Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon told Newsmax on Friday the 11-count indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center rips the veil off the facade of an organization that claims to fight discrimination.
The Department of Justice alleged that the SPLC, which rose to prominence for its work prosecuting and tracking hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, violated federal law through its network of paid informants in extremist groups.
The department asserted that the payments funded hate groups and misled SPLC's donors.
The SPLC faces charges of wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering in the case brought in federal court in Alabama, where the organization is based.
"What we have found is that that kind of discrimination in America today is actually in very short supply," Dhillon said on "Finnerty." "So, for the SPLC to continue to fundraise off of that premise, they had to manufacture it themselves."
"This 11-count indictment shows a paper trail of numerous payments to some of the most hateful groups in America," Dhillon added. "I'm a longtime conservative. I don't know any people like this or encounter them or see them."
"Yet suddenly they're popping up all over the place and SPLC fundraises off of them," Dhillon continued, arguing that former President Joe Biden campaigned on defeating Republicans because of what she called a "false narrative."
"You're seeing the DOJ start to pull on a thread that's going to go way deeper and end up ensnaring a lot more people than just what we've seen in this indictment," she said.
The SPLC bashed Dhillon's appointment to head the Department of Justice's civil rights division.
"I think I'm vindicated by this," Dhillon said. "If you're a conservative today that the SPLC hasn't gone after, I'd have some questions about you, because how effective are you as a culture warrior if they think you're benign?"
"Apparently I'm the wrong kind of brown or Black person," Dhillon added. "That's kind of racist in and of itself.
"At the end of the day, I've had a lot of journalist friends and, you know, clients and groups that I've represented who've been targeted by the Southern Poverty Law Center."
"This is very personal. They've taken square aim at the First Amendment in this country, a value that I cherish and have dedicated my entire 33-year career to fighting for," she continued. "It's about time that we see some accountability.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg."
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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