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More than a dozen<\/span> donors to the Southern Poverty Law Center feel that a recent Department of Justice indictment accusing the group of defrauding contributors by paying informants is farcical, the donors told The Intercept.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s simultaneously infuriating and laughable that they\u2019re charging the SPLC with funding hate groups,\u201d said Mary Wynne Kling, an Alabama native and longtime supporter of the group. Pointing to the SPLC\u2019s long-standing work battling extremist groups, which included bankrupting<\/a> the United Klans of America, she added, \u201cWe knew they were paying informants.\u201d<\/p>\n The indictment<\/a>, filed Tuesday in the SPLC\u2019s home state of Alabama, charged the group with fraud for funding hate groups and with money laundering for setting up fictitious business entities to route payments to informants. SPLC leadership has denied<\/a> the\u00a0allegations.<\/p>\n Kling and over a dozen other donors to the group told The Intercept that by using its money to root out information on hate groups, the SPLC was doing exactly what they hoped it would with their dollars.<\/p>\n Originally founded in 1971 as a civil rights-focused legal clinic, the SPLC struck on a lasting strategy of direct confrontation with hate groups in 1979. It soon shifted its focus entirely toward combating the far right and documenting extremism in its \u201cHatewatch\u201d project, which identifies hate groups and their leaders \u2014 a practice that has drawn the ire of right-wing figures enraged at being labeled as purveyors of hate.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Trump administration is taking aim at SPLC\u2019s image by accusing the group of lying to its donor base and propping up the very groups it claims to fight in order to stay in business.<\/p>\n \u201cThe SPLC is manufacturing racism to justify its existence,\u201d said Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in a statement<\/a> released on Tuesday. \u201cUsing donor money to allegedly profit off Klansmen cannot go unchecked. This Department of Justice will hold the SPLC and every other fraudulent organization operating with the same deceptive playbook accountable. No entity is above the law.\u201d<\/p>\n FBI Director Kash Patel accused the group of taking advantage of the esteem in which its donors held the SPLC.<\/p>\n \u201cThey raised money by lying to their donor network \u2014 thousands of Americans \u2014 to go ahead and pay the leadership of these supposed violent extremist groups,\u201d Patel said the same day at a press conference<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Intercept put out a call for responses and sent a survey seeking reactions to the indictment, verifying that 20 respondents were SPLC contributors with proof of donation. Seven of them spoke to The Intercept in interviews; 13 others submitted responses to the survey. All 20 verified SPLC donors said they continued to support the organization and felt their money had been put to good use \u2014 including when used to pay informants inside groups like the Klan.<\/p>\n Far from feeling defrauded, Ellie Wilson, a donor from Texas, said the indictment prompted her to make a new contribution to the group.<\/p>\n \u201cIf my donation was used to pay for the people who are infiltrating these groups, I see no problem with it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cI read up on the story this morning, before I made my donation, and to me, it doesn\u2019t sound unusual,\u201d Wilson told The Intercept on Wednesday. \u201cThere\u2019s overhead costs associated with either joining these groups or doing their proper research and due diligence. If my donation was used to pay for the people who are infiltrating these groups to, you know, cover their expenses to join, to add to their cover, I see no problem with it.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the indictment against the group, some of the funds used to pay informants went to existing members of hate groups, including people who were already on the SPLC\u2019s list of extremists. One such individual, identified in court documents as a former chair of the National Alliance with the code name \u201cF-42,\u201d allegedly received more than $140,000 from the SPLC while being featured on its \u201cExtremist File\u201d page, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n But according to Maya Lenox, a donor based in Texas, it\u2019s only by working with such individuals that the SPLC is able to get the granular and encyclopedic information on the groups in its \u201cHatewatch\u201d and \u201cHate Map<\/a>\u201d projects.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an organization that has been providing very detailed information about how these hate groups have been moving, and of course, in order to have that information, you essentially are going to need spies,\u201d said Lenox. \u201cIn order to obtain this information, you\u2019re going to have to make it worth their time.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to the 20 verified donors, dozens of other self-identified donors to the SPLC, whose contributions were not independently verified, responded to The Intercept\u2019s survey and expressed their support for the group and their skepticism of the indictment against it. Some respondents expressed mild criticisms of the group, pointing to controversy over its labor practices<\/a> or accusations that its work chills free speech<\/a>, but no respondent reported feeling deceived or defrauded by its use of paid informants in extremist groups.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n