Washington — The Southern Poverty Law Center moved to force the disclosure of grand jury materials in the criminal case against the organization, citing what it said were “misleading” statements from Trump administration officials in the aftermath of the indictment last week and “obvious legal infirmities” in court filings.
The filings come after a federal grand jury in Alabama indicted the group on 11 counts of wire and bank fraud-related charges last week. The Justice Department accused the group of paying members of extremist groups as part of its efforts to investigate them without disclosing the practice to donors or banks.
The SPLC is a nonprofit that tracks white supremacist and other hate groups across the U.S., and has been a frequent target of President Trump’s allies. It has denied the allegations.
“This indictment represents a stunning and unremitting departure from Justice Department policy and established law,” attorneys representing the SPLC said in a motion filed Tuesday. “It seeks to criminalize some of the very investigative tools and programs that the SPLC has used for decades to infiltrate and dismantle violent extremist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations — tradecraft that has produced vital intelligence that has been shared with law enforcement, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
Attorneys representing the group argued that the indictment omits elements of criminal intent, and said that a motion to dismiss the case is “forthcoming.”
“These particularized irregularities suggest that the grand jury was not merely misled by the government’s presentation of the law, but likely that it was actively weaponized to facilitate such charges,” the SPLC said.
The group argued that comments made to the media by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel about the SPLC’s work are “false and misleading,” including statements Blanche made on Fox News that the SPLC had not shared information it learned from its paid informants with federal law enforcement ahead of the “Unite the Right” Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.
But the organization said Blanche’s statement is not true, as it had compiled information about the event and the potential for violence in a report that was sent to law enforcement agencies, including the FBI’s office in Mobile, Alabama.
The SPLC asked the court to order the release of grand-jury transcripts. While federal rules typically require matters before a grand jury to be kept secret, the organization argued that it needs the transcripts to determine whether the government presented the panel with “inaccurate or misleading” representations.
In a separate filing Tuesday, the SPLC moved to force Blanche to retract his statements, and said that ahead of the indictment, the SPLC provided details about informant work to the Justice Department in two separate meetings with federal law enforcement earlier this year.
The SPLC said that information in at least one of the informant cases led to a criminal conviction of an individual associated with an extremist group.
The organization is also seeking a court order directing the government to refrain from making “any further false or otherwise prejudicial statements” that would compromise its right to a fair trial.
“Acting Attorney General Blanche’s false statement gives rise to the concern that the grand jury heard evidence which incorrectly represented that the SPLC never shared information received from informants with the government, as well as arguments premised on that erroneous assertion,” attorneys representing the SPLC wrote in their filing.
Bryan Fair, interim president and CEO of the group, said in a statement that information the SPLC has shared with the FBI over four decades has saved lives.
“We strongly deny the allegations in the indictment and their falsity is already being exposed in our court filings,” he said in a statement. “The government is blatantly mischaracterizing our efforts to successfully fight hatred and violent extremism, something we have done for decades.”
