Lawyers for the Southern Poverty Law Center asked a federal judge on Tuesday to throw out the Justice Department’s indictment of the civil rights organization, describing the case as the product of a politically driven campaign to punish President Donald Trump’s adversaries.
In a motion to dismiss filed in U.S. District Court in Alabama, attorneys for the nonprofit argued that the April indictment — which charges the SPLC with fraud and money laundering for allegedly misleading donors about payments to informants inside hate groups — is a “vindictive prosecution” that must be halted. The SPLC, founded in 1971 and known for tracking extremist organizations, has maintained that law enforcement agencies at the federal and state level have been aware of its informant program for years and that no donor was deceived.
“This is a top-down campaign of retribution against the President’s perceived political enemies,” the SPLC’s lawyers wrote in the filing, according to the Associated Press. The motion frames the indictment as the latest in a series of administration actions targeting individuals and institutions that have clashed with Trump, a claim the SPLC has amplified since the charges were first unsealed.
The indictment, brought by the Justice Department under acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, alleges that the SPLC solicited donations by presenting itself as a litigation and advocacy organization while concealing that it was paying operatives to infiltrate white supremacist and other extremist groups. Prosecutors contend that donors were misled about how their money was being used, and that the organization’s leadership failed to disclose the payments in financial filings and fundraising appeals.
The SPLC has countered that its informant work is essential to its mission and that it has consistently provided intelligence to law enforcement. The organization’s legal team pointed to what it called a false statement Blanche made at an April news conference announcing the indictment. Blanche said at the time that the SPLC “did not share with law enforcement” the information it gathered from informants — an assertion the SPLC immediately disputed. In a subsequent television interview, Blanche appeared to soften that claim, saying the group had “selectively” shared information with authorities over the years.
The dismissal motion argues that the discrepancy underscores the retaliatory nature of the prosecution. “The acting attorney general’s own shifting account of the facts reveals an investigation in search of a crime, not a crime that warranted investigation,” the SPLC’s filing stated, as quoted by the AP.
The Justice Department has stood by the charges, and a spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the dismissal motion. Legal analysts say a vindictive-prosecution claim faces a high bar, requiring defendants to show that prosecutors brought charges to punish protected conduct rather than to address criminal behavior. The SPLC argues that its decades of monitoring and reporting on hate groups, including some with ties to Trump allies, put it squarely in the administration’s crosshairs.
The case is being watched closely by civil liberties groups, which have expressed alarm at what they describe as the weaponization of prosecutorial authority against advocacy organizations. Several legal-defense funds and nonprofit coalitions have filed amicus briefs in support of the SPLC’s position.
The Alabama-based organization, which has a long history of suing white supremacist groups and tracking hate activity, has described the indictment as an existential threat to its work. The nonprofit’s lawyers are asking the court to dismiss the charges entirely or, in the alternative, to order a hearing at which Justice Department officials would have to justify the decision to bring them. A ruling on the motion is expected in the coming weeks.