Jim Jordan Presses SPLC Interim CEO Bryan Fair Over $4 Million Fraud Allegations

A heated House Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington put Southern Poverty Law Center interim president and CEO Bryan Fair on the defensive over federal fraud allegations tied to the SPLC’s confidential informant program.

“WASHINGTON — House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan grilled the head of the Southern Poverty Law Center Tuesday about federal fraud allegations against the civil rights organization, while Democrats fired back that the Trump administration was weaponizing the Justice Department against one of the country’s most prominent anti-hate groups”

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House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan pressed Fair about a superseding indictment alleging the SPLC paid more than $4 million to field sources while telling donors it was working to dismantle hate groups.

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Fair repeatedly declined to answer many questions directly, saying the allegations would be addressed by the organization’s lawyers in the Middle District of Alabama.

Fair acknowledged the SPLC shared information gathered through its confidential informant program with local, state and federal law enforcement, and said the program helped prevent attacks including a 2019 terrorist plot in Las Vegas and a 2018 threat at Philadelphia’s Navy Yard.

Jordan opened by detailing allegations from the superseding indictment, including that one SPLC employee was in a romantic relationship with a paid field source who was a member of the white supremacist National Alliance, and that the source received $1.2 million from the organization.

Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman challenged Fair’s insistence that the SPLC did not fund hate groups, saying, “Except the $4.1 million that you gave to the KKK, the National Socialist Movement, and the Aryan Nations,”.

Fair responded that “those are allegations that will be addressed in the criminal case,” while also telling lawmakers that “We stopped the program because we believed hate and extremism has migrated significantly online and into government agencies.”

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Democrats defended the SPLC by comparing the informant practice to undercover operations routinely used by federal law enforcement agencies, with Rep. Jamie Raskin saying, “The purpose of these operations is obviously to derail and prevent white supremacist hate crimes and action,”.

Rep. Deborah Ross pushed back on the Republican framing, calling it “a bizarre Alice in Wonderland theory” that equated paying informants to infiltrate violent groups with supporting those groups.

The hearing also featured Dr. Alveda King criticizing the SPLC, saying, “You pay the same people to do the bomb and then go and comfort the same people from being bombed?”

The SPLC has pleaded not guilty, and a federal judge has tentatively scheduled the case for trial Oct. 5 in Montgomery, Alabama.

“Republicans accuse SPLC of 'manufacturing hate' in heated hearing WASHINGTON (TNND) — Republican lawmakers sharply questioned Southern Poverty Law Center leadership Tuesday over allegations the organization secretly paid members of the Ku Klux Klan and other extremist groups using donor funds, as the civil rights group defended its long-standing use of confidential informants to monitor hate organizations”

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CNN reported that the Justice Department has accused the SPLC of hiding the undercover program from its donors and of using shell companies to fund the people it used to infiltrate White supremacy organizations.

A superseding indictment alleges the SPLC diverted $4.1 million from 2010 to 2023 through alleged shell companies, much of which prosecutors say was used to pay informants.

The indictment also alleges one informant was in a romantic relationship with an SPLC employee who oversaw payments to the operatives, and that the pair lived together and used some of the funds to pay for living expenses.

In the hearing, Fair said, “We shared information that we learned through our confidential informant program with local, state and federal law enforcement to prevent racial violence against the public at large and to protect our staff,” as Republicans argued the program’s funding and classifications threatened the SPLC’s credibility.