A federal indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on Tuesday was a result of “work that’s been done for a while,” according to Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall.

Marshall said during an interview on Thursday with the Family Research Council’s "Washington Watch" with Tony Perkins that the indictment was a “long time coming.”

“I think this is a reflection of work that’s been done for a while. Truth be told, we were involved in it, participated in helping with this investigation that goes back several years. Yet, it took the Trump administration to allow the unique resources and laws of the federal government. It gets lost that this is a corporate criminal indictment,” Marshall said. “Most states like Alabama don’t have similar provisions, able to use the wire fraud and mail fraud provisions of federal law that many states don’t have is the vehicle to bringing these allegations to light. As I know the director of the FBI and the leadership right now of the Department of Justice, I know they’re not going to sit quiet and allow this to die on the vine as we saw during the Biden administration because as we were bringing these issues to the attention of the Department of Justice, we found silence. With Trump’s administration, we found action.”

A Montgomery grand jury returned an indictment charging the SPLC with 11 counts of wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and money laundering on Tuesday. 

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Alabama Northern Division filed two forfeiture actions to recover alleged proceeds of the organization’s fraud scheme. 

According to the indictment, starting in the 1980s, the SPLC began operating a covert network of individuals who were either associated with violent and extremist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, or who had infiltrated violent extremist groups at the SPLC’s direction. Unbeknownst to donors, some of their donated money was being used to fund the leaders and organizers of racist groups at the same time that the SPLC was denouncing the same groups on its website, according to the DOJ. 

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