Hate group monitor the Southern Poverty Law Center says it’s being investigated by Trump’s DOJ
The Trump administration Department of Justice is allegedly investigating the Southern Poverty Law Center, a top civil rights group known for its legal work and research into extremist organizations.
In a video message posted on Tuesday, SPLC CEO Bryan Fair said the group was the subject of a criminal investigation targeting the group or its employees.
The alleged investigation is focusing on the group’s past work using paid informants to infiltrate extremist groups, he said.
“These individuals risked their lives to infiltrate and inform on the activities of our nation’s most radical and violent extremist groups,” Fair said, adding, “There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives.”
Fair framed the alleged investigation as part of a wider Trump administration campaign to go after opponents of its agenda, an effort that critics say has included threats or investigations against Democrat-aligned law firms, past opponents of the president, and ActBlue, the main Democratic funding platform.
“Today the federal government has been weaponized to dismantle the rights of our nation’s most vulnerable people and any organization like ours that tries to stand in the breach,” Fair said.
“We will not be intimidated into silence or contrition.”
Fair did not say how or when the organization learned about the alleged investigation.
The Independent has contacted the SPLC and the Justice Department for comment.
“As a matter of Department of Justice policy, we generally do not confirm, deny, or otherwise comment on the existence or non-existence of investigations,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Montgomery, Alabama, where SPLC is headquartered, said in a statement to The Independent.
Conservatives have increasingly taken aim at the SPLC, alleging it has unfairly painted individuals on the political right as threatening extremists.
In June, the SPLC included the conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA group on its “Hate Map” and labeled the organization an “anti-government extremist group,” angering large parts of the right.
In October, the FBI cut ties with the SPLC, alleging the group had become a “partisan smear machine.”
The group had previously provided research about hate crimes and domestic extremism to the bureau.
In December, House Republicans held a critical hearing about the group, alleging it had coordinated with the Biden administration to “target Christian and conservative Americans and deprive them of their constitutional rights.”
Source: independent.co.uk
