“The SPLC was not dismantling the groups,” Blanche said. “It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.”
There was always something suspicious about the SPLC, almost like a big brother of the ADL. Both organizations profit greatly from the very thing they supposedly fight. Why dismantle something when you can turn it into a cash cow?
The past decade has been a real eye opener for me. It pays to critique absolutely everything, especially those deemed above reproach.
There are less than 4,000 neo-Nazis in the US, and less than 8,000 KKK members. 12,000 equates to just 0.0035% of the U.S. population, the same number as people who suffer from dwarfism.
Combined, the SPLC and ADL are worth about a billion dollars.
>Combined, the SPLC and ADL are worth about a billion dollars.
To be fair, that seems like the vast majority weighted to the ADL.
But otherwise, yes, if you have ever looked at SPLC, it’s been a little curious at best. I believe nothing right away, but if the claim is that the demand for racism outweighed the supply, I can image less plausible things that the indictment.
Edit: I had no idea SPLC was so big. I guess I was confusing ADL for AIPAC.
The SPLC is bigger than the ADL in terms of financial size. The SPLC has about $787 million in net assets and $129 million annual revenue (FY2024), compared to the ADL’s $87 million net assets (consolidated) and $163 million revenue. This was surprising to me.
That source is a decade old and the number you quoted was the minimum for the 3 groups (out of many more) that had numbers. Contemporary reporting repeatedly points out the increase in the past decade.
Everything from dog fighting rings to child trafficking has dedicated non-profit organizations with paid or volunteer staff doing investigative work. They collect OSINT, do surveillance, and yes, pay informants. As long as you don't break the law in the process (like doing surveillance from private property), you can build evidence to turn over to law enforcement to help open a case.
Something important to note here is informants aren't always in the organization or participating in the activity. It could be a truck stop attendant who texts you when the same guy stops in to buy a case of water and then slips it under the roll up door on his cargo van, or a dishwasher at a cafe who noticed a group of guys with the same tattoo. Things that on their own don't rise to the level of someone calling the police. Payments help people who otherwise would keep their mouth shut because they are in financial situations where they can't afford to lose their job.
Why? It's not obvious why only cops can pay money for informants. You might say that they're paying criminals, but that's not clear either. The US has quite liberal free speech laws. You can say a lot of objectionable things without violating any laws.
I didn’t say they were paying criminals. I said they were paying KKK and Nazis. I made an analogy to firemen and arsonists to make the point that they were fraudulently creating demand for their services, not to suggest that who they were paying were criminals. It’s not illegal on the face to be in the KKK or to be a Nazi, though certainly member of those groups have committed crimes in the past. The SPLC was engaging in fraud (allegedly) by both supporting hate groups while raising money from their donors to counter hate groups. And they were setting up fraudulent bank accounts to hide the money flows.
Like many NGOs/NPOs they suffer from perverse incentives: reduce or solve the problem and their reason to be disappears and the directors and higher staff no longer have well paying cushy jobs. You see this in NGOs "helping" addicts, homeless, etc. On paper they have a well meaning goal, in practice the goal is mostly for show and most of the money goes to paying salaries.
They were paying people to infiltrate the KKK and Nazi groups. It is the same as the arson investigator paying someone to hang out with the kids who play with matches to see who is starting the fires.
The only "criminal" thing they did was encouraging non-white people to use their right to vote. How dare they do such a thing before the mid-term elections!
True. Legal reporting has been focusing on the “presumption of regularity” as having been eroded significantly by this administration.
“The presumption of regularity (omnia praesumuntur rite et solemniter esse acta) is a legal principle assuming that public officials and government agencies properly perform their duties, act in good faith, and follow legal procedures.”
They are indicted in federal court… what kind of mindless ideologue thinks this was just a whim for giggles?
The details they already published that SPLC was covering up and laundering money that went out as payments to KKK and neo-Nazi groups… sure seems pretty bad.
But yes, maybe this is just Trump trying to distract you from all the good work SPLC does. And that makes sense because federal court process to even get this far are also all part of the conspiracy too right?
I mean… clearly the federal grand jury just happened to be 12 red hat hardcore maga tools even to bring the charges, right?
> what kind of mindless ideologue thinks this was just a whim for giggles?
Likely not a single one - it's been starkly clear for more than a year that the current US Federal DoJ is being wielded not on a whim for shits and giggles but for revenge and manipulation.
And nothing prevents the other side once the pendulum swings back in the other direction, from doing the same as long as there are enough laws on the books that this is true:
> They are indicted in federal court… what kind of mindless ideologue thinks this was just a whim for giggles?
It is well-known that the bar for securing an indictment is very low. There is a famous quote about it: "Any good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich."
It too is well-known that the Trump administration is exerting great pressure on the DOJ to charge political opponents with crimes. The most public of these was when the DOJ twice failed to secure an indictment against Letitia James, following pressure from Trump and the firing of DOJ prosecutors who resisted pursuing the case against James. This was notable because indictments are so easy to get.
The current acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, was asked about a message Trump sent to the previous AG (Bondi), where Trump wrote ""What about Comey, Adam 'Shifty' Schiff, Leticia??? ... They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!". Blanche stated ""That type of communication from President Trump should make every American happy".
The SPLC has been highly critical of Trump for years, and been a legal thorn in his side. It's always been the case that a case being brought shouldn't be taken as any implication of guilt, and it is especially true in this case. The evidence, or lack thereof, will be revealed in court in due time.
I guess we might see as the case actually starts up, but I tend towards this basic posture:
> Infiltrating hate groups with informants is something that goes way back to the civil rights era and before. It's never been something only the government can do, especially when the government is more likely to be showing up for the white power happy hour every third Thursday at Chili's.
And to be extremely skeptical of this administration working in good faith. The lawfare to destroy the good, to destroy institutions, by the very worst, is just out of control. The expression of power of the rich to destroy has gone up and up and up, and they keep getting by even as they destroy load bearing elements of society:
> I will say, frivolously suing a nonprofit for fraud has become A Thing recently. See, e.g., James Huntsman's suit against the Mormon Church or Elon Musk's against OpenAI.
> But rich people wasting money to punish nonprofits they no longer like is one thing;* the government doing it is another.
The FBI had been paying the SPLC to do just this sort of thing, until the new extremist administration stepped in. The people waging this case know all that. The donors new the work the SPLC did. And it's quite clear they can't be expected to show receipts, and safely show where all the money goes. https://bsky.app/profile/tomjoscelyn.bsky.social/post/3mk25s...
More despicable illegitemate mis-governance as usual by the most chaotic evil US government we have ever had.
Yes this is lawfare. They paid people to infiltrate. That’s exactly what going undercover is, and we don’t have any problems with that.
This is them applying a bias against an institution they don’t like by framing it as fraud and abuse (while they ransack the country at levels 100x larger)
https://www.lawdork.com/p/splc-indictment-united-klans-of-am...
“The SPLC was not dismantling the groups,” Blanche said. “It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.”
There was always something suspicious about the SPLC, almost like a big brother of the ADL. Both organizations profit greatly from the very thing they supposedly fight. Why dismantle something when you can turn it into a cash cow?
The past decade has been a real eye opener for me. It pays to critique absolutely everything, especially those deemed above reproach.
There are less than 4,000 neo-Nazis in the US, and less than 8,000 KKK members. 12,000 equates to just 0.0035% of the U.S. population, the same number as people who suffer from dwarfism.
Combined, the SPLC and ADL are worth about a billion dollars.
Read the lawdork piece. And read the 990s from the organizations to see where the money goes.
It pays not to be bamboozled by bad faith actors like Todd Blanche.
So what's your critique of Blanche?
My least favorite Golden Girl. Horribly over the top accent.
>Combined, the SPLC and ADL are worth about a billion dollars.
To be fair, that seems like the vast majority weighted to the ADL.
But otherwise, yes, if you have ever looked at SPLC, it’s been a little curious at best. I believe nothing right away, but if the claim is that the demand for racism outweighed the supply, I can image less plausible things that the indictment.
Edit: I had no idea SPLC was so big. I guess I was confusing ADL for AIPAC.
The SPLC is bigger than the ADL in terms of financial size. The SPLC has about $787 million in net assets and $129 million annual revenue (FY2024), compared to the ADL’s $87 million net assets (consolidated) and $163 million revenue. This was surprising to me.
> There are less than 4,000 neo-Nazis in the US
Do you have a source on that statistic? Because I just don't believe it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40915356
That source is a decade old and the number you quoted was the minimum for the 3 groups (out of many more) that had numbers. Contemporary reporting repeatedly points out the increase in the past decade.
I’m gonna guess that the ‘contemporary reporting’ you failed to cite is from the SPLC
Ignoring the many reports that cite the SPLC, a small sampling:
Here's Vice quoting the FBI: https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-fbi-just-put-white-natio...
Newsweek last year talking about the growth in the past decade: https://www.newsweek.com/neo-nazi-clubs-us-2095113
Reuters about dramatically escalating number of incidents: https://www.reuters.com/investigations/american-nazis-aryan-...
NPR: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/19/1188111769/active-club-hate-g...
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SPLC activities: "...including filing litigation on voting rights and prisoner rights."
I can imagine these actions would be inconvenient for the Trump administration.
They were paying KKK members and Nazis. The scam was roughly the same as firemen paying arsonists to justify their salaries.
>The scam was roughly the same as firemen paying arsonists to justify their salaries.
What about paying low level arsonists to rat out their boss?
Private non-profits don’t do that. Police do that.
Everything from dog fighting rings to child trafficking has dedicated non-profit organizations with paid or volunteer staff doing investigative work. They collect OSINT, do surveillance, and yes, pay informants. As long as you don't break the law in the process (like doing surveillance from private property), you can build evidence to turn over to law enforcement to help open a case.
Something important to note here is informants aren't always in the organization or participating in the activity. It could be a truck stop attendant who texts you when the same guy stops in to buy a case of water and then slips it under the roll up door on his cargo van, or a dishwasher at a cafe who noticed a group of guys with the same tattoo. Things that on their own don't rise to the level of someone calling the police. Payments help people who otherwise would keep their mouth shut because they are in financial situations where they can't afford to lose their job.
Here’s the indictment: https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1437146/dl
If non-profits don't do that, what is SPLC being indicated for?
Read the indictment: https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1437146/dl
Why? It's not obvious why only cops can pay money for informants. You might say that they're paying criminals, but that's not clear either. The US has quite liberal free speech laws. You can say a lot of objectionable things without violating any laws.
> You might say that they're paying criminals, but that's not clear either. The US has quite liberal free speech laws.
You specified paying arsonists in your first comment.
I assume arson is a criminal action and not protected by free speech.
It's not illegal to give a criminal money. People donate to Trump all the time.
True, like wire fraud and money laundering.
I didn’t say they were paying criminals. I said they were paying KKK and Nazis. I made an analogy to firemen and arsonists to make the point that they were fraudulently creating demand for their services, not to suggest that who they were paying were criminals. It’s not illegal on the face to be in the KKK or to be a Nazi, though certainly member of those groups have committed crimes in the past. The SPLC was engaging in fraud (allegedly) by both supporting hate groups while raising money from their donors to counter hate groups. And they were setting up fraudulent bank accounts to hide the money flows.
Here’s the indictment. Read it yourself. https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1437146/dl
Like many NGOs/NPOs they suffer from perverse incentives: reduce or solve the problem and their reason to be disappears and the directors and higher staff no longer have well paying cushy jobs. You see this in NGOs "helping" addicts, homeless, etc. On paper they have a well meaning goal, in practice the goal is mostly for show and most of the money goes to paying salaries.
Certainly checkbook journalism has had a past in the USA, but I don't recall anyone ever being charged with a serious crime over it.
They were paying people to infiltrate the KKK and Nazi groups. It is the same as the arson investigator paying someone to hang out with the kids who play with matches to see who is starting the fires.
The only "criminal" thing they did was encouraging non-white people to use their right to vote. How dare they do such a thing before the mid-term elections!
Here’s the indictment: https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1437146/dl
I never doubted for a second that someone at the DoJ wrote a bunch of words. Unfortunately we have good cause to call them into question.
True. Legal reporting has been focusing on the “presumption of regularity” as having been eroded significantly by this administration.
“The presumption of regularity (omnia praesumuntur rite et solemniter esse acta) is a legal principle assuming that public officials and government agencies properly perform their duties, act in good faith, and follow legal procedures.”
>They were paying people to infiltrate the KKK and Nazi groups.
Is there even the slightest bit of proof to this claim? Has SPLC released details on this yet?
Because the crime is not sending KKK and neonazi groups more than a million dollars.
It’s that the committed wire fraud and money laundering to do it - allegedly.
>The only "criminal" thing they did was encouraging non-white people to use their right to vote.
The indictment is linked above. You should read it.
Todd Blanche, Trump's personal lawyer, digs the DoJ deeper into irreversible reputational debt.
By Trump's personalist DoJ. Presuming good faith on the part of Trump admin feds is a journalistic mistake.
They are indicted in federal court… what kind of mindless ideologue thinks this was just a whim for giggles?
The details they already published that SPLC was covering up and laundering money that went out as payments to KKK and neo-Nazi groups… sure seems pretty bad.
But yes, maybe this is just Trump trying to distract you from all the good work SPLC does. And that makes sense because federal court process to even get this far are also all part of the conspiracy too right?
I mean… clearly the federal grand jury just happened to be 12 red hat hardcore maga tools even to bring the charges, right?
> what kind of mindless ideologue thinks this was just a whim for giggles?
Likely not a single one - it's been starkly clear for more than a year that the current US Federal DoJ is being wielded not on a whim for shits and giggles but for revenge and manipulation.
Then either they shouldn't be laundering money, or we should repeal that law.
Tangential to the deeper and more problematic issue with the recent DoJ, repeated malicious prosecutions at a scale not seen before.
I don't like malicious prosecutions.
And nothing prevents the other side once the pendulum swings back in the other direction, from doing the same as long as there are enough laws on the books that this is true:
"Show me the man, and I'll show you the crime."
Oh did we already get a guilty verdict?
> They are indicted in federal court… what kind of mindless ideologue thinks this was just a whim for giggles?
Have you been following the DOJ at all? A malicious prosecution is 100% on brand.
> They are indicted in federal court… what kind of mindless ideologue thinks this was just a whim for giggles?
It is well-known that the bar for securing an indictment is very low. There is a famous quote about it: "Any good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich."
It too is well-known that the Trump administration is exerting great pressure on the DOJ to charge political opponents with crimes. The most public of these was when the DOJ twice failed to secure an indictment against Letitia James, following pressure from Trump and the firing of DOJ prosecutors who resisted pursuing the case against James. This was notable because indictments are so easy to get.
The current acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, was asked about a message Trump sent to the previous AG (Bondi), where Trump wrote ""What about Comey, Adam 'Shifty' Schiff, Leticia??? ... They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!". Blanche stated ""That type of communication from President Trump should make every American happy".
The SPLC has been highly critical of Trump for years, and been a legal thorn in his side. It's always been the case that a case being brought shouldn't be taken as any implication of guilt, and it is especially true in this case. The evidence, or lack thereof, will be revealed in court in due time.
I guess we might see as the case actually starts up, but I tend towards this basic posture:
> Infiltrating hate groups with informants is something that goes way back to the civil rights era and before. It's never been something only the government can do, especially when the government is more likely to be showing up for the white power happy hour every third Thursday at Chili's.
https://bsky.app/profile/andycraig.bsky.social/post/3mjzzezd...
And to be extremely skeptical of this administration working in good faith. The lawfare to destroy the good, to destroy institutions, by the very worst, is just out of control. The expression of power of the rich to destroy has gone up and up and up, and they keep getting by even as they destroy load bearing elements of society:
> I will say, frivolously suing a nonprofit for fraud has become A Thing recently. See, e.g., James Huntsman's suit against the Mormon Church or Elon Musk's against OpenAI.
> But rich people wasting money to punish nonprofits they no longer like is one thing;* the government doing it is another.
https://bsky.app/profile/smbrnsn.bsky.social/post/3mk224wrzm...
The FBI had been paying the SPLC to do just this sort of thing, until the new extremist administration stepped in. The people waging this case know all that. The donors new the work the SPLC did. And it's quite clear they can't be expected to show receipts, and safely show where all the money goes. https://bsky.app/profile/tomjoscelyn.bsky.social/post/3mk25s...
More despicable illegitemate mis-governance as usual by the most chaotic evil US government we have ever had.
Yes this is lawfare. They paid people to infiltrate. That’s exactly what going undercover is, and we don’t have any problems with that.
This is them applying a bias against an institution they don’t like by framing it as fraud and abuse (while they ransack the country at levels 100x larger)
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