On Friday, America First Legal (AFL) released a sampling of what it describes as thousands of pages of new documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and litigation, which show just how much power and influence the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) had during the Biden administration. The group said that additional documents will be made public in subsequent releases.
According to AFL, Biden's Department of Justice (DOJ) gave "unprecedented access and influence over federal civil rights enforcement, including training DOJ prosecutors, standing meetings with DOJ leadership, and regular 'coffee and danish' meetings with top DOJ officials."
“Every American should be bothered by the fact that the Biden DOJ appears to have acted as a pawn of radical activists at the discredited, beclowned SPLC,” said Gene Hamilton, president of America First Legal, in a written statement. “By weaponizing civil rights enforcement, Biden’s DOJ undermined the rule of law and endangered the constitutional rights of Americans who did not fall in line with their radical agenda.
Among the documents released are internal emails, meeting minutes, agendas and schedules that include SPLC and its representatives.
One email shows then-Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke expressing how much she was “looking forward” to visiting them on an official government trip to Montgomery, in which she also toured SPLC’s headquarters.
"This was not a casual relationship; it was a deeply embedded partnership that put a discredited, ideological smear factory—best known for putting mainstream groups like Turning Point USA and Moms for Liberty on its 'hate map' alongside the KKK—at the heart of the Justice Department’s civil rights agenda. Biden’s DOJ handed over the training of its federal prosecutors to SPLC, then cozied up to its staffers over coffee and danishes," according to the report.
The release was issued on the same day that FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed the agency has severed all ties to the group. "The Southern Poverty Law Center long ago abandoned civil rights work and turned into a partisan smear machine. Their so-called "hate map" has been used to defame mainstream Americans and even inspired violence," Patel wrote in an X post.
"That disgraceful record makes them unfit for any FBI partnership. In April, during our Anti-Christian Bias Panel, I made it clear that the FBI will never rely on politicized or agenda-driven intelligence from outside groups — and certainly not from the SPLC. Under this FBI, all ties with the SPLC have officially been terminated," he expanded.
The report by America First Legal includes information previously reported by 1819 News showing how often SPLC featured Turning Point USA and Charlie Kirk in their publications before his assassination. The AFL report stated, "SPLC has refused to tone down its inflammatory rhetoric directed at mainstream conservative groups and viewpoints. In fact, SPLC included Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA in its “Hatewatch” newsletter, smearing both the group and its founder as dangerous extremists."
"By partnering with and outsourcing its hate-crimes enforcement to the SPLC, the Biden DOJ corrupted civil rights for partisan gain. It trained federal prosecutors to smear political opponents while ignoring real acts of violence occurring routinely during the Biden Administration. And the cost is not abstract—lives have already been lost, ripped away by radicals affirmed by violent leftist rhetoric for years," according to the report. "Until the Left breaks from the dangerous radicalism that has infected its ideology and abandons its obsession with silencing its opponents over protected speech, American lives will remain at risk."
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