Inside the SPLC Case: Wire Fraud, Money Laundering, and the “Hate Map” Machine | The Brief

So I'm going to be fair and straight with this. A lot of the people at Charlottesville were legitimately racist. I don't think the entire thing was an op. That said, we do know that at least one of the organizers was paid by the SPLC and allegedly had these racist postings directed by the SPLC. And it seems as though the SPLC was helping this person get more people to Charlottesville. And it was very in the SPLC's interest for Charlottesville to be as big of a thing as it was. So I don't think the entire thing was a psyop. But I do think there are a lot of questions that the SPLC really has to answer here. And I'm glad to see this brought into the light of day by a federal indictment. And they made millions of dollars fundraising off of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. So let me play devil's advocate. And you were fair. You were giving a lot of credit to the SPLC that in some cases, the programs actually did save lives. And that's actually what the SPLC will say. They'll say, number one, the informant program is no longer active. They'll say, we monitor threats of violence with information. And we often share that information with law enforcement. So is the SPLC wrong when they say those things? That to me sounds like a pretty good defense, no? So my question, I have a lot of questions to respond to that. One of them is, why did they end the informant program? Because I think the answer to that question is going to be very revealing. Because from 2014 to 2023, there might have been two cases where the SPLC got some information about a threat. But there were a lot of cases where the SPLC was paying the same people that they highlighted as extremists on their website, which raises a lot of problems, a lot of questions. I'm like, are you manufacturing the hate you claim to oppose? That is a very, very strong suggestion from the evidence here. The other thing is, and this is the thing that the SPLC has not responded to, those bank fraud charges are extremely powerful. If the quotes from the federal indictment are accurate, what happened is an SPLC employee certified to a bank multiple times, I think it's like four different statements, where the SPLC employee says, I am the sole proprietor and owner of X establishment. And I am establishing a bank account in the name of this group to do business. A few years later, the president and CEO of the SPLC sends exactly the same bank a statement saying, all of these accounts and the accounts are listed. And they say, these accounts were operated under the supervision of the Southern Poverty Law Center for the Southern Poverty Law Center's purposes. I don't see how the SPLC wiggles out of that one. That is black and white, dead to rights. Like, even if their convoluted defense of the informant scheme, like entirely holds up in court, I don't see them winning on the bank fraud issue. So my sentiment before I read the indictment was like, look, having paid informants is not out of the ordinary. The federal government does it, most NGOs do it. And then I read the indictment and then to your point, it's clearly seemed that they were going above and beyond. But for our audience who have not yet read the indictment, let me just respectfully push back one last time and then you'll tell me why I'm wrong. Federal agencies of the US government, they have paid out at least half a billion dollars to informants working for different agencies, the FBI, the DEA, ATF. And that's according to government audits. So why is it that these particular informants of the SPLC are qualitatively different, dare I even say criminal, as opposed to informants that the government uses? Because of what the SPLC is alleged to have had these informants do. So it isn't just, and by the way, I should say field sources because informants is their attempt to massage it. But the SPLC stands accused of telling these informants what things, what racist things to post on social media. That's a pretty big one of giving money to a woman who is married to a head of the Klan while her husband was trying to sponsor a highway. And that's the ultimate, if you want to make hate appear more of a threat than it really is, having the Klan sponsor a highway is number one on the list probably. And then there's the whole Aryan, or no, it's the National Alliance, where the National Alliance was a defunct entity and the SPLC shoveled a crap ton of money to this person who helped reinvigorate the National Alliance and essentially make it a new thing again. So, you know, all of these things. Look, I'm very open to being convinced if the SPLC can prove in court that the government's narrative is not true. I've been hearing that somebody on the inside of the SPLC turned state's evidence here. And that's where some of this comes from. And so when it comes to the actual conduct that I'm willing to listen to the SPLC side of the story. But it certainly seems to me, if the claims in the indictment are true, that these people were not just informing on violent people in order to prevent violent attacks. These people were embedded, receiving a lot of money and helped prop up the sort of hate that the SPLC profits from campaigning against. If you have any questions, comments, or if you want to see a particular topic addressed, make sure to put it down in the comments and feel free to keep the conversation going through all of your questions or yellings or rants. Find me on social media. Just type in ShabbosKestenbaum. You're not going to find many other ShabbosKestenbaums. And I'm looking forward to speaking with you all very soon.