Fraud charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center are part of a “farcical” and “retributive” White House campaign to silence political opposition, the civil rights group said in a motion to dismiss filed May 26.
SPLC, which monitors and reports on hate groups, urged U.S. District Judge Emily Marks in Montgomery, Ala., to throw out fraud and money laundering charges the Department of Justice filed against the organization in April.
The federal government claims SPLC lied to donors by using contributions to its paid-informant program to actually support the white supremacist groups it investigates.
The organization immediately pleaded not guilty to the charges and filed motions accusing the Justice Department of providing false information to weaponize a federal grand jury against it.
In the motion to dismiss, attorneys for the Montgomery-based organization argued the government’s case was motivated by a “top-down” campaign initiated by the White House and carried out by the FBI and Justice Department to settle the president’s grudges against civil rights groups and other opponents.
The Trump administration has made clear its disdain for SPLC through false accusations of being “anti-Christian,” of assisting the Biden administration in weaponizing the Justice Department and of helping “rig” the 2020 election against Trump, according to the filing.
The charges also should be dismissed because the indictment is rife with irregularities and misleading information, does not cite the motivation required to prove criminal actions and fails to follow federal legal precedent, the motion contends. In addition, the government never sought SPLC records until after notifying the group it would be indicted.
“The charges against the SPLC were a foregone conclusion based on prosecutorial vindictiveness.”
“These procedural irregularities show that the charges against the SPLC were a foregone conclusion based on prosecutorial vindictiveness — driven by the White House and FBI leadership’s retribution campaign — rather than the result of a good faith examination of the evidence.”
The administration continued to assail the organization’s rights after the indictment was handed down, most notably through press conferences and media interviews by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Deputy Associate Attorney General Aakash Singh and FBI Director Kash Patel, the motion states. “This post-indictment media blitz culminated in President Trump’s admission that the indictment is part and parcel of his years-long failed effort to overturn the 2020 election results.”
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks at a press conference with FBI Director Kash Patel following the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center for money laundering, at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC on April 21, 2026. (Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
That admission, SPLC attorneys said, was further demonstrated in a Truth Social message Trump posted less than a week after the indictment became public.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the greatest political scams in American History, has been charged with FRAUD,” the president said. “This is another Democrat Hoax, along with Act Blue (political action committee), and many others. If it is true, the 2020 Presidential Election should be permanently wiped from the books and be of no further force or effect!”
“This is the very definition of a vindictive prosecution,” according to the SPLC motion. “The court should dismiss the indictment as a violation of due process.”
The court document pointed to a May 22 ruling in which a federal judge dismissed charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia because the administration manufactured evidence in an attempt to deport him.
“The record and timeline of what the SPLC has done and said carrying out its mission, combined with the president’s criticisms that resulted in the indictment in this case, demonstrate that the SPLC is being punished for repeatedly speaking out against President Trump’s policy choices and for having criticized his political goals and allies,” the group said.
The fact is, the organization is dedicated to strengthening civil rights and has worked closely with the FBI to thwart potential acts of violence by hate groups, the American Civil Liberties Union said.
“SPLC has been in the Trump administration’s crosshairs because of their central role in calling out right-wing extremism.”
“We can’t take this prosecution at face value. SPLC has been in the Trump administration’s crosshairs because of their central role in calling out right-wing extremism. The manufactured outrage against SPLC at both the Department of Justice and in Congress are just the latest examples of the Trump administration and its allies turning the power of the government on people and organizations that they see as opposition.”
The danger is that even frivolous accusations can devastate an organization’s bottom line by scaring off donors, the ACLU added. “The chilling effect of facing such costs is the true purpose of these attacks. The administration wins if people watch what they say, avoid taking certain clients or terminate particular lines of work out of fear of getting on the White House’s bad side.”
U.S. House Republicans ripped into SPLC during a May 20 hearing —“The Southern Poverty Law Center: Manufacturing Hate” — by accusing the group of profiting from hate groups and disproportionately targeting Christian hate groups.
But Democrats pushed back, citing SPLC’s historic successes against the KKK, neo-Nazi groups and other hate groups.
“Everyone can see what is happening here with this outrageous, scandalous prosecution in Alabama and outrageous, scandalous persecution in Washington, D.C.,” said U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., during the House Judiciary Committee hearing. “And just this month, the Trump administration released a new national counterterrorism strategy that literally erases right-wing violent extremism from the record. The strategy identifies drug cartels, Islamist terrorists and ‘violent left-wing extremists’ as the nation’s top threats, but makes no mention whatsoever of far-right extremism, white supremacist violence, or domestic neo-Nazi terror.”
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