The whole Southern Poverty Law Center kerfuffle is just getting MORE interesting!
A Grand Jury in Montgomery, Alabama, today returned an indictmentcharging the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) with 11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering. The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Alabama Northern Division filed two forfeiture actions to recover alleged proceeds of the organization’s fraud scheme. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigated this case with assistance from the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI).
“The SPLC is manufacturing racism to justify its existence,” said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. “Using donor money to allegedly profit off Klansmen cannot go unchecked. This Department of Justice will hold the SPLC and every other fraudulent organization operating with the same deceptive playbook accountable. No entity is above the law.”
Full article, HERE from DOJ website.
Of course the MSM and Dems are melting down, saying this is ‘weaponization’ of the DOJ, and none of the indictment specifications are true…
The CBS take, HERE, from ‘Kyle Boynton’ former federal prosecutors says the indictment is invalid…
Interestingly enough, Boynton apparently used to work in the Civil Rights Division of DOJ. Gee, I wonder what ‘he’ is trying to cover up from his previous employment? Or the directions he was given to ‘ignore’ certain things???
Most of us have been skeptical, to put it mildly, of the SPLC for a long time, mainly because they seemed to go after religious groups with an amazing amount of malice. And how groups that most of us thought were not terrorists seemed to end up on their radar with a regularity that was beyond belief.
This one is going to take a while to unravel, and it will be interesting to see how much pressure is going to come down from the left to hush everything up in a hurry. And I wonder how long it will even stay in the media…
There were other reasons beyond recent behavior to doubt that the SPLC and the Democratic Party were entirely as they presented themselves to be.
Recent behavior was still a bit diagnostic.
There are just so stories that premise a bunch of policy.
Some of them are historical narratives about exactly what criminal conspiracies were active in which politics when.
I think it is true to say that there was criminal conspiracy in certain decades and locations to defraud black voters, and to defraud blacks of representation in court.
The policy premised on this includes selective hiring and recruiting of blacks at law schools.
The issue is, does studying and practicing and teaching law result in a loyalty to legal institutions that is heavier than whatever racial loyalty? If so, it is theoretically possible that black lawyers defraud black non-lawyers.
CRT is a way that law schools frame their conspiracy theories about history, and project them back into prehistory.
It is part of the institutional culture of law schools and of the formal legal system.
CRT is also a legitimating narrative for burning down poor black neighborhoods, because peace and civilization are ‘white’.
This is a situation where selective hiring may still defraud poor blacks of representation in court, because Americans are not racist enough to make race political factions stronger than advanced degree holders being loyal to whoever will pay them next or more. Saying ‘loyal to their salt’ may be putting too much praise onto their behavior.
I have basic questions about whether PhDs in defense related industries or research areas are being manipulated by the ChiCom influence operations.
Bob- You do raise interesting points. FYI, Stossel outed the SPLC back in 2018, but it was ignored… sigh
According to SPLC, the money was paid to confidential informants to keep track of the activities of the KKK and Aryan Nation as well as other splinter groups.
Possible I guess but the amounts paid seems quite high. Did they give that information to any federal or state law enforcement? It appears not to be the case.
I’d say claim that the money spend to “keep track of the activities of the KKK…” should be rewritten as “sustain and direct the continuing operations of the KKK…”. I will bet without SPLC money the groups would have collapsed years ago.
One problem is that donors were told the money was for other things, so the SPLC may have been guilty of misuse of dedicated funds (a BIG no-no). Too, if the indictment is correct, SPLC funds were used to pay for organizing the “Unite the Right” thing in Charlottesville that led to the protestor getting run over. They were given funds to stop that kind of rally, not (unofficially) sponsor them.
Note, this is if I understood the indictment correctly. IANAL
I read it the same way you did.
Southern Preposterous Lie Center is not purer than the driven snow? Shocked, I am. Where are “journalists” going to get their preapproved talking points now?
Like most “investigations” this one will peter out and end up being mostly smoke and mirrors with few if any of the actual villains getting their due punishment. A few scapegoats may be sacrificed but nobody of importance will suffer. And NONE of the money involved will be recovered. The money is always long gone.
My understanding is that ten years happens to be an interesting period of time where RICO is concerned.
All- Thanks and interesting points. Gerry- Not according to my sources, ‘nothing’ went to LEOs. Yes, Bob, RICO has a 10 year limit.