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The Southern Poverty Law Center is the target of a federal investigation, potentially over the use of paid informants to gather intelligence on extremist groups, the organization said in a statement Tuesday.
Bryan Fair, the interim CEO of the Montgomery-based civil rights organization, said he does not know all the details of the investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice but believes it’s tied to efforts to gain information about the Ku Klux Klan and other organizations with the potential for violence.
“For decades, we engaged in unprecedented litigation to dismantle the Klan and other hate groups,” Fair said in a video statement. “In light of that work, we sought to protect the safety of our staff and the public. We frequently shared what we learned from informants with local and federal law enforcement, including the FBI.”
A message seeking comment was left with the DOJ on Tuesday. Fair said SPLC no longer uses paid informants but did not say when those efforts stopped.
A spokesperson for the organization said Tuesday that the program “predates me and a lot of people here. Most people who were involved are not even with the organization, because it has been a very long time since it has ended.”
Fair accused President Donald Trump and the DOJ of targeting SPLC for political purposes.
“Today, the federal government has been weaponized to dismantle the rights of our nation’s most vulnerable people and any organization like ours that stands in the breach,” Fair said. “We stood in the vanguard then, and we stand in the vanguard today. We will not be intimidated into silence or contrition, and we will not abandon our mission or the communities we serve.
The SPLC, founded in 1971, rose to prominence by bringing lawsuits against the Klan and other organizations that forced them to declare bankruptcy. Members of the Klan bombed the organization’s headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama, in July 1983. The group has also done work on voting rights, immigration and labor issues.
The group has often been outspoken and critical of Trump, and Republicans and conservatives have made it a target for years, saying it lumps right-wing groups in with extremist organizations. The Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the SPLC in December.
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