WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Trump called for the 2020 presidential election to be permanently wiped from the books if the Southern Poverty Law Center is convicted of making $3 million in fraudulent payments to white supremacist groups. The statement followed an indictment of the organization on charges of wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

"This is another Democrat Hoax, along with Act Blue, and many others," Trump said. "If it is true, the 2020 Presidential Election should be permanently wiped from the books and be of no further force or effect!"

President Joe Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Prosecutors allege that the SPLC secretly funneled $3 million in donated funds to the Ku Klux Klan, the American Nazi Party, the National Socialist Movement, United Klans of America and Unite the Right between 2014 and 2023.

One leader of the 2017 Unite the Right protest in Charlottesville, Va., received more than $270,000 over eight years, according to the indictment. An informant identified as F-9 was allegedly paid more than $1 million by the SPLC and stole 25 boxes of documents belonging to the National Alliance. Another person was allegedly paid $6,000 by the SPLC to falsely take responsibility for the theft of those documents.

A former director of the Aryan Nations who was also a member of the Ku Klux Klan appeared in the SPLC's "Extremist Files" despite receiving $70,000 between 2014 and 2016. The organization is also accused of secretly paying $19,000 to an informant convicted of cross burning between 2016 and 2019.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the SPLC "was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred." "There is nothing political about this indictment or this investigation," Blanche added.

In the 1980s the SPLC began operating a covert network of informants linked with or who had infiltrated violent extremist groups. Last October the FBI severed its relationship with the Southern Poverty Law Center.

SPLC CEO Bryan Fair said the organization was being targeted because of its prior use of paid confidential informants to gather intelligence on extremely violent groups.