The Southern Poverty Law Center allegedly paid an informant who infiltrated the organizing of the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, more money than one of the top groups involved in planning the rally brought in that entire year.
Prosecutors alleged this week that the SPLC, a left-wing organization ostensibly focused on fighting white supremacy, paid one informant $270,000 between 2015 and 2023 to, among other things, coordinate with the organizers of the white nationalist march in Virginia as they planned the event. That rally in Charlottesville turned deadly when a neo-Nazi drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters who were clashing with marchers, and it touched off a yearslong political firestorm that included the SPLC’s dire warnings about the supposedly rising threat of white supremacists and misleading coverage of President Donald Trump’s comments about the marchers. Former President Joe Biden even cited the trauma of Charlottesville as his stated reason for seeking the presidency.
But the indictment filed against the SPLC this week suggests the group invested significant funds into the activity it was publicly claiming to fight. One of the most visible entities involved in the planning of the 2017 Charlottesville rally, Richard Spencer’s National Policy Institute, brought in just $170,000 that year — less than what the SPLC ultimately paid the informant who allegedly participated in a group chat planning the rally.
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That informant went so far as to post racist content online and coordinate transportation to the rally for multiple attendees, prosecutors said.
The numbers are significant because the SPLC subsequently raised millions of dollars portraying Spencer as a leading threat on the Right.
“As head of the National Policy Institute, Richard Spencer is one of the country’s most successful young white nationalist leaders,” the SPLC website reads.
But tax documents show Spencer’s group was bringing in less money at the supposed height of his influence than what the SPLC was allegedly routinely spending on informants to participate in white nationalist groups.
The SPLC allegedly paid one unidentified person more than $1 million between 2014 and 2023 to infiltrate the neo-Nazi group National Alliance, including by raising money for it. The SPLC allegedly paid a separate informant more than $300,000 between 2014 and 2020 to serve as an officer in a group affiliated with the Aryan Nations.
Spencer has shouldered public blame for much of the fallout from the Unite the Right rally, even though his was one of several organizations involved in planning it.
He was among the organizers found liable in 2021 by a Virginia jury for engaging in a civil conspiracy leading up to the rally.
Separately, a federal judge in Ohio ordered the National Policy Institute in 2021 to pay $2.4 million to a man injured at the rally.
Most white nationalist groups do not have tax-exempt status, and their financial documents are therefore not public. However, it is not clear how those groups could raise any significant amount of money, given that most were purged from online platforms that would allow them to collect donations in the aftermath of the Charlottesville rally.
In August 2017, for example, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced he would block white nationalist groups from using Apple Pay. He also announced a $2 million donation to the SPLC and the Anti-Defamation League.
Social media companies and network providers kicked white nationalist groups off their platforms as well.
The SPLC’s payments to informants, however, allegedly lasted years longer.
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The Justice Department’s charges against the SPLC have raised questions about how involved left-wing activists were in driving white nationalist activity that served as a powerful political foil.
While the DOJ has not put forward evidence that shows the Charlottesville rally was a false flag event, its case represents a blow to the credibility of an organization whose revenue ballooned after the march.