Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s investigation into the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is gaining momentum this week after federal prosecutors expanded the scope of their criminal case against the non-profit group.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Paxton served a Civil Investigative Demand (CID) on the SPLC on May 18, targeting potential violations of Texas law related to what his office described as “deceptive donor solicitation” practices.
The investigation looks into whether the SPLC misled Texas donors into funding the same extremist groups the organization publicly claims to fight against.
“The radical, woke SPLC was funding the very groups it was claiming to oppose. My office will ensure that the organization is held accountable for its blatant deception,” Paxton said in a prior news release. “Donors of the SPLC deserve to know if they have been manipulated into supporting a non-profit that gives millions of dollars to the KKK and other groups that they thought they were opposing.”
A Superseding Indictment – and New Bombshells
The federal case against the SPLC took a significant turn when, on June 2, the Department of Justice announced a superseding indictment approved by a grand jury in Alabama.
Prosecutors claim that the Southern Poverty Law Center used $4.1 million in tax-exempt donor funds to pay informants inside extremist organizations – and that those informants didn’t just observe the groups, they actively recruited new members and even bought materials for cross-burnings and Ku Klux Klan robes.
The superseding indictment does not contain new charges or name new defendants from the original April version. The group still faces 11 counts of wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, with prosecutors claiming it defrauded donors and duped banks by creating shell accounts to funnel money to insiders belonging to the same hate groups.
The superseding indictment also addressed a legal defect in the original filing. A prior version alleged that an SPLC employee made “false or misleading statements” to banks, but the Supreme Court’s ruling in Thompson v. USA established that the relevant bank fraud statute only criminalizes false statements — not just “misleading” ones.
SPLC Fights Back, Calls It Retribution
The SPLC has not lain down quietly. On May 26, the organization filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, arguing the charges are part of a bigger “retribution campaign” against anyone President Donald Trump perceives as a political enemy.
After the new superseding indictment was filed, the group also asked the judge to sanction the federal prosecutors, alleging they leaked a draft of the new charges to the press before it was officially filed.
Interim President and CEO Bryan Fair has maintained that the SPLC’s now-defunct informant program was a legitimate law enforcement tool.
“The charges against the SPLC are provably wrong; they are based on inaccurate facts and a misapplication of law,” Fair said in a press release published on May 7. “Our informant program was successful in accomplishing its purposes: Threats and attacks were prevented, criminal activity was stopped, and information was gathered to dismantle the efforts of hate and extremist groups. There is no question that the information the SPLC shared with law enforcement saved lives.”
Trial in the federal criminal case is currently set for October 2026. The Dallas Express will continue to monitor the SPLC’s legal proceedings as they develop.
