(The Daily Signal)—The FBI has confirmed that it severed all ties to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left activist group that puts conservatives and Christians on a “hate map” along with Ku Klux Klan chapters. The “hate map” has inspired at least one terrorist attack against a conservative organization.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center long ago abandoned civil rights work and turned into a partisan smear machine,” FBI Director Kash Patel told The Daily Signal in a statement Friday. “Their so-called hate map has been used to defame mainstream Americans and even inspired violence.”
“That disgraceful record makes them unfit for any FBI partnership,” Patel added.
The FBI confirmed that it has no intelligence products from the SPLC and does not engage in contact or information sharing with the SPLC.
The statement comes days after Patel told Fox News Digital that the FBI had severed ties with the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish nonprofit that opposes antisemitism but also leans left and condemns critics of transgender ideology.
How SPLC Inspired Violence
While the SPLC began as a public interest law firm focused on civil rights cases, it gained its reputation by suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy and developed a decades-long relationship with law enforcement combatting real hate. After the Klan largely disappeared, the SPLC started targeting mainstream conservative and Christian groups, putting them on a “hate map” alongside Klan chapters.
In 2012, a domestic terrorist used the “hate map” to target the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian think tank in Washington, D.C. He planned to kill everyone in the building. A building manager largely foiled the attack, but suffered lifelong injuries in the process. The SPLC condemned the attack, but kept the council on the “hate map” ever since.
The man who opened fire at a Republican practice session for the Congressional Baseball Game in 2017, nearly killing then-House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, had “liked” the SPLC on Facebook. The SPLC condemned that attack, as well.
The SPLC added Turning Point USA to the “hate map” mere months before an assassin with a transgender boyfriend allegedly murdered Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
The SPLC condemned the attack, but has not removed Turning Point USA from the “hate map.”
A bureau official told The Daily Signal that the FBI was aware that the “hate map” included Turning Point USA before the shooting.
Patel’s Previous Criticism
Patel noted that he had previously criticized the SPLC at a panel on anti-Christian bias.
“In April, during our Anti-Christian Bias Panel, I made it clear that the FBI will never rely on politicized or agenda-driven intelligence from outside groups—and certainly not from the SPLC,” the FBI director told The Daily Signal. “Under this FBI, all ties with the SPLC have officially been terminated.”
At that April event, Patel slammed the FBI under President Joe Biden’s administration, particularly for the notorious memo in which the FBI’s Richmond, Virginia, office (working with other field offices) urged agents to develop sources inside traditionalist Catholic churches and to target “Radical Traditional Catholic hate groups,” citing the SPLC.
Critics have long accused the SPLC of being anti-Christian, and the group responded to these claims by noting that it does not put all Christian groups on the “hate map.” For years, the SPLC cited its decision not to put the organization Focus on the Family on the “hate map” as evidence it wasn’t anti-Christian. This year, it added Focus to the map.
In 2018, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions pledged that the Justice Department would not partner with groups like the SPLC. The Biden administration reversed that, however.
SPLC’s Impact
The SPLC has tremendous impact inside and outside of law enforcement.
Then-SPLC President Margaret Huang bragged in a 2021 donor meeting that “many agencies in the new Biden administration” reached out to “solicit our expertise” to “help shape the policies that the new administration is adopting to counter the domestic terrorism threat.” That wasn’t hyperbole. The Justice Department received a briefing from the SPLC shortly after it added Moms for Liberty to the “hate map” in June 2023.
Big Tech companies like Amazon have used the “hate map” to screen recipients for its former AmazonSmile program, where customers could designate a portion of their purchases go to support certain charities and other nonprofits. Companies like Eventbrite, PayPal, and Hyatt Hotels have relied on the SPLC’s “hate” accusations to decide who they will allow to use their platforms and facilities. Donor networks worth billions have pledged to keep charitable funds from going to SPLC-labeled “hate groups.”
The SPLC enjoys this impact despite multiple scandals. The center fired its co-founder and saw its president resign in a 2019 racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal. Amid that scandal, SPLC staff created a union that is part of a union organization that represents the radical anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace. And amid a round of layoffs last year, the SPLC Union accused the center of engaging in “union-busting.”
Despite its penurious name, the SPLC has an endowment of more than $700 million, compensates its leaders handsomely, and possesses more than $30 million in offshore accounts, according to IRS filings.
Finally, the SPLC has troubling ties to Antifa, the loosely-organized movement of far-left agitators that President Donald Trump recently declared a domestic terrorist group.
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