CALIFORNIA — The Department of Justice indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center on April 21 on charges of wire fraud, making false statements to a federally insured banking institution, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Federal prosecutors allege the organization bilked donors by funneling cash to informants within hate groups without properly disclosing that it was paying active members of extremist groups to leak information.

The indictment charges that some donated funds were used by the SPLC to pay high-level leaders of violent extremist groups, and that those payments were allegedly used in the commission of state and federal crimes. The center filed a motion to unseal grand jury transcripts, arguing the transcripts will show the Justice Department lied or failed to present exculpatory evidence, including records of direct cooperation with the FBI to report crimes uncovered by its paid confidential informants.

"The Department of Justice is well aware that the SPLC provided helpful information, through the use of its confidential informants, to law enforcement," attorney Addy R. Schmitt said.

Law professor Eric J. Segall offered a different view. "This is just another example of a larger trend of this administration doing everything it can to help the far right, including hate groups," Segall said.

Fidelity and Vanguard told investors they will not make grants to the SPLC while federal charges remain pending. The organization tracks far-right extremism and the activities of hate groups in California. According to the latest publicly available data from the center, there are nearly 100 hate and anti-government groups in California, including anti-vaxxers, doomsday prepper militias, and neo-Nazi outfits. The center has identified Mamalitia, a mom-focused, pro-gun group, and the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust, an anti-Jewish group, among hate groups in the state. The California Civil Rights Department's most recent annual hate report noted record levels of hate crimes, targeted violence, and related aggression.

Far-right memes and white nationalist messaging are spreading across WhatsApp, Telegram, and other online forums. "There used to be quite a few eyes on this," professor of sociology Kathleen Blee said. "It's not being watched very much anymore, and that's a really bad state of affairs," she said. "You can find the most horrific, hardcore, far-right, extremist, racist, misogynist, antisemitic, Islamophobic ideas and conspiracy tales in the most casual glance at X, or most other social media, and there's all kinds of tantalizing ways that it appeals to people, but you can also just stumble into it," Blee said. "Antisemitism has been a very core part of far-right extremism as long and as far back as we think about far-right extremism as an organized movement in the U.S. — so the 1870s," she said. "It creates a conspiratorial mentality that brings in other kinds of hatreds. Jews are like the quintessential conspirators," Blee said.