DOJ expands SPLC indictment, leaks draft to press before filing

A in Montgomery, Alabama, returned a against the Southern Poverty Law Center on June 2, 2026, in case No. 2:26-cr-00139 before Magistrate Judge Kelly F. Pate of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel had announced the original 11-count indictment on April 21, 2026, at a Justice Department press conference.

The added new factual allegations while retaining the same 11 counts: six counts of , four counts of bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. It didn't name any new defendants.

The wire fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1343, dates to 1952, when Congress extended the 1872 mail fraud law to cover telegraph and telephone communications. Congress enacted the original mail fraud statute in June 1872 to address lottery and prize-scheme scams delivered by post. For 150 years, prosecutors have expanded wire fraud's reach to cover virtually every form of commercial dishonesty — securities fraud, political corruption, bank schemes, and now the SPLC's alleged donor deception — making it one of the most frequently charged federal crimes.

The superseding indictment's six wire fraud counts allege that from approximately 2010 through August 2023, the SPLC secretly paid approximately $4.1 million in tax-exempt donor funds to field sources embedded inside extremist organizations including the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and the National Socialist Party of America — without disclosing this to donors.

According to the indictment, those informants used SPLC funds to purchase materials for cross burnings and KKK robes, attend and host extremist rallies, recruit new members, create and grow group chapters, produce and sell racist paraphernalia at rallies, and cover living expenses so informants could dedicate themselves full-time to their extremist group roles.

The superseding indictment corrected a legal defect in the original charges. In March 2025, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Thompson v. United States that 18 U.S.C. § 1014, the federal bank fraud statute, only criminalizes 'false' statements, not 'misleading' ones. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion, holding the omission of 'misleading' from the statute was deliberate.

The superseding indictment removed the phrase 'or misleading' from its bank fraud allegations in direct response to that ruling. Legal analysts at Just Security noted the fix, while necessary, didn't change the fundamental theory of the case.

John C. Coffee Jr., a professor at Columbia Law School, said the indictment 'does not adequately allege any violation of the mail or wire fraud statutes.' He said the SPLC 'was under no duty to disclose to the world that it was paying secret agents to advise it about the activities of violent organizations.' Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois called it a 'paper-thin indictment' brought because the SPLC 'has a long history of exposing violent white supremacist extremists who are allies of this White House.'

The Alabama Reflector reported that the DOJ charged the SPLC without interviewing any current employees and didn't seek documents from the organization until after telling defense lawyers that charges were forthcoming.

The SPLC disputes the prosecution's characterization of its informant program. Defense attorney Abbe Lowell said the SPLC 'did not lie to its donors, it did not mislead banks it did business with, and its informant program prevented violence and saved lives.' The SPLC said it shared intelligence from the program with the FBI and local law enforcement for decades.

The organization cited a 2019 case in which a tip from its informant program led to the FBI's arrest of a man associated with the white supremacist Atomwaffen Division who was allegedly planning an attack in Las Vegas. The SPLC argues the program was a form of civic intelligence-gathering, not fraud.

Before the superseding indictment was publicly docketed or defense counsel was notified, the Justice Department distributed an unsigned, unstamped Microsoft Word draft of the document to reporters. The file's embedded metadata identified the DOJ attorneys who had authored and last modified it.

The SPLC filed a motion on June 4 asking Magistrate Judge Pate to order the government to explain its conduct and to show why prosecutors shouldn't face sanctions. Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e) bars attorneys for the government from disclosing matters occurring before the grand jury, with violations punishable as contempt of court.

The SPLC filed a separate motion to dismiss the entire case in May 2026, arguing the prosecution is vindictive under the constitutional standard established in Blackledge v. Perry, 417 U.S. 21 (1974). In that case, a North Carolina prisoner charged with misdemeanor assault saw the DA escalate charges to a felony after he exercised his right to appeal — the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that prosecutors can't retaliate against defendants for exercising legal rights. The SPLC motion cited statements by President Trump, Acting AG Blanche, and FBI Director Patel as evidence the indictment was brought not because of criminal conduct but because the SPLC criticized the administration.

On May 22, 2026, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw in Nashville dismissed federal charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia on identical grounds, finding the Trump Justice Department charged him solely because he successfully sued for his return from El Salvador. SPLC lawyers cited that ruling as persuasive authority.

Magistrate Judge Kelly F. Pate issued a notable ruling on June 1, 2026, denying the SPLC's earlier motion to address what the organization called 'materially false statements' by the government. On May 7, 2026, the SPLC entered a not guilty plea on all 11 counts before Judge Pate at its arraignment in Montgomery.

The SPLC was founded in 1971 in Montgomery, Alabama, by civil rights attorneys Morris Dees and Joseph Levin Jr., just three years after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis and amid the peak of Southern courtroom battles over school desegregation. Montgomery was a deliberate choice: it was the city where the 1955 bus boycott began and where the Selma-to-Montgomery marches ended. The organization built its reputation and funding base through civil litigation against Ku Klux Klan chapters, winning judgments that bankrupted several state KKK organizations in the 1980s and 1990s.

Its Hate Map currently tracks more than 1,400 hate and extremist groups nationwide and has been used as a reference by law enforcement and journalists. Conservative groups have criticized the map for years, arguing it labels mainstream advocacy organizations alongside violent extremists. FBI Director Patel publicly described the SPLC as a 'partisan smear machine' whose Hate Map had been used to 'defame mainstream Americans.'