The FBI used the SPLC's hate map to brand Moms for Liberty as domestic extremists.
Now a federal grand jury indicted the SPLC – and Jim Jordan just made its CEO sit down and explain what was happening inside the organization.
What Jordan documented about the Biden DOJ's relationship with the SPLC is the part Lisa Monaco never expected to become public testimony.
SPLC Paid $4.1 Million to Hate Group Insiders While Branding Conservative Groups as Extremists
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan opened a hearing – titled "The Southern Poverty Law Center: Manufacturing Hate, Part II" – by dropping a number that rewrites everything.
It wasn't $3 million the SPLC paid to field sources embedded inside racist groups.
A superseding indictment dated June 2 puts the total at $4.1 million.
Jordan walked through the specific individuals the DOJ says were on the SPLC payroll: a member of the racist National Alliance who shared a joint bank account with his SPLC handler – the same handler who was also his girlfriend.
A man trying to leave a white nationalist group reached out to the SPLC for help, and the SPLC told him no – stay in, we'll pay your salary and reimburse you for hosting rallies.
A member of the Aryan Nation motorcycle club collected $350,000.
A man previously convicted of cross burning collected $19,000.
And then there's Field Source 37 – the one who helped plan and coordinate transportation for the 2017 Charlottesville rally where Heather Heyer was killed – who collected $300,000.
After Charlottesville, the SPLC's fundraising nearly tripled – jumping from $51 million to $133 million in a single year.
"You run a scam, you become the standard, you don't get prosecuted, and you make a ton of money," Jordan said.
Biden's DOJ Gave SPLC the Keys to Federal Law Enforcement
The indictment is the criminal case.
What Jordan laid out next is the political scandal.
While the SPLC was allegedly paying racists to organize rallies, Biden's Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco was meeting with SPLC representatives quarterly.
The DOJ's Civil Rights Division looped SPLC in on what federal civil rights matters they should be "tracking."
The FBI gave SPLC embargoed access to federal hate crimes data before it was made public.
Biden's DOJ used SPLC to train federal prosecutors.
America First Legal obtained the internal emails documenting the relationship – including a note from then-Assistant AG Kristen Clarke to SPLC CEO Margaret Huang expressing how much she was "looking forward" to visiting SPLC's Montgomery headquarters.
The result was exactly what Jordan described: when the FBI's Richmond field office published its infamous memo branding pro-life Catholics as potential extremists, the citation wasn't law enforcement intelligence.
It was the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The FBI used a group – now federally indicted for funding the Ku Klux Klan, the National Socialist Party, and Charlottesville rally organizers – to define who counted as a dangerous extremist.
Moms for Liberty made the list.
So did Alliance Defending Freedom – the organization that has won 16 Supreme Court cases – and Turning Point USA.
Jane's Revenge – the group that torched crisis pregnancy centers and vandalized churches after the Dobbs decision – never made the list.
Biden's DOJ Knew and Did Nothing
Jordan saved the most damaging detail for last.
The Biden DOJ knew about the SPLC's alleged fraud scheme, he said, and dropped the case.
"When you meet with them, when you consult with them, when you have them train your prosecutors, you're not going to prosecute," Jordan told SPLC interim CEO Bryan Fair directly.
Fair's answer to nearly every charge was a variation of "our counsel will respond to the allegations."
Jordan pressed Fair on whether the SPLC's fundraising spiked after Charlottesville.
Fair acknowledged donations surged but credited Donald Trump's 2016 election – not the rally where one of the SPLC's own paid field sources helped load the buses.
The SPLC now sits on $800 million in assets and $700 million in an endowment.
The DOJ has charged it with 11 counts: wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.
FBI Director Kash Patel severed the FBI's relationship with the SPLC in October 2025, calling it a "partisan smear machine."
The scam Jordan described is the oldest one in the nonprofit world: manufacture the crisis, brand yourself as the solution, collect the donations.
The SPLC didn't just run that play – it ran it with the full cooperation of the Biden Justice Department, which pointed federal law enforcement at conservatives using a hate map built by the group now accused of paying the Klan.
AG Todd Blanche said at the April press conference: "The SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose."
Congress finally caught up. So did the grand jury.
Sources:
- "Federal Grand Jury Charges Southern Poverty Law Center for Wire Fraud, False Statements, and Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering," U.S. Department of Justice, April 21, 2026.
- Zoe Tillman, "Southern Poverty Law Center Indicted on Federal Fraud Charges," NPR, April 21, 2026.
- "SPLC on Hot Seat Over Evidence Staffer Shacked Up with Paid Neo-Nazi Informant," The Washington Times, June 9, 2026.
- "The SPLC CEO Had Plenty To Say – Until Jim Jordan Asked One Specific Question," The Daily Wire, June 9, 2026.
- "SPLC Helped Train Biden's DOJ Prosecutors, Had Exclusive Access to Hate Crimes Data: Bombshell Records," Fox News, October 2025.
- "Chairman Jordan Requests Documents About Southern Poverty Law Center Paying Extremists," House Judiciary Committee, April 23, 2026.
