Bryan Fair said that he believes the organization may face criminal charges.
“Although we don’t know all the details, the focus appears to be on the SPLC’s prior use of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups,” the SPLC statement said.
The video message leans heavily into the group’s history fighting the Klan, as do all of the news stories about this. And while all of the stories I’ve read about this mention that the SPLC is not well-liked by conservatives, none of the stories mention why. Here’s how the AP explains it.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has faced intense criticism from conservatives, who have accused it of unfairly maligning right-wing organizations as extremist groups because of their viewpoints. The center regularly condemns Trump’s rhetoric and policies around voting rights, immigration and other issues.
The center came under fresh scrutiny after the assassination last year of conservative activist Charlie Kirk brought renewed attention to its characterization of the group that Kirk founded and led. The center included a section on that group, Turning Point USA, in a report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2024” that described the group as “A Case Study of the Hard Right in 2024.”
What none of the stories mention is an incident from August 2012 in which a would-be mass shooter targeted the headquarters of a Christian lobbying group in Washington, DC. Floyd Lee Corkins went to the headquarters of the Family Research Council with a gun and a bag full of Chick-fil-A sandwiches.
On the morning of Aug. 15, 2012, Corkins rode Metrorail from Virginia and into the District of Columbia, got off at the Gallery Place stop, and went to the Family Research Council. To gain access into the building, he falsely told the security guard, Mr. Johnson, that he was there for an interview as a prospective intern. Upon gaining entry, Corkins approached the receptionist desk, which Mr. Johnson was manning, intending to shoot and kill him. However, Mr. Johnson fought back and, as the two men scuffled, Corkins fired his gun three times, striking Mr. Johnson once in his left arm in the process. After Mr. Johnson subdued Corkins, Corkins stated, “It’s not about you,” but about the organization’s policies. He also was heard making remarks such as, “I don’t like these people, and I don’t like what they stand for.”
In a search after the shooting, MPD officers discovered two fully loaded magazine clips in one of Corkins’s front pants pockets, as well as a Metro card and a handwritten list containing the names of the Family Research Council and three other organizations that openly identify themselves as having socially conservative agendas. A search of Corkins’s backpack turned up, among other items, a box of 50 rounds of 9 mm ammunition. They also found 15 individually wrapped sandwiches that Corkins had purchased the previous day from Chick-fil-A.
Corkins later made statements to the FBI in which he said that he was a political activist and considered the Family Research Council to be a lobbying group. He also stated that he intended to kill as many people as possible and smother the Chick-fil-A sandwiches into their faces. Among other things, he said, “Chick-fil-A came out against gay marriage so I was going to use that as a statement.”
He had 15 sandwiches in his bag so that’s, at a minimum, how many people he wanted to kill. Also in his pocket was the name and address of the Traditional Values Coalition which also had an office in DC. Corkins planned to go their next to extend his murder spree if he was able to escape after the first attack.
Corkins also revealed the steps he took in planning the attack, saying that he had been thinking about perpetrating similar violence for years but never carried out an attack. Had he not been stopped at the Family Research Council, he stated, he planned to go to the second organization on the list he was carrying and wage a similar shooting there.
So how does any of this connect to the SPLC? The FRC had been listed as a hate group on the SPLC’s “hate map” since 2010. Corkins later admitted he targeted the group after looking at the SPLC’s map.
In his plea agreement, Corkins acknowledged he identified the Council as “an anti-gay organization” by visiting Southern Poverty’s website. The head of the Council, Tony Perkins, called on the group to stop labeling his organization and others hate groups because of their stance on gay issues. A spokeswoman for the Alabama-based Law Center did not immediately return a telephone message.
To be clear, the SPLC map did not give the FRC’s street address. Corkins presumably looked that up himself. But the map did serve as a planning document for his rampage. The Traditional Values Coalition, his second target, was also listed on the SPLC hate map.
In short, this is just like the left blaming the 2011 Tucson shooting on Sarah Palin’s district targeting map except that Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner had never seen that map. Despite all the blame directed at Palin, her map had zero influence on his plans and actions. But as noted above, FRC shooter Floyd Lee Corkins admitted to viewing the SPLC “hate map” and consulting it as he planned his attack. It wasn’t an imaginary connection, it was a real one.
So it’s odd that none of the stories about the SPLC published today mention that as a reason why conservatives hold a dim view of the SPLC. In 2019 a reporter for Current Affairs magazine called the SPLC hate map an “outright fraud.”
The biggest problem with the hate map, though, is that it’s an outright fraud. I don’t use that term casually. I mean, the whole thing is a willful deception designed to scare older liberals into writing checks to the SPLC. The SPLC reported this year that the number of hate groups in the country is at a “record high,” that it is the “fourth straight year” of hate group growth, and that this growth coincides with Donald Trump’s rise to power. There are now a whopping 1,020 hate groups around the country. America is teeming with hate.
Let’s dig into this number a bit. The first thing you should note is that it’s meaningless. The SPLC consistently declines to identify how many members these hate groups have. It just notes the number of groups. Without knowing how large they are, what does it mean that they exist? Are they one person? 1000?…
In fact, when you actually look at the hate map, you find something interesting: Many of these “groups” barely seem to exist at all. A “Holocaust denial” group in Kerrville, Texas called “carolynyeager.net” appears to just be a woman called Carolyn Yeager. A “male supremacy” group called Return of Kings is apparently just a blog published by pick-up artist Roosh V and a couple of his friends, and the most recent post is an announcement from six months ago that the project was on indefinite hiatus. Tony Alamo, the abusive cult leader of “Tony Alamo Christian Ministries,” died in prison in 2017. (Though his ministry’s website still promotes “Tony Alamo’s Unreleased Beatles Album.”) A “black nationalist” group in Atlanta called “Luxor Couture” appears to be an African fashion boutique. “Sharkhunters International” is one guy who really likes U-boats and takes small groups of sad Nazis on tours to see ruins and relics. And good luck finding out much about the “Samanta Roy Institute of Science and Technology,” which—if it is currently operative at all—is a tiny anti-Catholic cult based in Shawano, Wisconsin.
Also not mentioned in most of the stories is the more recent problems the organization has had internally. It fired Morris Dees after a series of allegations against him.
In late 2017, the organization investigated a complaint from a female employee about Dees’s behavior after a fundraising event in Atlanta. Dees said that at a social gathering, he approached the woman, put his hand on her shoulder and asked her about a visible tattoo on her arm. He said that, after she asked if he had any tattoos, he pointed to the front of his clothed right thigh, where he said he had one. The Post was unable to reach the woman or others who attended the event to learn their accounts…
At least a dozen people said that they witnessed Dees acting inappropriately with women, including subordinates, or making racially insensitive comments.
“Morris made overtures to women who worked for him,” said Deb Ellis, one of the first female lawyers hired by the center who worked there from 1984 to 1986. She recalled that one morning she came into work to find a Victoria’s Secret catalogue on her desk, with a note from Dees on top saying, “Maybe your boyfriend would like to order something for you.”…
In any case, the current investigation seems to have something to do with the SPLC’s past use of undercover informants.
“The focus appears to be on the SPLC’s prior use of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups,” he said.
“This use of informants was necessary because we are no stranger to threats of violence. In 1983, our offices were firebombed, and in the years since, there have been countless credible threats against our staff,” he said. “For decades, we engaged in unprecedented litigation to dismantle the Klan and other hate groups. In light of that work, we sought to protect the safety of our staff and the public. We frequently shared what we learned from informants with local and federal law enforcement, including the FBI. ”
The probe comes as the Justice Department has stepped up its scrutiny of nonprofits that it accuses of being involved with or funding “domestic terrorism.” It was not clear if the criminal investigation is related to that initiative, and a spokesperson for the Southern Poverty Law Center did not know the Justice Department’s legal theory behind the probe.
So there’s no one explaining what this is about at the moment. I suspect the SPLC has a better idea than it is letting on. It’s making this announcement to get ahead of some bad news, trying to rally support (and money) before any of the details are presented. We’ll have to wait and see what the DOJ has to say.
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