HOW STRONG IS THE CASE AGAINST THE SPLC---THE FREE PRESS

How Strong Is the Case Against the SPLC? 

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice issued an indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
By The Free Press

It’s Thursday, April 23. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Eli Lake on why Trump’s Iran deal is nothing like Obama’s. Charles Lane on the scourge of partisan gerrymandering. Will Rahn asks: What should smart people think about UFOs? And much more.

But first: Did the Southern Poverty Law Center break the law?

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice issued an indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC raised millions on a promise to combat hate. Except, according to the indictment, the SPLC was secretly funding the very groups—including Ku Klux Klan affiliates—that it claimed to be fighting.

Like so much in our politics today, the case quickly became a Rorschach test.

To the left, it was yet another example of the Trump administration’s targeting of its political enemies. As we reported in our pages last year, the White House had been planning a crackdown on liberal nonprofits.

To the right, a pernicious organization was getting its just deserts. Once upon a time, the SPLC worked to overturn the wrongful convictions of black men. Today, it smears conservative organizations like Turning Point USA and Moms for Liberty as “hate groups.”

But what about the actual case? What the DOJ calls “funding” of hate groups, SPLC says was payment to informants, whose information they then funneled to law enforcement.

To get to the bottom of this politically explosive case, we turned to our legal columnist Jed Rubenfeld. The moral case against the Southern Poverty Law Center is strong, he says. But what about the legal argument? Read Jed’s verdict.

Read The SPLC Has Spread Hate. Is It Guilty of a Crime?

—The Editors