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Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall is demanding the Southern Poverty Law Center hand over donor information, fundraising solicitations, and other internal documents after a federal grand jury indicted the SPLC for allegedly funding members of the very hate groups the SPLC claims it exists to “dismantle.”
Marshall’s office issued a formal subpoena to the Montgomery-based nonprofit on Monday, launching an investigation under Alabama’s law against deceptive trade practices.
“We have always suspected that they were monetizing hate and trading on race-baiting, it was just a matter of proving it,” Marshall said in a statement on the subpoena. “Thanks to the U.S. Justice Department’s action to deal with the SPLC, the state’s efforts have now received a shot in the arm. We look forward to learning more about the inner workings of an organization that we have long believed was rotten, but until recently, has been impervious.”
Marshall’s subpoena cites Alabama Code § 8-19-9, which states that the attorney general or district attorneys may subpoena anyone to appear and produce relevant documents in a deceptive trade practices investigation.
Did the SPLC Use Deceptive Practices?
A federal grand jury indicted the SPLC last month on wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy charges for sending money to “field sources,” members of the very white supremacist groups the center claims it exists to dismantle. The SPLC did not deny funding members of the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations, but insisted the funds were part of an informant program that the center used to prevent violent attacks.
Yet the indictment doesn’t just claim that the SPLC paid “field sources” inside the KKK and other white nationalist groups—it also states that the SPLC was supervising the “racist postings” of an organizer of the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally. The indictment covers a period from 2014 to 2023.
The claim that the SPLC might be propping up hate in order to raise money appears to align with long-term criticism of the group. Critics have long said the SPLC puts mainstream conservative and Christian groups on a “hate map” with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan in order to exaggerate the threat of “hate” and raise money by presenting itself as the key opponent of “hate.” The center has even put groups of medical professionals on the “hate map” for disagreeing with the SPLC’s outspoken support for transgender medical interventions.
What Is Marshall Asking SPLC to Provide?
The subpoena asks for various documents to investigate alleged deceptive trade practices.
It asks for all SPLC organizational charts since Jan. 1, 2014; any documents revealing to donors that the SPLC had been using informants; documents the SPLC used to solicit donations; documents disclosing the “informant” program; the annual donations the SPLC received from inside Alabama and from other states; documents showing how many donated funds went directly or indirectly to “informants;” internal communications related to the disclosure of the informant program; and more.
The subpoena also seeks information the SPLC gave to “technology companies, banks, credit card processors, financial infrastructure companies,” and more regarding the SPLC’s “hate map” and external coalitions that sought to convince companies to blacklist groups on the “hate map,” such as Change the Terms and the No Blood Money Campaign.
The subpoena notes that it is not seeking “personally identifying information of any private entity or person whose relationship” with the SPLC is “solely as a confidential or anonymous donor.” The SPLC may redact any such identification from the documents.
The offices of Abbe Lowell, who is representing the SPLC, did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time.
Last week, Attorney General James Uthmeier, R-Fla., launched a civil investigation into the SPLC for alleged deceptive and unfair practices. His subpoena seeks similar information, with a deadline of May 25.
“The SPLC raises millions in charitable donations every year, while allegedly paying members and leaders within the very groups it purports to fight,” Uthmeier said last week. “The SPLC appears to be running a deceptive organization that pays informants to manufacture racism on its behalf.”
“If these allegations are true, there will be consequences,” the Florida AG added.
When it comes to the Alabama AG, Marshall noted that his office has been “fighting the SPLC for years—whether fighting them to protect minors from transgender medical procedures, fighting them to keep bad guys behind bars, or fighting them to preserve Alabama’s Republican congressional districts.”
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