“The Southern Poverty Law Center: Manufacturing Hate”
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House Judiciary U.S. House of Representatives
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 2
And, of course, they labeled good pro-family organizations, conservative organizations, hate groups like the Family Research Council with us today, like Moms for Liberty, like Turning Point USA. Even the Alliance Defending Freedom has argued numerous cases, won numerous cases in front of the Supreme Court. They labeled them all hate groups. But not James' Revenge. Nope.
Even though James' revenge firebombed and vandalized churches, crisis pregnancy centers, after the aftermath of the Dobbs decision, they never made the Southern Poverty Law Center's list. And the Biden administration, they helped make the SPLC the standard. They consulted with the Southern Poverty Law Center. They had quarterly meetings with them. Lisa Monaco, the deputy attorney general, the lady who runs the justice department during the Biden administration, had quarterly meetings with the Southern Poverty Law Center.
They gave the SPLC a first look at FBI data, and they used them to train their prosecutors. And it all paid off. It all paid off. Just ask Mark Hauck what happens when you train the prosecutors. They kicked in his door at six in the morning, in front of him and his seven kids, arrested him.
Of course, the jury found him not guilty. They couldn't just go talk to him even though his lawyer said, he'll meet you wherever. Come, we'll meet you at the court. Nope. Kicking his door, harassing him in front of his wife and family.
01/23/2023, the now famous memo memorandum from the Richmond FBI field office. We know how it paid off, because in that memorandum, they cite the Southern Poverty Law Center as the source. And, of course, that memo says if you're a pro-life Catholic, well, you're an extremist. You're dangerous. Yeah.
The SPLC became part of the weaponized effort of the Garland Biden Justice Department against the American people. Now here's what's interesting. The Biden DOJ knew all about it. They had opened an investigation. They were looking into this group.
They knew the Southern Poverty Law Center was running a scam, but they dropped the case. They dropped the case because when you meet with them, consult with them, have them train your prosecutors, well, guess what? You're not gonna prosecute them. Nope. You're not going to prosecute them.
They're too valuable politically. You gotta use them for your political advantage, and that's exactly what the Biden administration did. And here's the scariest part of all. It worked. Field source 37.
Again, he was the first one I mentioned. He was part of the planning group for the Charlottesville rally. He was paid to coordinate transportation. He was paid to attend. After the event, again, after the event where a young lady is killed, the Southern Poverty Law Center almost tripled its income.
It all worked. They went from 51,000,000 annual income to 133,000,000. Turned out for them, creating hate was more profitable than fighting it. That's exactly what they did. They ran a scam.
They became the standard. They didn't get prosecuted, and they made a ton of money. Made a ton of money. They're sitting on 800,000,000 in assets, a $700,000,000 endowment fund. Such a deal.
Such a deal. But here's the good news, because there's some good news. Here's the good news. President Trump got elected, Todd Blanche's attorney general, Caspatel's FBI director, and guess what? They're prosecuting these guys for running a scam, ripping off their donors, falsely labeling all kinds of good organizations like the Family Research Council, Moms For Liberty, Alliance Defending Freedom, falsely labeling them as hate groups, but they got caught.
Thank goodness they did. So I wanna commend the attorney general and the work he's done, the FBI, most importantly, President Trump for being the guy who put these guys in those positions. We look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. This is something we're and we look forward to bringing in the head of the Southern Poverty Law Center. We're in discussions with them about having, we wanted him here today, couldn't make it.
We're working on it, and we will do whatever it takes to get him on that witness stand to answer our questions about the scam they ran, the lies they told, the things they did. With that, I yield to the ranking member.
Speaker 5
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Welcome to all our witnesses. For decades, the Southern Poverty Law Center shared information about racist terror plots with the FBI, gleaned from their informant program. The FBI was happy to receive it, and this practice frequently led to the disruption of dangerous conspiracies by the KKK and neo Nazi groups to commit violence against synagogues, churches, African Americans, Jews, and other targeted minorities. So why is the Department of Justice under Trump and Todd Blanche now prosecuting the Southern Poverty Law Center?
The DOJ says that the SPLC defrauded its donors by paying undercover informants to infiltrate and collect intelligence on these racist groups. But where are all the donors complaining about having been defrauded? Where is the evidence of the fraud? Where are the civil lawsuits that always follow in the wake of a fraud, a scam, a rip-off? DOJ has offered no evidence that anyone was actually deceived or defrauded by this perfectly lawful, well-known, and accepted practice that the FBI itself approved for many years.
Using informants and undercover agents was indeed the basis for the FBI's own efforts to investigate racist extremist groups when that was a priority, before the targets of the FBI became instead the perceived political foes of Donald Trump. In fact, what its donors love about the Southern Poverty Law Center is how effective it's been getting on the inside of extremely dangerous racial terrorist groups to find out what's going on, to try to stop the reign of terror of bombings, assaults, lynching, and arson. The violent price of white supremacy that goes back centuries in our country. Why are there no civil fraud lawsuits? Why has no one sued the Southern Poverty Law Center?
From my experience, as a former state assistant attorney general and a congressman who deals with constituents who get defrauded frequently, and now I'm the co-chair of the bipartisan stop the scams caucus, I can assure you that victims of fraud are usually enraged after a period of being embarrassed, and they come forward to complain and to sue the fraudsters. What does a real fraud case look like? How do the victims respond? Well, let's take this well-known long-running fraud case called Trump University, which was shut down by the New York attorney general's office when it determined that Trump University was systematically deceiving and ripping off its students and cheating them of a real education they paid for. Over 8,000 swindled students brought three different class-action lawsuits that were certified by the courts against Trump.
They tried for years to recover the lost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition for a completely bogus education, and they finally won a massive settlement for $25,000,000. So that was more than 8,000 desperate young people who told their stories to the world. So far to my knowledge, there's not a single donor to the Southern Poverty Law Center who's come forward to say that he or she was defrauded, much less thousands of them. And they have many thousands of donors. Everybody can see what's happening with this outrageous, scandalous prosecution in Alabama, an outrageous, scandalous persecution here on Capitol Hill.
If anyone has flipped sides to join the racist extremists, it's not the SPLC. It is the FBI itself. And if a fraud is being perpetrated in the public right now, it's not an SPLC fraud. SPLC has been an enemy of the clan and neo-Nazi groups for more than a half century. It's been unswerving and steadfast, which is why their offices were bombed, and why they get an unending stream of violent death threats, something which makes this prosecution and persecution all the more appalling.
No. What we're witnessing is a Trump administration fraud on a vast and shocking scale. President Trump has coddled and cultivated the extreme right for as long as he's been in politics. After the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in August 2017, when neo-Nazis marched on a synagogue in the University of Virginia chanting, "Jews will not replace us," when a homicidal extremist drove his car into peaceful counterprotesters and killed Heather Heyer, Trump could only bring himself to say that there were some very fine people on both sides. In 2020, when he was directly asked in a nationally televised presidential debate to condemn white supremacists, he told the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by, which they immediately adopted as their official motto and emblazoned on their T-shirts.
In office, the Trump administration has dismantled the anti-domestic terror infrastructure at the FBI, at DOJ, at the Department of Homeland Security, constantly shifting resources away from monitoring racially motivated violent extremism into immigration enforcement. He's gutted the civil rights division, which is charged with prosecuting hate crimes. Defunded the center for prevention programs and partnerships, which had helped prevent more than a thousand violent terror plots since 2020, and installed a 22-year-old with zero national security experience except for model United Nations, his junior year of college, to run what remains of our terrorism prevention office. He's redirected the civil rights division to focus on so-called anti-white discrimination instead of the actual hate crimes devastating communities across America. He fired the federal prosecutors and FBI agents who investigated and convicted the extremists who attacked the Capitol on 01/06/2021.
And just this month, the Trump administration released a new national counterterror strategy that literally erases right-wing violent extremism from the record. The strategy identifies drug cartels, Islamist terror, and violent left-wing extremists as the nation's top threats, but makes no mention whatsoever of far-right extremism, white supremacist violence, or domestic neo-Nazi terror. This despite a decade of data from the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies showing that right-wing extremists carried out 152 attacks in the United States and killed 112 Americans, compared with 35 attacks and thirteen deaths attributed to left-wing extremists. Again, he just blames his enemies for what his side is doing. Trump's real relationship to the extreme right was on full display 01/06/2021 when the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters, all in Roger Stone's sphere of influence, led the violent assault on the Capitol and our police force as Trump exhorted a crowd of thousands to go out and fight and fight like hell. Where do you want to have a country anymore?
That mob not only chanted hang Mike Pence, referring to Donald Trump's then vice president, and tried to shut down the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history, but brutally assaulted our police, wounding, injuring, disfiguring, and disabling more than 150 officers, terminating many careers in the process. But what has President Trump done to support, praise, or even just thank the police officers who saved members of the House and Senate and his own vice president from the rampaging mob he had incited? Nothing. What's he done to help Sergeant Canal, whose brutal injuries forced him to retire from the capital force? Nothing.
What's he done to help Officer Harry Dunn, who was taunted with racial slurs throughout the day on January 6? Nothing. Officer Michael Fanon, who wasn't even on duty, but came down to join his brothers and sisters in the blue to defend our democracy, and was nearly ripped to shreds by the mob and had a heart attack. What's he done for him and his family? Nothing.
No. Trump praises the J6 criminals, calling them heroes, martyrs, patriots, even hostages. He pardoned and commuted the sentences of more than 1,500 of them on his first day in office. Both the violent felons who attacked our officers with Confederate battle flags, baseball bats, and steel pipes, and the organizers behind the scenes who were convicted of seditious conspiracy, the deliberate and coordinated effort to put down and overthrow the government of the United States. Trump wasn't interested in the specific criminal backgrounds of any of the criminals he pardoned, whether they were child abusers, armed robbers, or drug traffickers, nor was he interested in whether they'd shown any contrition or remorse for the worst mob attack on the Capitol and the police in the history of the Capitol City, nor was he interested in whether they paid off their fines or restitution for the millions of dollars in damages inflicted.
He just pardoned them all, en masse, overriding the pardon attorney in the DOJ, and liberating his private militia from jail. Many of these pardon conflicts have already gone out to commit more crimes since Trump let them out. Take, for example, Andrew Paul Johnson, who Trump let out of jail and then promptly went out and sexually attacked and molested two 12-year-old children, one boy and one girl. He is now back in prison for life, but Trump's stupid, blundering decision-making forever altered the lives of those children. Oh, and by the way, last year, Andrew Paul Johnson, in a desperate bid to get these children not to turn him in to the police, told them that because he had stormed the Capitol on January 6, he was going to be, quote, awarded $10,000,000 for his work, and would be able to split the money with them if they agreed not to talk to the police.
Now that brings us to the real fraud underway this week. Donald Trump has withdrawn his bogus $10,000,000,000 lawsuit against the IRS because the judge in the case, Kathleen Williams, doubted there was even a case for controversy and whether Trump had proper standing to bring it. And there was clearly no adverse relationship between Trump and the IRS. In any event, he withdrew it. He knew he was going to lose.
Now Trump is claiming that he and the IRS have a so-called settlement, which is not possible because the case was dismissed. This fraudulent settlement involves not only an agreement by the IRS and the DOJ not to investigate or prosecute Kim, his family, and his businesses forever for tax fraud that he may have committed in the past, but the establishment of a $1,776,000,000 political slush fund in the DOJ called the anti-weaponization fund that will be used to reward his friends and foot soldiers. This is lawless. To begin with, Trump doesn't establish federal programs or appropriate money for them. We do that.
That's the power of the purse, which belongs exclusively to Congress. We never set up this political slash fund to be run out of the DOJ, and we never would. We have a judicial system to hear authentic cases and controversies. Not a single J6er has had charges thrown out because of a false, malicious, or retaliatory prosecution. Not a single one has had their criminal conviction reversed on appeal because of a false, malicious, or retaliatory prosecution.
The idea that they were falsely or maliciously prosecuted has not been found by a single judge, Republican, Democratic, or independent appointee. And this is a defamatory slur on law enforcement and the serious civil servants at the DOJ who've been under attack since this nightmare of mega-weaponization began in January of last year. False, malicious, and retaliatory pros prosecutions are how Donald Trump and his DOJ operate. Not real law enforcement, not real prosecutors. We would never set up a political slush fund to compensate the J6ers for their imaginary injuries because it's blatantly unconstitutional.
Section four of the fourteenth amendment, which I commend to all of my colleagues, it's in the constitution, provides that the United States shall not assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States. All such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal and void. So everybody who thinks they're getting a big payoff this week, a million dollars per sixer is the word on the street, should understand this. This payment is illegal and void, meaning that the money belongs only to the taxpayers of America, the people of the United States, and we will get that money back if any insurrectionist gets any. My friends, the Southern Poverty Law Center is not perpetuating fraud.
Today, the Trump administration is perpetuating a fraud against America by taking nearly $1,800,000,000 of our money from the US Judgment Fund for the payment of actual court judgments and damages. And without any legal authorization from Congress, purporting to use it to pay off his once and future private militia. No one is fooled by all the counterfeit outrage about the SPLC and finger-pointing at the people who've actually been combating violent racism in America. Mister chairman, the threat is not the SPLC. The real fraud is coming from the White House.
Just yesterday, The New York Times reported that the career lawyers in the IRS chief counsel's office believe that Donald Trump's lawsuit is deeply flawed and could be easily defeated, and they drafted a memo advising the DOJ to dismiss it. Of course, instead, the DOJ entered into the $1,800,000,000 settlement. The general counsel for the Treasury Department, Brian Morrissey, the top lawyer, resigned on the same day this settlement was announced. We've got many questions for everybody involved in this brazen and corrupt transaction. Mister chair, pursuant to clause 2(k)(6) of rule 11, I move that the committee now immediately subpoena those involved in the creation or execution of the nearly $1,800,000,000 slush fund.
Acting attorney general Todd Blanche, associate attorney general Stanley Woodward, treasury secretary Scott Bessent, IRS chief executive officer Frank Bizignano, and treasury department general counsel Brian Morrissey. Mister Blanche orchestrated this outrageous slush fund as part of the settlement with Donald Trump, which was also signed by Mister Woodward, and Mister Bessent will oversee the payout of these funds. Mister Bisignano signed off on this settlement for the IRS, and Brian Morrissey remarkably resigned as this deal was being announced. These individuals all possess critical insights into Trump's self-dealing scheme with his own agencies to create this fund and reward his supporters and friends. So I move that they be subpoenaed right now.
Speaker 2
The gentleman has not been recognized for that purpose. We will hold any motion to subpoena in abeyance until the conclusion of today's hearing. We will, without objection, include all of their opening statements in the record. We will introduce today's witnesses. We're pleased to have with us this doctor Carol Swain.
Speaker 2
Okay. Well, we'll do that when it's time for that. But it's not time for that now. We're holding it in advance. Doctor Swain is an author and former professor of Princeton University and Vanderbilt University.
She has served on various government commissions, including the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Tennessee Advisory Committee to the US Civil Rights Commission. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Roanoke College and received a master's degree from Yale and her PhD from North Carolina. Mister Tyler O'Neill is a senior editor at The Daily Signal, where his reporting focuses on nonprofit organizations. He previously was an editor at PJ Media and Fox News and is the author of two books. Mister Tony Perkins is the president of the Family Research Council, a nonprofit organization that advocates for family-centered policies.
He's an ordained minister and previously served as the chair and vice-chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. Mister Perkins has also previously served as a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, and Miss Maya Wiley is the president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. She previously served in the civil division of the US attorney's office for the Southern District of New York and worked at the ACLU and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. We welcome our today's witnesses and thank them for appearing today. And if you all please stand, we'll begin by swearing you in.
Raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief? So help you, God. Let the record reflect that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative. Thank you, and you can be seated.
Please know that your written testimony will be entered into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you summarize your testimony in five minutes, and we'll start with Dr. Swain. Just make sure you hit the microphone there. Hit that button, and try to stay as close to 5 as you can. Although, I won't cut you off right at five.
After all, we gave Mister Raskin fifteen. So.
Speaker 7
Good morning. Chairman Rankin, member and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify today on this very important subject. I am doctor Carol M. Swain, a former tenured professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt, and I was also tenured at Princeton. I'm a woman who rose from rural poverty in Southwest Virginia, earned 5 degrees, and built a career as a scholar of race, politics, and representation. My 1993 book, Black Faces, Black Interests, won three national awards and was cited by the US Supreme Court.
Yet, starting in 2009, I became the target of a sustained smear campaign by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization once respected for fighting real hate, but which I believe has become a weapon against conservatives, Christians, and dissenting voices. In September 2009, I found myself in the SPLC's crosshairs after I published an article in the Huffington Post titled Mission Creep and the Southern Poverty Law Center's misguided focus. I argued that the SPLC had drifted from its original mission of monitoring genuine hate groups such as the KKK and the neo Nazis towards targeting mainstream conservatives, immigration reformers, and anyone challenging progressive ideas on race and immigration. I specifically criticized the SPLC's attacks on figures like Lou Dobbs and organizations like the Center for Immigration Studies. I concluded my article with the line, rather than monitoring hate groups, the Southern Poverty Law Center has become one.
Within weeks of my article, the Southern Poverty Law Center retaliated. In October 2009, SPLC spokesman Mark Potok publicly labeled me as an apologist for white supremacists. This stemmed from my endorsement of a documentary film, a conversation about race directed by Craig Bodeker, which I recommended for classroom use because it offered perspectives rarely heard on university campuses. This attack on me was not an isolated incident. The Southern Poverty Law Center has used guilt by association, cherry-picked quotes, and fabrications to damage and destroy reputations and organizations.
There was long-term professional harm to me. Offers from other universities dried up. Speaking opportunities declined. I became kryptonite in certain academic and media circles. My experiences with the Southern Poverty Law Center exposed a powerful tax-exempt organization with enormous influence over media, corporations, law enforcement, and government that can chill speech and academic freedom without any meaningful accountability.
These Southern Poverty Law Center's tactics, the mission creep because it's lost sight of its original purpose. Guilt by association, weaponized hate labels, have broader consequences. They distort public discourse and equate policy discourse. Disagreements with bigotry. They influence tech companies, public and private schools, and federal agencies in ways that marginalize conservative and religious voices.
Their smeared tactics undermine individuals and organizations that are fighting for the public good. I urge this committee to examine the southern power poverty law center's practices, its financial operations, its influence on government partnerships, and the lack of transparency and accountability surrounding its hate group designation. Real civil rights work requires truth telling, not retaliation against scholars who challenge orthodoxies, and certainly not the alleged financing of the hate the organization claims to fight. I hope Congress will deal with the Southern Poverty Law Center appropriately. Both political parties need to address this.
This is a bipartisan issue. They should use all available means to hold this organization accountable as you do or as you proclaim to do with other organizations. Let's hold everyone to the same standard. Thank you for your time, and I will be ready to answer questions at the appropriate time.
Speaker 3
Chairman Jordan, ranking member Rask, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. I'm Tony Perkins. I've served as the president of the Family Research Council here in Washington since 2003. Americans once associated the Southern Poverty Law Center with fighting the Ku Klux Klan during the civil rights era. That reputation gave the SPLC enormous moral credibility.
But in November 2010, SPLC shifted its focus beyond violent groups and began targeting Christian organizations opposing efforts to redefine marriage and human sexuality. Family Research Council was among the most prominent of that first wave. In August 2012, FRC joined Governor Mike Huckabee in supporting Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day after the company was boycotted because its leadership publicly affirmed traditional marriage. Two weeks later, on August 15, LGBT activist Floyd Corkins entered FRC headquarters carrying a 9 millimeter pistol, 50 rounds of ammunition, and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches. According to his later confession, his intent was to kill as many as possible and stuff the sandwiches into our mouth.
As he entered the building and pulled the gun out of his backpack, our building manager Leo Johnson confronted him. Though seriously wounded, Leo stopped the attacker and prevented a mass-casualty event. After multiple surgeries and months of rehabilitation, Leo returned to work and remains today affectionately known as Leo the Hero, and he's here with us today.
Speaker 3
The following day, investigators confirmed. Corkins confessed to selecting FRC because of SPLC's website and hate map. Following the attack, FRC appealed publicly and privately to SPLC to remove mainstream Christian organizations from its inflammatory classifications. Those requests were rejected. The attack has cost FRC more than $6,000,000 in security-related costs, but the cost extends way beyond one act of violence.
SPLC's intelligence project and associated labels became deeply influential on banks, payment processors, and technology companies increasingly relied on SPLC classifications to decide which organizations could maintain accounts, process transactions, and operate online. Around 2016, the SPLC began pressuring financial corporations and technology companies to deplatform and defund organizations that it labeled extremist. Then came Charlottesville. According to the recent federal indictment, a member of the online leadership that planned to unite the right rally at the direction of the SPLC and helped coordinate transportation for attendees was bankrolled by the SPLC. Charlottesville, don't miss this.
Charlottesville was a catalytic event for SPLC, as major corporations like Apple, JPMorgan Chase aligned with SPLC, contributing millions of dollars. Shortly afterwards, the coalition known as Change the Terms was formed, led by SPLC in the Center for American Progress, establishing standards that would encourage companies to deny digital access and financial infrastructure to organizations that SPLC labeled. The timeline of change in the terms closely parallels the acceleration of the efforts to debank and deplatform conservatives. FRC experiences from Truist, Truist Financial, BNB, BB and T, Fidelity Investments, GuideStar, Mobile Calls, and other technology-related companies. And SPLC officials openly acknowledged this strategy before Congress.
In January 2020. SPLC official Akisha Brooks stated this, quote, we have lobbied Internet companies one by one. A key part of this strategy has been to target these organizations' funding. Brooks continued to describe the coordinated effort to pressure technology companies and financial institutions to restrict access for organizations SPLC opposed. This committee, the issue before this committee, is larger than SPLC fraud.
SPLC was the hub, but there are many spokes that made up this wheel designed to crush Christians and conservatives. The congressional inquiry should not stop with the SPLC. In America, citizens should not lose banking services, digital platforms, public credibility, and a sense of safety because they believe in biblical marriage and sexuality. When government-related or regulated institutions can apply ideological labels in a coordinated fashion to silence, isolate, and financially cripple opponents. We have political targeting by proxy, and freedom is at risk.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Mr. Perkins, for that testimony. Leo the hero, thank you for your courage. We'll now go to Mr. O'Neill.
Speaker 9
Chairman Jordan, ranking member Raskin, members of the committee, I'm honored to testify before you today. I will argue that the Southern Poverty Law Center does not merely track hate. It systematically inflates it, profits from it, and, according to a federal indictment, may even have helped create it. The first thing to know about the SPLC is that it has nothing to do with poverty. The Poverty Palace has an endowment as assets of $822,000,000.
That's more than three times the assets of the National YMCA, and almost twice the sum of Planned Parenthood. That's why former employees have suggested mocking mottos for the SPLC, such as "making hate pay." How did the SPLC become so wealthy? Cofounder Morris Dees set up a lucrative fundraising engine by suing the Ku Klux Klan into bankruptcy. When the SPLC ran out of grand dragons to slay, the center needed to find more hate to justify the fundraising.
It has a financial incentive to juice the numbers. The SPLC began to publish a hate map that plots mainstream conservative and Christian groups alongside Klan chapters. The map includes Moms for Liberty, Crager U, Turning Point USA, and even Focus on the Family. The SPLC says the map reveals the infrastructure upholding white supremacy. This hate map kills two birds with one stone.
It silences conservative dissent from the left's and the SPLC's agenda, and it exaggerates hate to keep the money flowing. The map also includes groups that barely exist, like a Confederate memorabilia shop and a convent. In 2023, I analyzed the map and found that it exaggerated hate by at least 267% by including mainstream conservatives, double-counting groups, and mentioning defunct organizations. Given this track record, is it really so far-fetched to think the SPLC might be propping up some of the very white supremacist groups it claims it exists to oppose? A federal grand jury indicted the SPLC on fraud charges because it had funneled $3,000,000 to members of the clan.
The SPLC didn't deny the payments but said it was funding informants who had tipped the center off to violent threats before they happened. But that's not what allegedly happened in Charlottesville in 2017. According to the indictment, the SPLC paid an organizer and directed this person's racist postings. The indictment suggests the SPLC's involvement made Charlottesville larger than it otherwise would have been. After Charlottesville, the SPLC's annual fundraising doubled.
Social media companies volunteered to start silencing hate groups. CNN plastered the hate map on its website. Charlottesville was a payday for the SPLC, and this so-called informant may have been the SPLC's most cunning investment. Of course, if it became known that the SPLC had paid a Charlottesville organizer, that would be a massive scandal. No wonder the SPLC allegedly lied to a bank, setting up shell companies to fund these informants.
Why does this matter? SPLC staff have briefed DOJ prosecutors. Big tech companies have used the SPLC to blacklist conservative nonprofits. School districts across the country have adopted the SPLC's curriculum. Hundreds of companies systematically exclude conservatives from their charity programs because of the SPLC.
The SPLC also has offshoots that engage in similar efforts against conservatives. The Change of the Terms Coalition banded together to pressure big tech to deplatform conservatives, and former SPLC staff have founded the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. If an organization can inflate threats, influence federal policy, and conceal its role in allegedly fueling the very extremism it condemns, then Congress has a duty to investigate it and its offshoots.
Speaker 10
Thank you, Chairman Jordan and Ranking Member Raskin, and to the entire committee for having me here today. I'd like to get right to the point. The attack on SPLC is nothing more than part of a larger, broader coordinated attack on civil rights organizations. Not-for-profits, ones that work to ensure voters can vote, that children can learn, and people can live without fear. Multiracial democracy is something Americans value.
But as the administration has gutted civil rights enforcement and the Supreme Court has gutted the Voting Rights Act, it is in danger. Civil rights organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center are fighting to protect all of our rights. It has done so for more than 5 decades. It helped bankrupt the violent white supremacist organizations, including the United Klans of America. It has brought major voting rights cases, including to secure fair representation for Black voters in Alabama, and it educates the public on threats from extremist movements before those threats turn to violence.
Sadly, this work is critical. A San Diego mosque and the families of three brave fathers are mourning the hate-motivated killings from just Monday. No one should fear violence in a place of worship or anywhere else. SPLC has been targeted by extremists and their supporters for years, not because it is dangerous, but because it is effective. Today, it is the SPLC.
But in a sense, we are all the SPLC. I won't spend much time picking apart the preposterous criminal charges, because I have complete confidence in SPLC's ability to do so in court. But all Americans, no matter our party or beliefs, should not sleep on this hearing and what is happening. Because Monday's murders at a mosque appear to be from two young people apparently espousing neo-Nazi and white supremacist hate, and they took up arms. We need to discuss hate ideologies and the groups that spread them to understand how we can prevent the kind of violence that happened on Monday.
Trying to distort SPLC's use of informants into some claim that it engaged in manufacturing hate is not only nonsensical, it's an effort to deny that hate exists. Prosecution should never be tolerated as a weapon to silence disagreement or stop lawful activities that this administration dislikes. In the past year, we've seen countless examples of weaponization against law firms, universities, media companies, advocates of basic rights branded as domestic terrorists, important nonprofits that had their grants cut off, and protesters who faced violence. The use of criminal prosecutions is consistent with this pattern. And our concern is that no organization seen as dissenting from any administration's policy, large or small, should ultimately face this kind of abuse of power.
We are also concerned that some private financial companies, namely Schwab, Fidelity, and Vanguard, have joined in the administration's efforts to cut off funds that donors have asked to be sent to the Southern Poverty Law Center. In this case, it doesn't appear that conviction is the goal. Starving the SPLC of resources, tarnishing its reputation, and ultimately bullying it into compliance is more likely the point. Luckily, SPLC and civil rights organizations will not be intimidated. SPLC is continuing to fight against hate and to stand up for people's rights.
It just sued the Goyam Defense League for anti-Semitic and racist harassment of Jewish and black residents in Nashville. It is used to ensure that voters in Cobb County, Georgia are getting their absentee ballots on time. And it continues to educate us about the growth of hate and extremism in this country, which even federal data has shown has doubled since 2015. It is real. The SPLC is far too busy fighting hate to manufacture it.
You don't have to like or agree with all of its strategies. I wouldn't ask that. But the fact that SPLC is being criminally charged for its work only shows how much work it has to do. Thank you.
Speaker 2
That includes opening statements. Before going to five minute questions, the chair recognizes the ranking member for some comments.
Speaker 5
Mister chairman, thank you very much for this. I just wanted to note the very sad occasion of the passing of a distinguished former member of the House of Representatives, Barney Frank, who succumbed to his illness and died just moments ago. And so I wanted to make sure that all members knew about the passing of this great champion of civil rights and civil liberties. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back to you.
Speaker 6
Mister chairman, if I could just add, sure. I mean, Rep Frank was obviously a huge advocate for civil rights, particularly LGBTQ rights, and a big advocate for finance reform across our economic structures. So his voice will certainly be missed. Thank you.
Speaker 2
I would just relate what I remember about one of the things I'd remember about Representative Frank was, when I first got here, this was back when the motion to recommit was actually a debate. I mean, you may remember, five-minute debate. I was a freshman. For some reason, leadership asked me to do the motion to recommit, said, would I be willing to do the motion to recommit on a bill sponsored by Barney Frank? And I said no.
Are you crazy? I don't know. It was a financial service, but I said, don't know the subject. Plus, I've seen the guy debate. I'd rather not do that, particularly as a freshman.
So he was very good at holding his own in any type of discussion or debate, and I think we all have those memories of the late representatives. Mister chairman. Mister Natler is recognized.
Speaker 11
Barney was a great champion of all kinds of civil rights and civil liberties. I particularly remember the day in 2008 when he became the first member to offer a motion, to legalize transgender, to recognize transgender people.
Speaker 8
The risk of piling on, we all have, that served with party have some fond memories. I'll just close out mine by saying, from the time I was a freshman, he was very good at coming up to me and saying, Daryl, now you're probably not gonna be for this, but you should be. And or some similar ones. And on occasions, it was true. And that was the thing about, incredibly smart, if you will, happy warrior at times.
He wasn't always happy, but when he was, and on this committee where I served with him, he was happiest when there was real debate, when he could use his wit to either change minds or at least embarrass those who had come half prepared. So, yes, he will be missed, and I thank the gentleman.
Speaker 2
Now move to five-minute question. The gentleman from Arizona is recognized for 5 minutes.
Speaker 12
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Miss Wiley, the SPLC labeled a brilliant black conservative. The woman sitting to your left, doctor Carol Swain, a quote, apologist for white supremacists, close quote, simply for Darren to disagree with them. Do you personally think Doctor Swain is a racist?
Speaker 10
I don't know, Doctor Swain. What I will say is what's important about the Southern Poverty Law Center score is that it identifies where and
Speaker 12
How is it possible? I'm asking you. You're choosing not to answer. Okay. You don't know her?
Have you read any of her writings?
Speaker 12
Okay. So, doctor Swain, what was the impact of SPLC's radical, just unnecessary attack on you? What was the result of that?
Speaker 7
It actually set in motion a series of events that led to my return in 2017. And there are more things that happened, but once the Southern Poverty Law Center labels a black conservative as an apologist for white supremacists, then, people don't know how to process that. But I can tell you that James Torrent of the Wall Street Journal wrote a 2,000-word article, in defense of Carol Swain. That's the title of the article, In Defense of Carol Swain. That helped a lot.
But I think that it hurt the Southern Poverty Law Center, as well, because people knew that if they went after the author of a book on white nationalism, I published with Cambridge Press in 2002 a book, The New White Nationalism in America. It's Challenge Integration. They went after me. And so I was.
Speaker 12
Thank you for that information. So let's just cut to the chase here. SPLC is closing on an $800,000,000 nest egg. I'm hap I happen to have their 990 employees and how much they get paid, president, CEO, from this filing from 2024. $466,000 is the base salary.
Total with perks, 522,000. And you go on down the list, and they were at when the list closed for me, I didn't see anybody making less than $285,000 per year from them. And there's a reason that Charity Watch gives SPLC an F as a charity. The organization's recent federal indictment for wire fraud alleged that it secretly took some of that money through over $3,000,000 in donor funds to informants tied to extremist groups like the KKK, Aryan Nations. And it only confirms what mass resistance is warned about for years, that the SPLC was never fighting hate, was manufacturing it to justify its existence.
Mister O'Neill was talking about Eisen who actually was one of the founders, who was attacking the KKK and then actually had to shift when they put them out of business because they needed money. And so then it became this mission to attack people, and falsely label them and basically gin up the basic money machine that they were doing. And I wanna ask you, Mr. Perkins. The your team was specifically targeted by SPLC. And as a result of their targeting you for having, espousing traditional American and biblical values, there was actually an attempt at mass violence.
Can you describe that a little bit and talk about our hero Leo the hero just a little bit more?
Speaker 3
The gunman who's now serving prison for domestic terrorism came into a building with a gun. Leo, who is the building manager, was actually standing at the front, asking what he needed. He pulled the revolt pulled the semiautomatic pistol out of the backpack. He began shooting. The first round hit, Leo shattering his arm.
He was still able to take him down. More shots were fired. The bullet holes remain in the walls of our building. Leo was able to disarm him and take him down and even recover the weapon. And following that, watching the footage with the FBI agents who were surveilling, it said, why did he not he was bleeding out.
Why didn't he fire the round into Corkins to make sure that he could not come back at him? And I didn't know the answer. As a former police officer, I would have just, as the FBI said, I would have defended myself, not knowing if I was gonna pass out. So I asked Leo when he came out of surgery that night. I went to the hospital about midnight.
He came out of the hospital, and my first question was, Leo, why didn't you shoot him? And he said, because God told.
Speaker 3
to. We're not here for revenge. We're here for justice. And what they have inspired, not just to us, but to thousands of Americans who love this country and happen to believe the Bible as a definitive way to live. They want to silence us.
And I stood on the street the day after the shooting, and I'll say it again. We will not be silent. We will not shrink back. We will not apologize for biblical truth. We will continue to stand for it.
Speaker 2
Thank you. Mister Navarrett, recognized gentleman from New York is recognized.
Speaker 11
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mister chairman, we've heard a lot over the last few days about so-called weaponization as Donald Trump rolled out his settlement slush fund to reward his friends and allies, including insurrectionists, white supremacists, and others within the MAGA faithful. But this hearing is among the worst kinds of weaponization using the power of the judiciary committee to further Donald Trump's personal vendetta against those who seek to hold him and his allies accountable. He has weaponized the Department of Justice to stifle dissent, attacking law firms, universities, and members of civil society that are challenging. And now this committee is being pressed into service to join in his petty campaign of retribution.
That is because the dignity of that is beneath the dignity of this committee on which I have been proud to serve my entire career in Congress. But since we have been called here, I wanna talk about the important work that the Southern Poverty Law Center does to take on one of the most maligned forces in our society, and that is anti-Semitism. Unfortunately, antisemitism in America is not a relic of the past. It is a present and growing threat. The FBI has consistently documented Jewish Americans as the most targeted religious group for hate crimes, year after year.
We have seen it erupt into mass violence from the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh to the attack on Poway, California. We have seen it spread through online spaces, and we have seen it increasingly seep into mainstream right wing politics, in conspiracy theories about Jewish financiers, in holocaust analogies deployed as political weapons, and in figures with well documented ties to white supremacists ascending to positions of influence. The Southern Poverty Law Center is on the front lines fighting antisemitism. In 2019, the SPLC won a $14,000,000 judgment against the founder of a neo-Nazi website, The Daily Stormer, who orchestrated a full-blown doxxing and harassment campaign against a local Jewish woman. She ended up getting more than 700 gruesome threats online, like being told that she should have died in a concentration camp, and that she was, quote, easy to find.
Someone even posted an image of her and her 12-year-old son and their rabbi imposed on photos of the gates of Auschwitz. One of our witnesses, Mister O'Neill, has accused the SPLC of exaggerating hate. I wonder if he thinks that the hate against this woman was exaggerated or manufactured. Last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed suit against the white supremacist extremist group, Guayam Defense League, an openly anti-Semitic group that calls for the return of the Nazi party. SPLC sued because in 2024, the GDL launched a coordinated campaign against Black and Jewish communities during a July 2024 hate tour, in quotes, in Nashville.
These neo Nazis were marching across the city, assaulting people they believed to be Jewish, harassing groups of young black children, and waving swastika flags. Another one of our witnesses, Mister Perkins, has called the SVLC, quote, a partisan smear machine. I certainly hope he does not believe that it is a partisan smear to call out neo-Nazis and to make them pay for assaulting Jews and harassing black children. Fighting against neo-Nazis, neofascists, and white supremacists is not a partisan issue. It should be very simple to reject these tenets.
So why is it so hard for Republicans to call out the antisemitism we see within the current administration? President Trump has not only hosted, but also refused to condemn Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier and white nationalist. Meanwhile, Republicans have remained silent as the administration attempted to implement political litmus tests in order for synagogues to be deemed eligible to receive security grants, hired known anti-semis like Kingsley Wilson, Ed Martin, and Sebastian Gorka, and gutted the agencies charged with preventing domestic terrorism. Lip service about fighting anti-Semitism rings hollow when you staff your government with people who embrace it, no matter how many task forces or advisory committees you form. And now they are coming after an organization on the front lines of fighting antisemitism and racism in all pernicious forms.
It's widely the time we have left, I want to turn to you. What harm does it do to the Jewish community or any targeted community when Republicans spread false information against one of the few organizations actively fighting hate crimes and tracking extremist groups?
Speaker 10
Representative Nadler, you actually shared one of the examples I would share, which is the Goyam Defense League lawsuit. This is an incredibly important for the Jewish community because antisemitism and the great replacement theory that we're seeing in so many of these ideologies that SPLC is identifying actually comes for all of us. It comes from people who are black, comes from people who are transgender, comes from people who are Jewish. And one of the things, the leadership conference on civil and human rights was co-founded with Jewish organizations and leaders. It is part of our roots and history as a civil rights coalition.
And we have several of our Jewish groups have signed a letter that has been released today and sent supporting the Southern Poverty Law Center because it even modeled some of the ways that more elevation of antisemitism could happen. One last thing I'll point out, because the FBI was well aware of this despite the claim in the indictment. The Southern Poverty Law Center gave a 45-page event threat memo to the FBI before the Unite the Right rally because of the program we're talking about today and identifying that there would be people there who were armed. And as we saw in what turned out to be that rally, it was critically important.
Speaker 2
Someone yields back. Mister O'Neill, they had an extremist file web page, didn't they? Yes. And they would on this web page, they would pick out some crazy hate guy, and they would, you know, some bad guy. And he was the extremist of the month.
They'd highlight him, and they would say, send us money to stop so and so. Is that right?
Speaker 2
And f 42 was one of the field sources, number 42, chair of some crazy hate group. The Southern Poverty Law Center highlighted him on their web page. He's bad. He's evil. Send us money.
Is that right?
Speaker 2
Did they tell their prospective donors they were paying this guy? No. They didn't tell him. Did they tell him they were paying him $140,000? No.
Not to my knowledge. So they said let's stop the racist, even though we're paying him to be racist. That was their pitch. But they didn't tell him that, did they? No.
They did not. Is that appropriate, Miss Wiley?
Speaker 2
All of that. Is that appropriate to say, tell your donors this is the extremist of the month. This hateful racist guy is really bad. Send us money, but not tell those donors who you're taking their money from that we're paying this guy $140,000. Is that appropriate?
Speaker 2
it's just money. Food source forty two got a $140 from the Southern Poverty Law Center was featured on their web page as extremist of the year or month or whatever they call these bad guys, and they were paying him, and they were getting money. Is that appropriate? Simple question.
Speaker 10
And donors have supported it, and they keep trying to send more money to the Southern Poverty Law.
Speaker 2
that. Didn't ask if it was lawful or unlawful. As you said earlier in your testimony, the court's gonna determine that when they go to trial. What I'm asking you is it appropriate?
Speaker 10
As I said, the donors have spoken. And in fact, they're trying to send more money now, and their financial institutions are refusing to send the money.
Speaker 2
Well, they argued 16 cases before the Supreme Court. They stand for traditional values. Southern Poverty Law Center label them a hate group. Are they a hate group?
Speaker 2
Is James revenge? Is that a hate group? Because the ADF, they didn't firebomb anybody, but James Revenge did. ADF is labeled a hate group. James Revenge isn't.
I wanna know how you would label.
Speaker 10
I'm not here as a person who designates groups. I'm here to talk about the impact on civil rights.
Speaker 2
Okay. Mister O'Neill, do you think any of these field sources were double dipping? I mean, during the Biden, Ray Garland administration, the justice department paid a bunch of confidential human sources, a bunch of them. We know a bunch of them were at the Capitol, January six four went in the Capitol. And I'm just wondering if the same entity, the Justice Department under President Biden, paying these confidential human sources who was working with the Southern Poverty Law Center, having quarterly meetings with them, consulting with them, giving them FBI data before anyone else could see it, having them train their prosecutors.
I'm just wondering, do you think it was out of the realm of possibility that the Justice Department was paying the same sources the SPLC was paying?
Speaker 9
I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility. I have no information or knowledge that they were double-dipping. I would say that Stephen J. Ross, who is author of The Secret War Against Hate, which is about the history of informants that Jewish groups had placed in some of these violent groups back, you know, decades and decades before the SPLC ever existed. He said that neither the ADL nor the American Jewish Committee nor the Anti-Nazi League did anything like highlighting informants online as extremist profiles while also funding them.
Speaker 2
Yeah. Last question. Come to you, mister Perkins. In your opening statement, you talked about how it was just worse than the SPLC because how they've put themselves out there or become the standard of help from the government, I think, in becoming the source of the standard on evaluating and determining what groups are hate groups, what groups aren't. But it's bigger and broader.
It has things. But I think the real thing here is how closely they worked with the government to carry out what they were trying to do. And the reason the Biden administration embraced them, I think, so fully was politics, simple politics.
Speaker 3
You agree? Well, there are members of this committee that were endorsed by the SPLC. They had a C4 was involved in elections. So they were not just an umpire. They were a player on the field as well.
So how can they be objective in determining who is a purveyor of hate and who is not? I mean, they had a stake in this. But to your point about their engagement with government, it goes much further than the federal government and the FBI and the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense, which their material was in briefing to, the members of the military. But they also continue to have their learning for justice, which is about 500,000 educators across America, and bulletins to local law enforcement. And I happen to know because the agency I was with, the sheriff called me and said, hey.
We got a bulletin. He says you're.
Speaker 3
Yep. And he was laughing. Yep. And but that is the reach that they've had. This is the hub.
They're the hub, but there are spokes that go out and no.
Speaker 2
I think that's an appropriate metaphor. My time has expired. With that, I recognize the gentleman from Georgia.
Speaker 14
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mister O'Neill, have you ever heard the name Michael Donald?
Speaker 14
How about you, Mr. Perkins? No. Don't know? Never heard of him? How about you, Doctor Swain?
You've never heard of Mike O'Donnell before? You can cut your mic on.
Speaker 14
He was the 19-year-old African American black boy down in Mobile, Alabama. He's the son of Beulah May and David Donald, the youngest of six children. He was in community college at the time while working part time for a local newspaper. And, on 03/21/1981, he was lynched. You've never heard of that before?
Speaker 14
Then you did not know then that the SPLC was responsible for filing a lawsuit against the United Clans of America, whose members were responsible for lynching Mike O'Donnell. You did not know that the SPLC had sued along with Beulah McDonald?
Speaker 14
And received or obtained a judgment that ran the United Clans of America out of business. You weren't aware of that?
Speaker 14
Well, let me ask you this. And let me ask you this. If you were aware of that, you know that they have been effective since then in running a number of Ku Klux Klan organizations out of business through lawsuits. Correct? You're aware of it, mister O'Neill, aren't you?
Speaker 9
Yes. I'm actually very aware of that case because the SPLC edged out Lula McDonald and wanted to make a video about it.
Speaker 14
Just said, hold on. Hold on. Now you've said that Charlottesville was a catalytic moment or a fundraising moment, both of you have said, for the Southern Poverty Law Center. You're aware of the fact that the Southern Poverty Law Center actually forwarded to the FBI information about Charlottesville before it even happened, before Donald Trump said that the Ku Klux Klan down there and anti-Jewish folks, anti-Semites were good people. You were aware of the fact that the SPLC provided information to the FBI about that.
Ain't that correct, Miss Wale?
Speaker 14
And they have been very effective at suing organizations, antisemitism, anti-racism, they have been a thorn in the side of the racists who I'm sure sat up in their graves. Robert E. Lee, Nathan Bedford Forrest, the former Confederate general, founder of the Ku Klux Klan, and others, Stonewall Jackson. I'm sure that they stood up in their graves and saluted when Trump was elected, and when he took office, because on the first day, he eliminated all federal efforts to remedy the impact of slavery and racism in America. They call it DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Has tried to stop that, and the United States Supreme Court has gone along with him in ending enforcement of the, or the ability to enforce the Voting Rights Act, which is one of the ways that you, Miss Doctor Swain, were able to get the right to vote.
I don't understand it.
Speaker 14
Can you tell me why it is that folks today are claiming that we have no racism in America, and the only extremism we have is through left-wing groups like the SPLC, and they're targeting the SPLC? Can you tell us why?
Speaker 10
We've just seen an outright attack on all the gains of the civil rights movement for the past 60 years. And I can only say that I will never be able to explain it, at a time when hate crimes have doubled in this country, gone up 100% since 2015, where the rise in antisemitism, the rise in hate against transgender people, black people still remain the number one largest racial group subject to hate crimes, that we have to talk about racism, transphobia, all of the violence that too many of our communities are experiencing. And no one, including any of the groups here, should experience violence.
Speaker 8
And Trump I think the gentleman's time has not reported, which was go to the gentleman from California, mister McClintock. I thank the gentleman.
Speaker 16
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Eric Hoffer famously observed that every great cause becomes a movement, that becomes a business, that becomes a racket. And I think that sums up precisely the matter before us today. SPLC is a private organization. They have a right to speak and influence the public policy discussion.
No one questions that. What they do to the malign innocent groups like Turning Point USA and Family Research Council and others is despicable and hateful, but that's freedom of speech. But freedom of speech does not include the right to defraud donors. It does not include the right to commit bank fraud. Those are the allegations in the grand jury indictment.
We've got a legal system that I trust will sort those core charges out. And it also doesn't include the right to slander, and we have good laws and civil courts to hold them accountable for defamation. So that leaves two legislative concerns. First is this. The civil rights movement, which SPLC was once a part of, had made great progress in uniting our country and marginalizing racist ideology and dramatically reducing racial strife between the 1950s and the 1990s.
But over the past several decades, that progress seems to have reversed. In recent years, we've watched our country torn apart by growing racial strife. And the allegation at the heart of this matter is that the SPLC was covertly fanning these flames for their own financial gain. A significant flash point, of course, was the Charlottesville riots, which had fatal results. And I do need to call out the ranking member for deliberately perpetuating the Democrats' dishonest claim that Donald Trump praised the Nazis at Charlottesville when he said there were, quote, very fine people on both sides.
What the ranking member knows but chose to leave out is that Trump then said, I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists because they should be condemned totally, unquote. Ranking member knows this, and the fact that he perpetuated that today speaks for itself.
Speaker 8
Gentlemen will suspend the gentleman. What purpose does the gentleman interrupt?
Speaker 14
Well, he mentioned twice that the ranking member misled, deceived, and lied to this committee.
Speaker 16
The gentleman, I didn't use the word deceive. I didn't use the word lie.
Speaker 8
Yes. The gentleman would both gentlemen please suspend? Would the recording clerk read back verbatim the passage that is being referred to? Both.
Speaker 14
To put it in context, mister chairman, we got to have both uttering. Will suspend.
Speaker 8
You. Thank you. Is that the passage or one of the two times you're referring to?
Speaker 8
Just one moment, then, please. The chairman's prepared to rule. Although we would prefer that all people speak only to the facts and not to the previous statements of either side, it does not violate the rules of decorum to have an opinion as to the veracity of the other person's statement. With that, I thank the gentleman, but Mister Chairman will take it down.
Speaker 14
Mister chairman, the second statement is the one that I ask then that the words be taken down. So it's only proper that we hear the second.
Speaker 8
If the gentleman will suspend, I'll be patient. Could you please read the second one and tell me, is there a difference?
Speaker 8
Thank you. So, chairman, the gentleman will suspend. Having heard both of these and understanding them in context, they meet the requirement of decorum. Again, the chair would caution individuals to, whenever possible, refer to the specifics and not to the testimony or statements of either side. However, in context, it was not a violation for which the words may be taken down.
And with that, gentleman from California may continue. Mister chairman,
Speaker 8
It is the gentleman's time. I will hear your parliamentary question after the conclusion of his.
Speaker 8
That is not how you state a point of order. He states your point of order.
Speaker 14
My point of order is it's incorrect for the chair of the committee to not hear argument on a,
Speaker 8
on a motion. Gentlemen, if you're considering it a point of order, an answer to the point of order, it is an answer to point of order, a motion to have words taken down. The words speak for themselves. The gentleman had them heard. I'm aware of what they were, and I've made my ruling.
The gentleman, I thank him for his point of order. We now go to the gentleman from California, and I would ask that it be reset back to two minutes, and we'll conclude with three minutes remaining, please.
Speaker 16
Thank you. And, mister chairman, I am reminded of that old movie line, the gentleman can't handle the truth. Now we have the revelation that the SPLC paid the chief organizer of this unite the riot $270,000 while he was recruiting agitators and posting inflammatory rhetoric. And to learn that this was part of more than $3,000,000 in such payments to such extremist groups begs the question of whether the SPLC was financing the very extremist groups it was assuring donors was fighting with their contributions. The terrible attack on the mosque in San Diego on Monday was inspired by neo-Nazi propaganda.
Was this surreptitiously financed by the SPLC or similar NGOs, or perhaps even foreign governments? That's a legitimate concern, and one that we need to fully explore. The second legislative concern is that during the Biden administration, the attorney general and the FBI director told this committee that white supremacist groups were the greatest single threat that our country faced. The SPLC was one of the primary sources of this testimony. Was this an attempt to mislead Congress?
And were the officials responsible for this testimony victims of misinformation by the SPLC, or were they active participants in this deception? I think we need to get to the bottom of that as well. Now, Doctor Swain, you detailed the smear campaign against you that obviously caused you reputational damage and financial loss. And Mr. Perkins, your organization suffered both financial loss and actual violence. Why haven't you sued the SPLC?
Speaker 3
Partly because information was not available as it is now coming forth. We did talk to some attorneys initially about the violence that was perpetrated. But because of, really, there were other suits that were brought against the SPLC, but their image was so strong until now that it was very difficult. We had suits that were brought in court that did not succeed.
Speaker 16
I would certainly hope so. Mister O'Neill, is it possible the SPLC is not the only source of funds going to these extremist groups? Is it possible they're financed by other NGOs or even by foreign governments? What reforms would you recommend?
Speaker 9
It is possible, but I have no knowledge of that. What I know are the allegations claimed in the indictment. But I would highly encourage Congress to consider adding to any rider of financial disbursements that no taxpayer funds be directed to an organization that systematically slanders and defames mainstream conservatives and Christians or, frankly, those on the other side of the aisle in the way that the SPLC does. Thank you.
Speaker 7
May I answer the question about why I haven't sued the Southern Poverty Law Center?
Speaker 7
Because I didn't have the financial resources. There's no way I could go up against an organization that had the types of resources of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Speaker 8
The gentleman yields back. We now go to the ranking member of the full committee, a gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Raskin, for his questions.
Speaker 5
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Just a footnote to that recent contraction. I was not remotely offended by what the gentleman from California said because I'm used to having all of my points misstated by him regularly. It was interesting, he said that I had accused the president of praising the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazis. I never said that.
I said he just made himself perfectly clear when he said there were very fine people on both sides. The fact that you can find him contradicting himself immediately thereafter, and in other subsequent statements, is just a reflection of how Donald Trump speaks. Sometimes, China is his biggest enemy in the world, and we was over in China. Then he loved President Xi, and he adored him, and they're great friends, and so on. So that's Donald Trump.
But I can't imagine any other president in American history finding very fine people on both sides of an anti-Semitic race attack like the one that led to the death of Heather Heyer. So I stand completely by what I said before, and I reject completely your insinuation that I've misrepresented the reality. All I did was quote Donald Trump's own words. Miss Wiley,
Speaker 5
Other thing. Very fine people on both sides. You know, to people in Charlottesville, that was a very painful thing. My sister and her family happen to live in Charlottesville. The Ku Klux Klan and neo Nazis gathered at the local synagogue.
That's where they kicked off their attack on Jews and African Americans in Charlottesville. So some people might be able to roll their eyes at that and say, oh, well, later he read a statement that his staff wrote for him saying that he denounces racist violence, but he made himself perfectly clear. Miss Wiley, have you heard any of these witnesses today cite any evidence that anybody was deceived or defrauded by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is the whole heart of this attack on them? Did you hear one iota of evidence being offered that anybody was deceived or defrauded?
Speaker 10
I have not. And we know, as a matter of fact, that donors continue to try to send money to the Southern Poverty Law Center and are being blocked.
Speaker 5
In fact, having dozens of them stood up to say no. They weren't defrauded in any way. That's why they're supporting the Southern Poverty Law Center because they've been so effective in going undercover to blow the cover on these racist antisemitic plots.
Speaker 10
Yes. And I just wanna note that, because there was a representation made about the SPLC that it worked with the Donald Trump Department of Justice providing information from its employ informant program in the first Trump administration. So that's why we were so concerned to hear that denial that they had knowledge that the acting attorney general had to retract. This is something that should concern all Americans because no department of justice should be behaving this way.
Speaker 5
Yeah. Well, you know the not-for-profit sector very well. It seems like now one of the lines of attack against the SPLC is that the people who work there make too much money. I just went online and checked out some of the salaried executives of the right wing groups that we're not having a hearing about today. Like, the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, was making $1,200,000 when he was there.
You could look at the Heritage Foundation, which in 2023 paid its president $953,000, I think three times what they're talking about there. I imagine being the CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center is a lot more dangerous than being the president of the Heritage Foundation. Just very quickly on that, is there anything to this? The idea that the work of the Southern Poverty Law Center should be trashed and derided and dismissed because the people who go to work there in Alabama are being paid too much money?
Speaker 10
Well, certainly not. And I think the point is the way in which the Southern Poverty Law Center is providing free legal services, for example, to a black community that has developers coming for land, and they won't benefit from the land, for food assistance programs, to make sure that a mother who has a disabled child, five years old, is getting the disability services the law requires. That is what is happening with donations as well, and we are not talking enough about the work that civil rights organizations do, including the SPLC, that
Speaker 5
Well, let's talk about that because to listen to some of your copanels there, you'd think that there is no extremist hate violence taking place. What about the AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, where Dylan Roof, who was charged with white supremacy, went out and killed nine people? How about the Tree of Life synagogue, the worst anti-Semitic attack in American history, where Robert Bowers, who was consumed with white genocide replacement theory, which we hear from even more mainstream conservative groups, killed 11 people. Is racist violence, in fact, some kind of myth made up by the Southern Poverty Law Center?
Speaker 10
No. And the government's own data demonstrates that. But, also, if you look at.
Speaker 8
A gentleman can answer the question, but not go on beyond that. The gentleman's time has expired. Thank.
Speaker 17
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you holding this hearing. The information that has come out in this indictment is truly disturbing. My district is adjacent to the district that includes Charlottesville. Many.
Speaker 4
Of my constituents, I have family in Charlottesville. Many of my constituents work in Charlottesville.
Speaker 17
And to see that, let me ask you, mister O'Neill. The SPLC explicitly stated that they sought donations under the auspices that donor money would be used to help dismantle violent extremist groups by funding f9 no. F 37, who was a member of the online leadership chat group that planned the 2017 Unite the Right event in Charlottesville and attended the event at the direction of the SPLC. Is that helping to dismantle these organizations?
Speaker 9
No. I would say the SPLC in subsequent filings did mention two cases where they claim information from these informants, these field sources led to federal prosecutions. So I think that is important context to add.
Speaker 17
Thank you. I wanna continue to inquire about this funding. Given the SPLC's track record of partisanship and its direct link to real-world violence, why did the FBI and DOJ during the Biden and Harris administration maintain a close relationship with the SPLC?
Speaker 9
Yeah. My understanding is that the SPLC's bias and targeting of mainstream conservative and Christian groups aligned very strongly with the Biden DOJ and the Biden White House's preferences. And that's why in my second book, The Woke to Puss, I go through all of the ways in which the Biden administration solicited information on the domestic terror threat from the Southern Poverty Law Center, how we have this alignment with demonizing concerned moms and dads that happened consistently. And, of course, when the SPLC released the hate map that included chapters of Moms for Liberty for the very first time, putting moms and dads who are concerned about their kids' education on a map with the Klan, they first gave an embargoed copy to their allies at the civil rights division in the DOJ.
Speaker 17
So the SPLC got special treatment, direct access to high-ranking officials in the civil rights division, early access to FBI hate crime data, and invitations to exclusive events with DOJ leadership during the Biden and Harris administration.
Speaker 9
Correct. In fact, they had one of their staffers by the name of RG Cravens who spoke before DOJ prosecutors. This is the same man who, when the Southern Poverty Law Center put Focus on the Family on the hate map last year, he defended putting Focus on the Family on the hate map by saying that it is both false and dangerous for conservative Christians to hold to biblical morality against the claims of the LGBTQ movement.
Speaker 17
And in October of this year, FBI director Patel terminated the FBI's relationship with the SPLC. What was the nature of the relationship prior to the termination? You discussed that. Isn't it true that the FBI relied on the SPLC's hate group designation when determining which extremist groups to monitor?
Speaker 9
Yes. Specifically, in the notorious memo from the FBI's Richmond office, which was coordinated with other FBI offices. They cited the SPLC's list of radical traditional Catholic hate groups. Interestingly, that's where my anecdote about a convent comes from, and one of those organizations on that list no longer existed at the time.
Speaker 17
Can you talk a little bit more about that FBI memo related to the Catholics in Richmond?
Speaker 9
Yes. So this memo was released by whistleblowers. It was not meant to be publicly disseminated. And only after a whistleblower released the memo did the FBI, the national office, publicly come out and say that it didn't meet the FBI's standards. I'd say that's an understatement.
It just took the SPLC's list of radical traditional Catholic hate groups verbatim and put it into the FBI's language in the memo. For background, this is a list of radical traditional Catholic groups that is extremely outdated according to my sources, and that was developed by Heidi Bayrek, who now is leading the global project against hate and extremism. She's no longer even at the SPLC.
Speaker 2
Gentleman yields back. The chair now recognized the general aide from California.
Speaker 19
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know there's talk of the Department of Justice's vindictive prosecutions of SPLC. I just wanna remind us all of something else that the Trump DOJ did. On April 14th this year, exactly a week before it targeted SPLC, DOJ asked the federal court to vacate the convictions of dozens of leaders of the proud boys and oath keepers. Now, who are the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers?
Both are far right organizations that spout Islamophobic, misogynistic, and white nationalist ideologies, and both happen to be on SPLC's watch list. Both groups and others like them took up arms for Donald Trump and attacked the Capitol on January 6. I'd like to ask unanimous consent to put into the record two articles about the January 6 rioters and their later.
Speaker 19
Crimes. People forget what happened in the weeks before January 6 and December 6, 2020. Yet another pro-Trump rally. They rioted in the steep streets of DC, vandalized historically black churches, white nationalists supporting Donald Trump, vandalizing African American places of worship right here in the capital. For their crimes leading up to and on January 6, these individuals, including Enrique Tarrio, Stuart Rhodes, and many others, were convicted of seditious conspiracy and other felonies and sentenced to more than 100 years in prison collectively.
Now Donald Trump unleashed over 1,500 criminals on our streets, some of who have gone on to commit kidnapping, sexual assault, burglary, death threats against elected officials. And now the department is trying to erase their guilt permanently and ensure they cannot be recharged. SPLC has been tracking these groups for years, before January 6, and designated them and others like them as hate groups. SPLC has continued to call out these groups for the danger they pose to our communities and our democracy. The label has upset these groups so much that Gavin McInnes, the founder of Proud Boys, who describes himself as a western chauvinist and said Muslims are stupid, sued the SPLC in 2019 for defamation for designating them as a hate group, and that lawsuit failed.
Miss Wally, you've described the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers as the foot soldiers of January 6. In your opinion, is documenting and naming these groups part of the reason why SPLC is now being punished by the Trump administration?
Speaker 10
Sadly, because of the pattern of behavior and weaponization that we have seen, it's hard not to conclude that, particularly because of exactly the point you just raised, Representative Lofgren, that we're seeing pardoning of violence and violent insurrection from January 6.
Speaker 19
Now what does it say about this administration that is prosecuting the group that helped end the Klan but apparently intending to give taxpayer money to violent white nationalists who vandalized black churches in the capital alike through this so-called settlement fund on a lawsuit that was bogus and barred by the statute of limitations. That's what this administration is. Donald Trump rewarding his foot soldiers for assaulting and beating up law enforcement in his name to the tune of billions of dollars and punishing their common enemy, the organization that monitors and calls out their crime. I'd like to note that this isn't about just coddling the criminals who tried to overthrow the government and who attacked police officers viciously. And I would add, were convicted in courts of law by juries of their peers as the constitution provides, but also an effort perhaps, to make sure that when a call goes out to violent extremists, to overturn the government, to attack violently the government again, that those extremists will know a couple of things.
One, that the president will pardon them for their crimes, and two, that the president will reward them monetarily with taxpayer dollars for their violence and for their treason. With that, Mister Chairman, I yield back.
Speaker 2
General, lady yields back. Before recognizing the gentleman from North Carolina, I have to step out for a minute. Wanna just tell our witnesses that we'll be back shortly. And I do think we have votes at 12:30, so there may be a little break. And I should have mentioned it's an outset.
Any of you need a break at any time, you know, you've been there almost 2 hours. I've stepped out a few times. So if you need a break, just please let us know. Real quick. You see?
Speaker 12
Yes. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I have a series of letters from for Liberty. Quickly. Yes.
Oh, Tina Duskovich, Julie Mock, and then a whole series of additional letters for Moms for Liberty. Then I also have.
Speaker 12
Thank you. Southern Poverty Law Center education material is surprisingly common in red states.
Speaker 12
Arizona School Resource directed teachers to condemn Moms for Liberty, Turning Point USA in the class. Objection. SPLC curriculum and K-12 learning for justice.
Speaker 12
Additionally, federal grand jury charges Southern Poverty Law Center with wire fraud, false statements, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Speaker 12
Nine ninety filed in October 2024 by the SPLC. Objection. And America First Legal reveals explosive documents exposing Biden Department of Justice's partnership and coordinated campaign with the Southern Poverty Law Center to weaponize civil rights enforcement.
Speaker 2
Gentlemen from North Carolina. Mister Harris is recognized in five minutes.
Speaker 21
Mister chairman, I'd also like to submit into the record a letter from Wake, Illinois, to the House Judiciary.
Speaker 21
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm so grateful for all you witnesses for being here today, and I wanna take just a few moments to talk about the shooting that took place at the Family Research Council's headquarters in 2012. That obviously hits home for me because I have followed and admired the great work of FRC as both a pastor involved for a number of years and now as a member of congress. In 2010, the SPLC, as we've talked about today, designated Family Research Council as an anti-LGBTQ hate group and placed it on its so-called hate map. And as I stated in our hearing last year regarding the SPLC, there's nothing hateful about the Family Research Council.
Family Research Council is a pro-family, pro-life group that promotes the Christian values held by many Americans. But that didn't stop the SPLC from placing the FRC on this map. What was clearly a politically motivated designation was intended to harm the FRC, and it had dire consequences. We've mentioned it today. On 08/15/2012, Floyd Lee Corkins II entered Family Research Council's headquarters in Washington, DC, and opened fire.
It was FRC security guard Leo Johnson who heroically tackled Corkins to the ground and wrestled the gun out of his hand, despite being shot in the arm. And thankfully, no one was killed, and Corkins was sent to prison for a period of time. However, I wanna bring attention today to what Corkins told the police, which we happen to have on video right here. And I would call your attention to Corkins' video.
Speaker 9
They, southern property law lists, anti-caters. Found them online. Okay.
Speaker 21
I did a little bit of research, and guess where he landed? There's no speculation here. You know? There's no need for interpretation at this. The convicted shooter specifically cited SPLC as his source for finding out about the Family Research Council.
Speaks for itself. Mister Perkins, what was your immediate reaction when you found out that the shooter learned about FRC through this SPLC hate map?
Speaker 3
Congressman Harris, I actually anticipated that was the case. In fact, the day after, before the FBI acknowledged it, I stood before dozens of TV cameras on the street in front of FRC and said that FRC may not have pulled the trigger, but they inspired the gun. I was mocked by the media, but then the testimony, the confession, came out. And I asked at that point, SPLC take down Christian groups from this list. They didn't, and the consequences have been since 2017.
One of your colleagues, one of my former colleagues, Steve Scalise, was shot. He was targeted by the SPLC. And then, of course, last year, Charlie Kirk, who was also targeted by SPLC, was assassinated. So there is culpability in knowing that this list, this ideological labeling, leads to violence.
Speaker 21
No doubt. And as of yesterday, when I looked up FRC on SPLC's hate map, your organization is still listed despite this attack in 2012. So what impact does this continued designation on the or has it had on the organization and your staff?
Speaker 3
Well, fortunately, we were large enough that we could sustain SPLC and their blood money that they've been raising to target conservative groups. It has hurt us. We spent $6,000,000 just to enhance our security. We've had, it's funny. They're crying now that they're getting their own medicine, that Fidelity is not giving money to them.
How about the thousands of conservative groups that were denied donor-driven funds because of SPLC's labeling? Is there fairness in that? I think not.
Speaker 21
And I will say, this may seem like a silly question, but following the 2012 attack on your headquarters, did SPLC ever reach out to apologize? No. Well, I think it's disgraceful that FRC has put such a hate map in place. The SPLC does not need to agree with everything that FRC says, does, or stands for. However, their actions of placing this organization on a hate map is clearly an attempt to cripple and socially ostracize a conservative organization, and it cannot be allowed again and again.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Speaker 8
The gentleman yields back. We now go to the gentle lady from Pennsylvania, I see next. Okay. Then the gentle lady from Washington. I'm looking and seeing you came back.
So we are thrilled to have you with us. The gentle lady recognized for five minutes.
Speaker 22
Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. It is really a rich irony that Republicans want to argue that Donald Trump or this DOJ care about stopping hate, and that's why they're going after the Southern Poverty Law Center. Donald Trump just set up an illegal $1,800,000,000 slush fund of US taxpayer dollars to pardon convicted insurrectionists who are tied to white supremacists from the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, Nazi supremacists. Oh, yes. And prohibit any action against his own violations or his family's violations of tax law.
You wanna argue that Trump's DOJ is trying to stop hate? Give me a break. Trump ran his campaigns and these administrations on stoking fear and racism against communities of color, and promoting hate. Enacted Muslim bans, kidnapped and disappeared immigrants of all immigration statuses, including US citizens, forced universities to roll back their diversity, equity, inclusion efforts, stripped voting rights from black and brown voters, disenfranchised women and rural voters with the SAVE Act that he wants to pass. It's all a shameless plan to return America to single party control by a Republican party who, unable to win on any sort of policy merits, turns to an old racist playbook that restricts the power of black, brown, and working-class voters and goes after any political foes just to hold on to power.
That's what's happening. For decades, the Southern Poverty Law Center has sued and won jury verdicts against hate groups who conspire and facilitate violence against Black and brown people. The center secured a verdict against the planners of the 2017 Charlottesville rally, the same rally that drew participants who Donald Trump called very fine people on both sides. And, yes, I know what he said after that to try and defend it, but the entire rally was organized by white nationalists. And even after images and videos revealed that these participants put up their arms in Nazi salutes, violently injured counterprotesters, and cheered on the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, he's stuck by that.
LSP SBLC has been winning. That's why Donald Trump wants to target them. That's the problem. Steven Miller, angry that SBLC called him out back in 2016 for promoting white nationalism and right-wing extremist ideas, has decided to take revenge with an outrageous indictment that is replete with mistakes of fact and law. It is a complete fabrication that any crime has been committed at all.
In the words of one former prosecutor, DOJ falls, quote, egregiously short on alleging a crime. So, miss Wiley, the indictment and this entire hearing is premised on the theory that SPLC somehow manufactured hate by paying confidential informants. So I wanna set the record straight about these informants. Based on what we know from public reporting, did one of the center's informants produce information that successfully prevented a white supremacist group's planned terrorist attacks against the synagogue and gay bar in Las Vegas?
Speaker 10
Yes. Division is the name of the extremist group. And I should say that in addition to the work that SPLC did, that prevented the violence. In fact, it was in 2019. So it was information it turned on to the Department of Justice during the Trump administration.
So the suggestion that somehow SPLC only works with an administration based on the party is undermined by this very important fact. And what the FBI found was that this person had already bought the supplies for the attack on a synagogue and a bar where a lot of LGBTQ people frequented. Thank you. I'm gonna go through.
Speaker 22
A series of these. So just a yes or no would be great. Did another informant produce information that led to the arrest of a neo-Nazi individual who sought a national security clearance in Philadelphia Navy Yard?
Speaker 22
Did an informant produce information that the center used to tip off the FBI about the 2017 Charlottesville rally? Yes. So the center was using informants to root out hate and help the FBI prosecute that hate, not manufacture hate. Is that correct?
Speaker 22
And I wanna ask you, you know, the charges are also premised on the idea that donors were misled and they didn't know what the funds were being used for. But the New York Times publicly reported there's no donor that has come forward as Mister Raskin said. Based.
Speaker 22
Your experience, is there anything different about how SBLC is operating than any other nonprofit?
Speaker 22
Thank you, Miss Wiley. This seems to be a trumped-up case, literally just to continue to prosecute people who don't agree. I yield back.
Speaker 8
The general lady yields back. We now go to I just wanna see request. Of course.
Speaker 5
Thank you very much. The first one is the intercept. We knew they were paying informants. SPLC donors reject Trump DOJ.
Speaker 5
The second one is a letter from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights nonprofits together in 42 civil rights organizations, rejecting the criminal charges. And, finally, you now consent to introduce a statement from Trevor Potter, president of the Campaign Legal Center, former Republican chair of the FEC.
Speaker 23
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The talking point for the Democrat high burning today is that Jim Crow was alive and well in America, and I am sure that some of the SPLC's actions have helped them make this argument. My first question is for you, Miss Swain. In the 2024 presidential election, were you required to pay a poll tax before you voted? No.
I have another question for you. When you went to vote at the voting locations, were you intimidated in any way with baseball bats, fire hoses, or dogs?
Speaker 7
The only thing that intimidated me is that in my state that you go into, if you have to ask for a republican ballot or a democrat ballot. And if you are in a precinct that's predominantly Democrat, I think you would have a lot of fear.
Speaker 23
Thank you for answering that question, ma'am. For my Democrat colleagues and everyone on the left screaming Jim Crow 2.0 like I hear ad infinitum, let's take a moment to revisit what actual Jim Crow was. Jim Crow was a time when Black Americans could not sit in classrooms with white Americans. It was colored only the water fountains. It was beatings in the streets.
It was lynchings. It was fear. It was public humiliation. My own father, who grew up in a segregated South in New Orleans, had to walk around to the back of a restaurant just to order a sandwich in the French Quarter of New Orleans because of the color of his skin. That was Jim Crow.
And that is precisely why it is so offensive to compare that era of legalized discrimination and racial terror to showing a photo ID in a voting booth. And it's just as offensive when groups and organizations like these manufacture full hate and racial tension. Requiring identification of votes, not oppression. It is not segregation. It is not racism.
It is a basic standard that applies equally to every single American citizen, regardless of what you look like. You need an ID to board a plane. You need an ID to cash a check. You need an ID to buy alcohol. You need an ID to enter these federal buildings.
And by the way, attaining an ID in this country is an extremely low bar. But somehow showing an ID to vote in America is now considered to be Jim Crow 2.0. This is not about civil rights. This is about political theatre. And the Democrat party survives on manufacturing grievance.
Democrats invoke the pain of the past because they have nothing to offer for the present. They don't want an honest debate. They don't want emotional manipulation. They want outrage. They want division, as evidenced by our discussion in this very hearing today.
They want Americans to fight each other because chaos is politically useful to them. Words like racism and white supremacy and Jim Crow 2.0. For the purposes of elucidating my colleagues on the other side of aisle, let's take a hard look at what real Jim Crow was. Check out this one behind me. You see, this is Jim Crow.
This is what Democrats call Jim Crow. Next slide, please. See. That is Jim Crow. For whatever reason, this is what Democrats call Jim Crow.
Slide, please. That is Jim Crow. This is what Democrats call Jim Crow. I know that some of these images can seem to be very jarring to many of us that haven't experienced that over the course of the past 40 years of my lifetime. I never saw these things.
I never experienced them personally, but I have family members who have and did. And that's why it is extraordinarily important for us to be very careful with what we compare to Jim because this country has come a very long way. I keep saying this over and over again till I am blue in the face. I represent a white majority district along with three of my other Black colleagues here in Congress. And you know what?
Nobody cares about what we look like. We are being judged not by the color of our skin, but by the content of our character, because we've come a long way from this. I don't want to go back to that. In fact, I wanna continue on a path that America has set forth in the name of Jesus Christ. And I wanna let people know that we don't need to be angry.
We don't need to be divided. We want equality for everyone. Let me be crystal clear. This is not 1960 anymore. It's 2026.
And the fact that groups like these are willing to stroke the flames of hate by funding the KKK is absurd. With that, I yield back the remainder of my time. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 8
Thank the gentleman. He yields back. We now go to the gentlelady from Pennsylvania, Miss Gandlin.
Speaker 6
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we heard earlier, in July 1983, the Ku Klux Klan firebombed the Southern Poverty Law Center's offices in Montgomery, Alabama. The Klan carried out its violent attack because the SPLC had stood up against it and has continued to stand up against hate in the following decades, whether it's racial and religious hate, hatred of immigrants, or the LGBTQ+ community. This melted clock, which was frozen in time by the KKK firebombing, still hangs in SPLC's headquarters as a reminder of the very real dangers of defending American civil liberties from hate. So how grotesque is it given that history that the majority has chosen to frame this hearing as an accusation that the Southern Poverty Law Center itself is in the business of manufacturing hate.
But with the increasing shamelessness of the Trump administration and its congressional allies, none of us should be surprised that they are desperately trying to manufacture a reason to attack one of the organizations standing up to their assault on American civil rights. They're trying to turn back the clock and drag America backward into some of the darkest days of our past. What has changed is not the Southern Poverty Law Center, but the way that this administration, with its embrace of white nationalist rhetoric and groups, has decided to rewrite facts and history. In the past year, we've seen pardons of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who orchestrated the violent January 6 attack. The DOJ is hiding from the public government research confirming that right wing extremism poses the biggest domestic terrorism threat to our nation.
The White House is issuing NSPM seven, a directive that the Department of Justice and IRS target left-leaning groups that the White House has declared, without evidence, are a threat to our national security, and members of the administration making repeated statements that they intend to destroy nonprofit groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center that are a threat to their extremist agenda. This White House has engaged in a concerted attack on the pillars of civil society that would ordinarily hold it accountable, going after law firms, the courts, legacy media, universities, organized religion, and even the Pope. We can all see a corrupt DOJ leveraging its power to attack the president's perceived enemies and protect his allies, prosecuting those who've tried to hold the administration accountable, stealing taxpayer dollars to create a $1,800,000,000 slush fund to make payoffs to Trump loyalists who've been convicted of serious crimes, and giving Trump and his family a gold-plated, get out of jail free card with the settlement agreement that the president's lawyer just signed. The Department of Justice's blatantly political prosecution, and this committee's attacks against the Southern Poverty Law Center, signaled the revival of an old authoritarian playbook to vilify and discredit those working to combat hate and protect people from oppression.
And it's part of this administration's whole-of-government attempt to shut down opposition to its lawless behavior. This administration and its MAGA allies are trying to rewrite facts in history just as they've tried to whitewash the violent January 6 assault on our Capitol and our Constitution. But facts have a way of being sticky. They get in the way of life. Americans have always sought to bend the arc of history towards justice, to hold those in power accountable, and to spur our country towards a more inclusive and perfect union.
And we're not going to stop now. We are not going to allow extremists and charlatans to turn back the clock and take our civil rights and repression, and put them asunder with hate. So, Miss Wiley, the DOJ's indictment targets SPLC itself rather than individuals. Is the administration's goal to take out the organization, and why?
Speaker 10
Well, I certainly can't speak for the administration. I think that what is so concerning to us as a civil rights community is that the Southern Poverty Law Center has been attacked because it does work to ensure that black voters can vote, because it does work to show and ensure that fair maps are drawn for places like Alabama and Louisiana where, yes, because we still have racial segregation in this country, black people have to be packed or cracked to take away the opportunity for them to decide who can represent them that will actually be accountable to them. These are incredibly important for civil rights, but it's also incredibly important for people's ability to have voice and power, including to dissent and disagree with the policies of this administration. Do you think that?
Speaker 6
that Steve might have been targeted because it published emails by Stephen Miller that were expressing white nationalist sentiments.
Speaker 8
Thank you. I now recognize myself. Miss Wiley, would you agree with the statement that Charlie Kirk was a dangerous extremist?
Speaker 10
I can't answer the question that way. I can certainly say that, no. No. Statements that I am aware of that Mister Kirk made were ones that I would consider to be dangerous.
Speaker 8
And would those be the ones that he took directly from the Bible repeatedly?
Speaker 10
I'm referring to the ones that he made about black women and black communities, the stereotyping that stereotyped whole groups of people.
Speaker 8
So you would put him on a list of dangerous people that should, as the southern poverty
Speaker 8
Well, you've had opinions on everything the Democrats asked for. Just like you might have an opinion on that.
Speaker 8
Okay. Would you agree that a group could be good, have a great mission, do a lot of good things, but also commit crimes?
Speaker 10
It's a specific organization we're talking about, though, which is the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Speaker 10
My opinion is that we see a prosecution where we know that the Southern Poverty Law Center offered evidence and is asking for accountability about whether that evidence was shown to a grand jury. That should concern all Americans.
Speaker 8
Okay. Mister O'Neill, I'll ask you essentially the same question. Would you say that the Southern Poverty Law Center does some good work, at least historically? Yes. And having looked at the evidence, would you say that it appears to be overwhelmingly evidence of criminal activity?
Speaker 9
I would direct audiences to page 10 of the indictment, where there's a direct quote from an employee saying, I certify that I am the sole owner of the above-named proprietorship. This is a statement to a bank in December 2016. And then the statement, from the then chief executive officer of the SPLC, Margaret Wong, who said that the accounts below listed were open for the benefit of the Southern Poverty Law Center operations and operated under the center's authority.
Speaker 9
I'd say it's black and white. Okay. So long as the quotes from the indictment are accurate, I have not seen.
Speaker 8
People will go to jail if it turns out that, you know, that, in fact, it was true, but they've indicted them. So, you know, both sides are playing high risk, but it appears as though the evidence is overwhelming. Miss Wiley, did you ever hear of the Jewish Defense League? Are you familiar with them?
Speaker 8
Okay. Anyone else familiar with them? You are. Mister O'Neill, you're familiar with them. They go back to the days of New York City and going after basically white supremacist groups, anti-Semitic groups.
Yes. Would it surprise you to know that Irv Ruben and Earl Kruger both went to prison for attempting to blow up my office in 2001?
Speaker 8
Earl Kruger later died in prison. Earl, died or Irv died before being tried, but the other was convicted and eventually, actually, confessed.
Speaker 8
Here's a group you know of. They have a history of fighting antisemitism, something that's been mentioned on the other side, and that obviously still exists in this country as does racism. So you can be a good group, and yet you could have criminal activity and activity that flies in the face of what you say you stand for. Yes. Miss Wiley, I asked you that question for a reason.
Doctor Swan here has, in fact, a history of being falsely accused, a history of being gone after. Mister Perkins has given these examples. The other side has spent a lot of time here today trying to tell us that it's all motivated because somehow we're persecuting people in this administration. Do you have any evidence, not anecdotally, that they picked them. Do you have any evidence that, in fact, southern poverty did not commit these crimes?
Do you have any firsthand evidence of that? Yes or no, please.
Speaker 10
Well, the Southern Poverty Law Center has a motion before the court right now, which actually says that the Department of Justice admitted that they knew that the banks knew Southern Poverty Law Center own the accounts. That is evidenced in the public record that will be tried in court.
Speaker 8
I will look forward to that in trial, and I wanna thank all the witnesses today for bringing out the fact that we should, in fact, this committee should be looking at these not-for-profits and whether, in fact, they have deviated from their mission. And with that, do we have oh, you have another. Just a couple you see. Yeah. This is Gentlemen's recognized.
Speaker 5
Thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman. The Guardian: US lawmakers say DOJ rushed Southern Poverty Law Center indictment citing whistleblowers.
Speaker 5
House Judiciary Democrats' letter read the targeting of Southern Poverty Law Center to Deputy Attorney General Akash Singh. Without objection. And that's it for now.
Speaker 8
Thank you. We go now to lady from general lady from Georgia for five minutes.
Speaker 24
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for our witnesses being here today. My father was the president of the Illinois chapter of the NAACP for many years. As a child, I learned how to fight for my rights before I even learned to walk. I marched in protests, sat in meetings, helped to organize.
I want everyone in this room to understand what is happening right now. The Republican Party has launched an all-out assault against civil rights organizations founded to ensure the end of Jim Crow. But that's just one part of this strategy. Three weeks ago, the Supreme Court gutted section two of the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana versus Calais, saying that, and I'm gonna quote, race neutral considerations that it could employ race neutral considerations, end quote, in redistricting. And within days, Southern legislatures rushed to wipe out black representation in Congress.
Tennessee called an emergency session to repeal its own law against mid-decade redistricting. It then splintered Memphis, a city that is 60% black, into three districts to dilute the voices of the black voters there. The state's black legislators protested. In response, the speaker stripped every single one of them of their committee assignments. Tennessee is not alone in silencing Black voices. Alabama moved to reinstate the maps.
A court previously struck down a law for intentional racial discrimination. Florida passed new racially gerrymandered maps, and we're waiting in my home state of Georgia to see what happens with us on June 17. Miss Wiley, and you can just answer yes or no, have you ever seen five states move simultaneously to dismantle black representation in Congress in such a very rapid, short time? No. And while this administration demands attacks on black Americans' voices with phone calls to governors, it is fighting hard for the right-wing extremist groups who stormed the capital on January 6.
Groups whose members are not all white supremacists don't seem to mind white supremacists. Trump's DOJ has given $1,800,000,000 of a slush fund taken from taxpayers to pay off the 1,600 right-wing rioters who tried to steal the election for him. That's 1,000,000 for each rioter, with $100,000,000 left over. Miss Wiley, what message does this send to the country that this administration is prosecuting the organization that takes down white supremacists while stealing taxpayer money to give to white supremacists?
Speaker 10
I wish I had a word, and I don't have a word for that, except to say that the American public should be outraged.
Speaker 24
Southern states are tripping over themselves to eliminate Black representation in Congress. The president is doling out reparations to white supremacists, and DOJ has indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization built to defend the rights of Americans, on charges so flimsy that it would make Bull Connor and George Wallace blush. Americans deserve a voice in our democracy, representation of their interests, and should not have to fight for their basic civil rights again and again. Race should not be a factor. This is an attempt to roll back the progress made through the civil rights movement and strip black Americans of their voice in public life, using the same tactics as Southern segregationist states following the death of Reconstruction for the very same goal.
I am a child of the civil rights movement. We have seen this before. If we needed a reminder or a wake-up call that Jim Crow is alive and evolved, these legislatures made sure that we got the notice. Miss Wiley, would you like to expand on any previous questions or statements that you were not able to complete?
Speaker 10
I just wanna remind us that the federal agencies, FBI, DEA, ATF spent over $548,000,000 on informants for a reason, because they thought it was gonna help them keep people safe. We're talking about this attack on SPLC at a time when we are facing an administration that cut funds to prevent gun violence, that cut funds to track where and how we might have violent white supremacist neo Nazi attacks, that cut funds that was gonna support public safety, all at a time when we've seen a White House directing Department of Justice about who it wants to prosecute. And as someone who used to work for the Department of Justice, that is unheard of.
Speaker 25
Yeah. Just a couple of comments later. First of all, I'd like to thank Congressman Hunt. First pictures up here, showing what it was like in the days in which the Democrat party just rode roughshod over the South. I'd like to point out that the criticisms of Steven Miller to this day are because of the role he took in exposing the Duke lacrosse player hoax in which three people almost were sent to prison for life.
And Steve had the braveness to stand up to the politically correct, and, eventually, those three people were found innocent after going through absolute hell. I also wanna point out a book by Christopher Ruffo called America's Culture Revolution, How the Radical Left Conquered Everything. And in that book, he clearly describes how a goal of the hardcore left, and I think some members of this committee are members of the hardcore left, the degree to which they try to racialize everything, not just racialize black Americans, but Hispanic, Asian Americans, everything, that their ultimate goal is the end of The United States as we have it break down. And it should be mandatory reading. And I think when you talk about Joe Biden screaming about white supremacy all the time, I think a lot of us must wonder what in the world he is talking about.
But what he's talking about is he's trying to divide American racial lines, which is really a horrible thing. And finally, I don't have time to look into it. I know if you Google Ann Coulter and Proud Boys, and Ann Coulter is a many times New York Times bestseller, you may get a different version of the narrative we'd had today on the Proud Boys. Okay. Now we're gonna start off with Mr. O'Neill.
Given the SPLC's long documented pattern of partisan activism, financial misconduct, and by the way, the financial misconduct by itself is enough that nobody should ever be citing them for anything, and its recent federal indictment for secretly filing millions of dollars to individuals tied to extremist groups. How do you explain the continued willingness of major press outlets to cite the SPLC as an authoritative source?
Speaker 25
The way, I think twelve years ago, thirteen years ago, any reasonably well educated American would have known that SPLC was just a disgusting made up group. But I would think that any newspaper, magazine, online magazine that cites them should be considered totally discredited. Anybody who's done the last 12 years. But how do you, mister O'Neill, explain why so called major press outlets, at one time prestigious outlets, still cite SPLC as an authoritative source?
Speaker 9
I think it's because the SPLC positions itself as a weapon of the left by demonizing the sorts of conservatives that many in the mainstream left want to render irrelevant, and therefore, it is a weapon, a reputational weapon against people who are inconvenient for the left's narrative.
Speaker 3
Well, they leverage their relationship with the government to be able to do that with the media, and then they leverage the relationship with the government, with the corporations. That's how they were able to get the corporations to debank and deplatform conservatives because of that relationship. Go back to the illustration of the hub. They're at the center of it, but they're not.
Speaker 7
I would also say that they leverage their relationship with universities, especially law schools, because a lot of the law students will go and intern with the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Speaker 25
Okay. Very good. And it just still bugs me that they go after Steven Miller for fighting those three lacrosse guys. Doesn't it just bug you, and you know that's what it's all about. We'll go to Tony Perkins.
Your organization has falsely been labeled the hate group. I mean, to me, you're about the most wholesome organization in the country, by SPLC, for holding mainstream pro-life, pro-family positions. Man, they hate this pro-livers. Given that this designation was cited by the perpetrator of the 2012 attack, how do you assess the responsibility of these sort of organizations?
Speaker 3
Well, again, we warned them to take down that label, and we've had subsequent attacks on people who have been labeled by them, including the latest, Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated. There is culpability here. And I think that we need to look at going back to that government leverage that they've been using, they should never have a relationship with a government entity again.
Speaker 25
Right. They just hate Christianity, don't they? Just hate it. Doctor Swain, do you want to comment on that? Would you like to comment?
Time. Oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2
Time of the gentleman has expired. The chair now recognizes the gentle lady from North Carolina.
Speaker 26
Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Just reminding people that many of the roots of antiracism and civil rights in the South came from the church's very Christian people. I suppose I need to remind some members of this committee of the long and blood-soaked history of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina, maybe even some of our witnesses. During Reconstruction, the clan lynched and assassinated countless Black and white leaders who opposed them. In the sixties, the clan grew to more than 10,000 members in North Carolina, more than any other Southern state combined, and North Carolina earned the nickname Clansville, USA.
Clan members in North Carolina carried out coordinated terror campaigns culminating in the 1979 Greensboro massacre, where the clan and their neo-Nazi allies shot and killed five people who were protesting against them. But the story doesn't end there. Only because of the bravery of those who fought back against the clan, like so many of our Christian ministers and the Southern Poverty Law Center, did we see some change? In the nineteen eighties, the Southern Poverty Law Center launched ClanWatch to monitor, track, and expose the activities of the clan. In 1987, the Southern Poverty Law Center won a groundbreaking lawsuit securing $7,000,000 in a judgment against the United Clans of America after their members lynched 19-year-old student Michael Donald in Mobile six years earlier, and I know that Mister Johnson talked about that.
Mercifully, the judgment bankrupt the United Clan of America. This verdict greatly weakened the clan and sent them scurrying underground, though, of course, we're seeing many of them today. But it didn't stamp out the last rotten remnants of the clan throughout the South. And those remnants had been planting seeds that have been cultivated by this president. That's why the continued work of the Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies is so essential.
Now Miss Wiley is paying for informants to disrupt a violent white supremacist organization like the Klan, the same thing as supporting these groups?
Speaker 26
And, actually, was there a book written about an undercover agent by an undercover agent who infiltrated the clan, like maybe called Black Klansman? Could you tell.
Speaker 26
It's a great movie. So given the SPLC's incredibly successful history of fighting the clan and other extremist groups, do you think that the people who have been consistently donating to the SPLC were surprised that the SPLC was paying informants to monitor, report, expose the violent activities?
Speaker 10
Well, the only things we've heard in the public sphere is donors saying that the SPLC did what they had hoped donors would do, and we know from the public record that they're continuing to try to give money to the SPLC to continue its work.
Speaker 26
I kinda hope this lawsuit, this specious lawsuit, results in more contributions to the SPLC. Might be a silver lining to the lawsuit and this ridiculous hearing. Even the amateur hour Trump lackeys at DOJ know that this is a specious lawsuit. They don't believe these cynical charges. They know it's wrong.
The SBLC is not funding the KKK or far-right groups. The SPLC is taking them down. But at the same time, the president of the United States is trying to use taxpayer money to fund people who've assaulted police officers and tried to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. We have to speak the truth. We have got to tell the American people what is going on, and that might be the only good thing that comes out of this ridiculous hearing.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Speaker 2
I'm not sure, miss. I'm not sure Leo thinks the hearing's ridiculous, but, actually, I'm pretty sure he thinks it doesn't. From Georgia is recognized.
Speaker 24
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. I have unanimous consent request. I request unanimous consent to enter into the record an article from 04/15/2026 titled Justice Department moves to toss seditious conspiracy convictions of Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.
Speaker 24
And the second I have is, several Tennessee House Democrats stripped from committees after last week's special session.
Speaker 1
Thank you, chairman. I'm gonna take the gentle lady from North Carolina's advice and get to what I believe is the truth here. And I'm getting a little historic on you. Anybody ever here at Machiavelli? Remember that when you learned that in school?
You know, and you can debate the exact wording of what it means. You can debate the exact origin, but the meaning is basic, and it's simple and is as old as politics itself. And if you believe, according to Machiavelli, that your cause is important enough, that it's righteous enough, that you want to obtain certain goals, that it's urgent enough. There are no rules, no morals, and no ethics. Truth becomes flexible, and there are no standards anymore.
And people start telling themselves that anything is acceptable if they can win, if the outcome is important enough to them. This is about winning. This is about the left-wing. I'm sorry, but it's about the left-wing Democratic Party wanting to win and using the SPLC, using each other as tools to make sure that they win elections and put out misstatements. And we have to ask, when did it become part of the philosophy?
Well, on the last administration, we remember we saw a lot of things. An FBI of lies, an FBI of untruths, an FBI of injustice, an FBI that Joe Biden was willing to rely on politically tainted information, some of which came from the SPLC. Bad information. We know now that it was wrong, that it wasn't true at multiple levels. Garland told the AJ that the greatest threat facing the entire country was domestic violent extremists.
But the real threat, the great threat, a great threat to freedom, was his own Department of Justice and his own FBI back then. It was scary. If you had a different opinion, guess what, folks? And I'm not trying to address this to you, Missus Wiley. I have a right to be conservative.
I have a right to a different viewpoint. But there's not one human being up here that supports the Ku Klux Klan. None of us likes it. I bet you there's nobody in this whole damn room that supports the Ku Klux Klan. Catholics saw the clearest example of this.
It was hateful. It was hurtful. They went after Roman Catholic churches. They were gonna have undercover agents. Thank God we found the information.
It would have been going on. They went after Hindus in my state of New Jersey. Good, faithful, peaceful, loving people. The FBI went in with guns drawn from bad information that they got. SPLCA supplied a lot of this.
The FBI painted them as domestic terrorists. The same thing with parents in school board meetings that were worried about the stuff their own biological children would be being taught to them. It is wrong. Catholics aren't extremists. Concerned parents aren't extremists.
Hindus aren't extremists, but we've seen the pattern before, over and over again. We saw it in the abuse of Pfizer. We saw it when, by the way, tax dollars, questionable sources. FBI, Igor Danchenko, remember that? Hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to him for bad information.
We also got bad information from the Southern Poverty Law Center, all for politics to go after Republicans. That's the elephant in the room. That's what people don't want to talk about, but that's the real deal. If you were conservative and, no, Charlie Kirk was not a terrorist. If you just sat and listened to what he said, you might not agree with it.
He was just a very faithful, conservative person. It's his right. And now the worst of all of it, though, is we find the Southern Poverty Law Center is just one more tool. I think it started out good. I think they wanted to do good things.
I think there are still people in there that wanna do good things, but it's been used in a way that is perverse and awful to get the political goals of a political party accomplished. Machiavelli through and through. It's pretty damn amazing. People donated money believing they were helping good causes, helping vulnerable people, and in the beginning, they were. Nobody wants racism.
Nobody up here in this room wants racism. Nobody wants to hurt anybody. Nobody wants to hate anybody. But the Southern Poverty Law Center and the work that they've done in recent times has actually caused more hate, more hurt, and more problems. They gave money to the KKK.
I don't give a how you approach it, what you say about it. It's a bad thing. I just got some real quick questions, because I know I'm running out of time. Mister Perkins, should the Southern Poverty Law Center have had such a high level of influence in federal agencies?
Speaker 9
No. No. Mister O'Neill? No. In fact, with the FBI memo, the SPLC has suggested that the catechism of the Catholic Church is itself a hateful document.
Speaker 1
It's unbelievable. I'm a Roman Catholic. I resent that, Miss Wiley. I'm not a hateful person. I would never hurt anybody.
I resent that. And so do a lot of Catholics, and so do a lot of people of faith. They have a right to.
Speaker 5
Mister chairman, if we're gonna run over time, can we talk about the president's attack on the Pope?
Speaker 1
How does an organization? Is that part of your presentation? Question, and I'm done. Very good. Organization in.
Speaker 2
The town New Jersey controls the time. I'm gonna ask you one last question.
Speaker 1
I'm losing my time here, but how does an organization maintain credibility as an authority on extremism if there are serious concerns being raised about its own extremism, its own judgment, and its own activities. Real quick, Mister O'Neill, Mister Perkins. And Miss Doctor Swain, how do you go?
Speaker 7
I can say that by 2009, they had already deviated and started targeting conservatives. And I would say that they were so effective at eliminating hate groups that they had to find new people to label new organizations. That's the problem.
Speaker 5
Think, mister Chairman, point of order, just so we're clear, that was one minute over as we move into misbalanced. We've
Speaker 5
I just wanna make sure we're doing it equally. That's all. Equal rights.
Speaker 2
That's moving to ICs from Mister Andrew, UCs from the general for Pennsylvania. And then we're actually gonna go vote, and then we will come back once the votes are completed. Gentlemen from New Jersey, U.C.
Speaker 1
I have a UC for Moms for Liberty, and it is entitled the Justice Department announced indictment against Southern Poverty Law Center. A UC from Tyler O'Neill, on 2026. Democrats beclown themselves by defending the SPLC. Object. Another one from Mr. O'Neill.
However bad you think Biden's DOJ was, new documents show it was even worse. Thank you, chairman. Gentlemen is back. Gentlemen, is
Speaker 6
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a unanimous consent request to introduce an article from The Hill dated 09/17/25. DOJ quietly removes studies showing right-wing attacks outpaced those by the left.
Speaker 6
An article from The Washington Post, November 13, 39 leaked Stephen Miller email show Trump's point man on immigration promoted white nationalism, SPLC reports.
Speaker 6
White House issued the national security presidential memorandum seven in September 2025.
Speaker 6
And an article from the New Republic, April 2026, the Justice Department sides with the Ku Klux Klan.
Speaker 5
Objection. And I have two here. Massacre at Pittsburgh Synagogue tied to antirefugee sentiment and great objection. Buffalo Shooter's Manifesto promotes great replacement theory anti-Semitism. That objection.
Speaker 2
The committee will be in recess for a short period of time. I the reason we have to leave now is I do know that there's one fifteen minute vote, and then the next five votes, I think, are two minute votes. I don't wanna miss that. So we're gonna recess. There's some lunch for you in the back, and then we'll be back as quick as we can.
Committee stands and recess. Committee will come to order. The gentle lady from the great state of California is recognized for 5 minutes.
Speaker 15
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I previously asked in this committee why the DOJ took down the NIJ's journal dedicated to domestic radicalization, violent extremism, and terrorism. In that journal, the DOJ research found that since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists. And in spite of those facts, we held two hearings in this committee committed to Islamophobia, and not a week later, yet another act of deadly violence from the right occurred at a mosque in my home state. So before I begin, I'd like to respectfully ask our chairman.
Mister chairman, will you commit to holding a hearing on the white nationalists who violently shot at the mosque this week in San Diego?
Speaker 2
We will take that under consideration. We have a number of hearings scheduled and markup scheduled coming up here in the next week. We're looking to do something on ActBlue. We're looking to get the CEO, Mister Chairman, I'm law. Center.
Speaker 15
from you, and hope that long thing turns into a yes. But now I would like to talk about an organization which is and has been historically dedicated to stopping violence, the Southern Poverty Law Center, whose informant program has helped stop real acts of violence in this country. SPLC shared intelligence gathered from informants directly with law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the DOJ. That information helps stop a neo-Nazi from obtaining a security clearance and helps thwart a planned terrorist attack targeting a synagogue and an LGBTQ bar in Las Vegas. So, mister Tyler, if an organization helps stop a bomb attack, is that good or bad?
Speaker 15
Okay. Thank you. No. Because I don't have a lot of time. Mister Tyler, do you believe that law enforcement should ignore credible intelligence about violent extremist threats?
Speaker 15
Oh, I apologize. Thank you. Because from where I sit, those answers sound like public safety work. Yet Republicans applauded when Cash Patel severed the FBI's information-sharing relationship with SPLC. And I cannot find a single instance where SPLC's cooperation with law enforcement made Americans at last say less safe.
Maybe the real issue is simply SPLC has been effective at exposing white supremacists and extremist organizations for decades, organizations that Republicans either condone or deny exist at all. SPLC was founded during the civil rights movement to fight racial terror and organized hate in the South, and for over 50 years, it has sued violent white supremacist organizations, monitored extremist groups, protected voting rights, and defended vulnerable communities. SBLC bankrupted factions of the KKK and fought racial intimidation campaigns. And recently, they exposed abusive living conditions in juvenile detention centers and filed suit against school districts that failed to provide individualized services and reasonable accommodations for disabled students. How is that bad?
And let's talk about transparency for a moment. Republicans are accusing SPLC of wrongdoing because it did not publicly disclose donor-by-donor payout maps tied to confidential informants, but nonprofits do not operate that way. Our Turning Point USA or Moms for Liberty publishing donor-by-donor payout audits because I can't seem to find them? And somehow Republicans want a completely different standard applied here. And the hypocrisy becomes even more obvious when you look at acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Mister Blanche publicly attacked SPLC over its confidential informant program while refusing to rule out taxpayer-funded payouts to January 6 rioters, including individuals convicted of assaulting police officers. So why is secrecy suddenly unacceptable when a civil rights organization uses confidential informants to stop violent extremism, but perfectly acceptable when this administration creates a $1,800,000,000 taxpayer-funded white reparation slush fund. Why are Republicans attacking SPLC while refusing to provide transparency about who could receive taxpayer-funded payouts tied to January 6 insurrectionists? This hearing has nothing to do with oversight, and nothing to do with public safety. It is about intimidating organizations that challenge white supremacy, defend civil rights, and refuse to bend the knee to this administration.
And, mister chair, as you know, I have some.
Speaker 15
Thank you. The first one is the acting attorney general is facing bipartisan criticism about the DOJ's so-called anti-weaponization fund, 5 19 26 Politico. I ask unanimous consent.
Speaker 15
What we know about the San Diego mosque shooting: victims, suspects, possible motive, and more. Objection. Multiple Republicans in Congress post openly anti-Muslim statements.
Speaker 15
Pentagon tightens ban on supremacist activity after years of denying the problem.
Speaker 15
SPLC DOJ lawsuit, a wake-up call to end Mississippi's school-to-prison pipeline.
Speaker 15
SPLC report reveals the high price of Florida's incarceration of Black children.
Speaker 15
Fifth Circuit rules against unlawful debt collections targeting Hurricane Katrina survivors.
Speaker 15
SPLC report overcoming the unprecedented Southern voters' battle against voter suppression, intimidation, and a virus.
Speaker 15
SPLC announces new campaign, Poverty is Not Aligned during Poverty Awareness Month.
Speaker 15
Objection. And the last one, right-wing extremist violence is more frequent and deadly than left-wing violence.
Speaker 15
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I am looking forward to getting additional information on when that possible hearing is.
Speaker 2
aid. And just for the record, Republicans aren't upset when the Southern Poverty Law Center labels racist organizations racist. We're upset when they label nonracist organizations, conservative organizations, racist, and we're upset when they pay races. That's why we're having the hearing. The gentleman from South or gentlelady is recognized, and the gentleman from South Carolina.
Speaker 28
Thank you. The 11 count indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center over wire fraud, false statements, and conspiracy to commit money laundering states that between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC covertly funneled more than $3,000,000 in donated funds to individuals who were associated with several violent extremist groups including the KKK, the National Socialist Movement, and the National Socialist Party of America. Because the SPLC was instigating rather than infiltrating these hate groups, donor money was seemingly being used to create and prop up the very hate that the SPLC claimed to be fighting against. More hate means more money for the SPLC, and this led to a transformation of this corrupt and divisive group, moving towards a creator of hate within America. There is a fundamental difference between federal law enforcement using paid informants and a nonprofit organization lying to financial institutions to compensate people to foment hate, racism, and antisemitism.
The SPLC's field sources were doing much more than gathering information. For example, the indictment notes that one field source, quote, made racist postings under the supervision of the SPLC and helped coordinate transportation to the Charlottesville event for several attendees, end quote. Mister O'Neill, do you believe that SPLC's conduct crossed the line from infiltrator to instigator?
Speaker 28
So in response to the indictment, the SP we also found out that the SPLC was sharing information with law enforcement. I've got concerns about that because of how biased the SPLC obviously is, and the information that they were sharing with law enforcement was also biased. I think that you can tell that by the questioning or at least the accusations that were just recently made and even some of the articles that were identified by the woman from California. The articles themselves even accusing the folks this week of committing a horrible act at the mosque out in San Diego. Their own writings defy and disagree with what she was, alleging over there.
Individuals on the right and left have long recognized that the SPLC is no longer the group that it was founded to be. Mister O'Neill, shouldn't we be concerned that our government and law enforcement are accepting information from knowingly biased sources?
Speaker 9
Yes. We should be concerned that they were receiving information specifically from a group that systematically demonizes concerned parents, conservative Christian groups, and even groups of LGBT people who oppose the sexualization of children.
Speaker 28
So if the SPLC were instigating criminal action and then reporting such information to law enforcement, would that not raise even more legally dubious conflicts, mister Perkins?
Speaker 3
It would. SPLC was kind of, it was like they were hiring an arsonist to create a fire, then they were calling the fire department and ratting out the arsonist that they hired. And then they wanted.
Speaker 3
Well, but they also wanted to get the citizen of the year award by calling in and turning in the arsonist that they paid. This is a conspiracy that goes way beyond just money. This was about trying to demonize silence and completely eliminate any opposition to the left when it came to their agenda.
Speaker 28
And that's what's played out, I think, today with the questioning in your testimony. But now we're finding out that the SPLC is not only engaged in this kind of behavior, but we have schools across the country that have included SPLC information in their curriculum. Doctor Swain, what are the concerns that you have in that regard?
Speaker 7
I have concerns that the SPOC's program teaching tolerance is really intolerant, and many public and private schools use their materials. And because they have so much, so many resources, they are able to get into the schools in a way that I think is very dangerous because they're all about indoctrination, a very progressive agenda. And so that is my concern.
Speaker 28
Okay. I appreciate that. I believe that this program, that is the learning for justice, is the community education program that I am referring to. Mister O'Neill, do you have concerns about that program as well?
Speaker 9
Yes. So it's very telling in my mind that the program that was long known as Teaching Tolerance, apparently, the SPLC has become too woke for tolerance. So they changed the name to nix the tolerance and just go with Learning for Justice.
Speaker 28
Okay. Alright. Interesting. Well, I'm just about out of time. I also have unanimous consent.
Speaker 28
This is an article from 04/30/2024 from Lifeset News. The both sides political violence narrative completely debunked. They cooked the books. An example being that all claims of antisemitism, they claim are right wing or conservative attacks when we know that is absolutely not the case. They do not count what happened on 09/11, and there are many other examples in this particular article where they have absolutely cooked the books, that they claimed left wing violence is right wing when we know that that isn't true.
So they're even lying about that as well. So thank you, and I yield back.
Speaker 2
Objection. And the general lady also yields back. The chair now recognizes General Lady from Vermont.
Speaker 27
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This president and his supporters in Congress want to turn the clock back. They're trying to undo the progress of the civil rights movement. That's what this is all about. This is about white nationalism and a direct attack on Black Americans in this country, and it comes from the very top.
That's why.
Speaker 27
like SPLC because the president is systematically taking us back to the darkest chapters of American history. Rather than face accountability from the voters, he is fully embracing authoritarianism. Sham indictments against nonprofits are just one part of this plan. President Trump, his captured Supreme Court, and Republicans in this very room have supported attacks on law firms involved in civil rights litigation, dismantling the federal civil rights offices, weaponizing the DOJ to baselessly attack the president's enemies, gutting the Voting Rights Act. This is an effort to criminalize dissent.
We're witnessing an intentional effort to intimidate any institution that will stand up for our rights, the rights of Americans. It's an intentional effort to silence Black voices and to undo our multiracial democracy. And the majority claims that the SPLC manufactures hate. Here's the hard truth. There is no reason that the SPLC has to manufacture hate in this country, because the Trump era has supplied plenty of it.
White supremacy, Christian nationalism, violence against women, right-wing extremism, and bigotry against the LGBTQ community is flourishing. And the president just set up a corrupt slush fund to pay people who took up arms against our own government. Right now, hate is being cultivated, rewarded, and reinforced by those in power. Miss Wiley, thank you for being here. How do these attacks on SPLC, the Justice Department, and the civil rights of black in civil rights enforcement affect the civil rights of black Americans?
Speaker 10
Significantly. And I just wanna share one story we haven't talked about, because the reality is Charles Morell the third, a black man in Boston in 2022, was just walking down the street. The Patriot Front attacked him. The Patriot Front is listed on SPLC's heat map as a hate and extremist group. The importance of calling it out is so that Charles Murray III can walk down the street and be safe.
And at a time when we're talking about schools and education and children and what happens within them, we see a broadside attack on even teaching history of slavery, history of the civil rights movement that took permission away from hate and extremism and said, this country, no matter your viewpoint. That's right. No matter your religion, no matter who you vote for, and no matter what you believe, it is your country. That's right. That matters for all of us, and I say every American should be concerned no matter who you are if we whitewash hate.
Speaker 27
I couldn't agree more because we see every day when we turn on the news and we watch this president at press conferences, the bigotry and the hatred is coming from the top. It's a strategy. It's an electoral strategy, but it's also a cultural one. The way President Trump has routinely insulted and demeaned women and people of color has permeated this country. When he casually calls women reporters piggy and stupid, and mouths the word bitch at a black reporter, when he calls Haiti and African countries shithole nations, when he repeatedly and relentlessly spreads falsehoods about President Obama's birth certificate.
It spreads hate. As a former history teacher, I know there's gonna be a reckoning. There will. And our children and our grandchildren will ask us where we stood, what we said, what we did when we had these microphones, when we had these platforms. They will ask us if we bowed down to a tyrant, to a bigot, to a man who spreads hate.
Through his social media posts, through his appearances at press conferences, they will ask us this. And I will tell you I know where I am. I'm standing with the people, and I'm standing with the constitution. I yield back.
Speaker 2
Gentlemen, yields back. The gentleman from South Carolina is recognized.
Speaker 29
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Hey, guys. I have a great idea. 2016, we raised $51,000,000. That's really good.
But I think we can do better. Right? I think we can do just a little bit better if we just invest in the same thing that we're perpetuating. We're if we perpetuate the same thing that we're fighting against. So let's take, miss O'Neill, $3,000,000.
Does that sound about right? If we take that little bit of money and send it to informants in white nationalist groups, I think we can do two and a half. Like, I think we can double our money.
Speaker 9
Business model? Deal for you. I think it's only 270 to the particular Charlottesville informant.
Speaker 29
Right. Yeah. So let's I think that's a good investment, don't you? I think if a year from.
Speaker 29
From now in 2017, I think we'll see the fruits of our labor. Is that kind of what happened?
Speaker 9
According to the indictment, and I do need to preface according to the indictment because I haven't seen the underlying evidence. And, of course, this will work out in court. But according to the indictment, that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 29
So we take this organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center, that has had, I'd say, tremendous success decades ago in eliminating racism in our country, in fixing laws, and seeing really a societal change in the way that we approach race and the way that we deal with race. And they were doing pretty well in 2016 and even before. But isn't that just crazy? I mean, miss Hageman talked about this a second ago, but we're sitting in, we're perpetuating the problem and funding the problem that we're eliminating. Right?
I mean, this is a division for dollars racket. Is that a fair characterization, at least according to the indictment?
Speaker 9
Well, and that's why I wrote this book in 2020 years before the indictment. Because I saw it when they put good people like Tony Perkins' organization, Family Research Council, on the hate map. I've been screaming from the rooftops about this for years. So when the indictment comes out, I say, yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. And I want to set a few, if you don't mind, I wanna set a few things straight.
The Southern Poverty Law Center wasn't founded until 1971. A lot of people in this room have been saying that it's a civil rights organization started in the middle of the civil rights movement. It was started toward the end of it. They were almost ambulance-chasing. I mean, and forgive me on this, but when they sued the clan, their own lawyers said that suing the clan was like shooting fish in a barrel.
And their own lawyers quit because they said Morris Dees was so focused on suing the clan to make money by going to donors because he knew donors cared about this, that they were drifting away from their original mission, which, by the way, wasn't fighting white supremacy, but was representing poor people in the South with legal representation, which is a noble mission. And I pray to God that they turn every effort that they have demonizing conservatives toward that effort, because that effort is noble. And by the way, groups on the hate map, good conservative groups that provide legal representation to people who can't afford it, are demonized by the SPLC for doing exactly what the SPLC.
Speaker 29
Real quick. If the SPLC puts on their hate map, neo Nazi group, that's kind of their mission. Right? There's no objection to that. Probably not.
The transparency, I think, actually helps to eliminate groups like that. Would you agree? Yes. So you're on the same list as a neo-Nazi group, and that's not really a fair characterization, is it?
Speaker 29
Liberty too. I mean, their only crime, I think, is being involved in their child's education. Right?
Speaker 29
Apparently a white supremacist thing. Right? Like, I don't understand this logic, but we have we are taking an entity and using an idea that we're gonna go grow our influence. In the Biden administration, in government, they're going to meet with us on a quarterly basis, and we're going to go after people. It became, I think, and maybe this is fair to characterize, but the SPLC went from maybe an altruistic entity at its inception on a good day to really a racket of let's go grow our influence.
Let's balloon our fundraising.
Speaker 29
Right now? $700,000,000? Is it fair to characterize the mission creep of the SPLC in that way, sir?
Speaker 3
Congressman Fry, it's more insidious than that. They needed the white supremacist groups so that they could marginalize and demonize moms and groups that adhere to biblical teaching. They needed those groups. That's why they're propping them up. This was not about money.
This was about Charlottesville, was about coalescing corporations behind their initiative to marginalize and demonize conservatives so the left could march forward. It's much more insidious than what this is, like Al Capone. Does anybody believe that it was just tax evasion? Come on. He was a criminal.
He killed. He murdered.
Speaker 29
And you use that to justify your existence. Matt, that Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Speaker 5
No. I was just gonna note they were thirty-six seconds over, and I think Miss Crockett needs to catch an airplane, she could go first.
Speaker 2
LA from Texas, then we'll come to the gentleman from Florida. Well. I, you know, it is so hard to sit here and listen to this. That's one reason.
Speaker 30
I watched the majority of this, and didn't actually sit in this room because I'm sure my face would've told everything that I was thinking. Is there anyone who finds it odd? Well, can we start here? I'm a start with the entire panel. Are the Proud Boys a white supremacist organization?
Yes or no? Starting with Miss Wiley.
Speaker 30
Okay. Never mind. Next. On how you define or not. Proud always, how they define themselves.
Are they white supremacists? Yes or no?
Speaker 30
Oh, it just seemed like you were saying because you haven't received their mail, you only receive the mail of white supremacists. But go ahead. Last witness.
Speaker 30
And you know what? I do believe that y'all believe that. Let's try another one. Neo-Nazis, Miss Wiley.
Speaker 30
I'm reclaiming my time. I'm reclaiming my time. Neo-Nazis. Are they white supremacists?
Speaker 3
Certainly anti-Semitic, which I would join with any member of the Democratic Party. Mister Nadler was talking about standing.
Speaker 30
Oh, thank God. Jesus Christ. I didn't think we were gonna get there. Oh my gosh. Let me be clear.
Proud Boys are freaking white supremacists. Neo-Nazis are too. And this president who loves to cuddle white supremacists has decided that they should be given checks. The reasons that I pointed to those particular organizations is because you can go and read, I don't know how many articles, as doctor Swain wants people to read up. I'm going to be clear.
I've read my fair share of books. I do have my fair share of degrees. It is clear that neo-Nazis as well as Proud Boys joined in on January 6. Yet this slush fund that they keep talking about is specifically to give them money. So how dare this majority sit here and try to lecture this organization about money.
Now we're not talking about tax-paying dollars, as we are in that slush fund. But you're telling me the $2,000,000,000 in the same country that I'm sure some of y'all will struggle with whether or not the enslavement of black people was good or bad. I'm not even gonna go there and ask y'all the question because y'all struggle with defining that these people were white supremacists. But this country still hasn't thought that reparations made sense for Black folk in this country. But at the same time, they've decided that people that are in organizations that are absolutely white supremacy organizations should get our tax dollars, because they decided to tear apart or attempt to tear apart our democracy.
They are being rewarded. These are people that went through our criminal justice system. When people on that side of the aisle claimed that they love law and order, they went through it. They either entered pleas of guilty or were found guilty. And this president, on day one, his priority was not around racism.
It was around doing things like letting them go, and now putting money in their pockets. We haven't had one hearing on white supremacy. Yet when we look at things like the killing of Ahmad Arbery, George Floyd, Brianna Taylor, the nine worshipers who were murdered at the Mother Emanuel AME church, and the 23 people murdered in 2019 during a shooting at Walmart in El Paso. The 10 people murdered during the 2022 shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. All of these were murdered by white supremacists who were empowered by the Republican Party's racist rhetoric and policies.
This is the same party that wants to drag us back to the Jim Crow era. Some say that there aren't poll taxes, and I guess it's because they're not listing the amount of money. But when you tell somebody that they've gotta go and pay for something, say, like a passport that costs over $100 in order to be able to vote, that looks like a poll tax to me. Some of y'all need to read up on your history books, the very same ones that the Republicans have decided that people should not hear about because you don't want real history taught in our schools, because you're afraid that it's gonna hurt people's feelings to know that their ancestors were so savage that they would enslave black folk. You don't want them to understand why the 14th amendment mattered then, and it matters today.
You don't want them to understand that when they draw these racist lines and tell black folk that they shouldn't have representation in this country, it is against the constitution. I'm the judge. Ignorant so that they can sit up here and be their choking channel. You're missing.
Speaker 2
Expired. Well, you can't yield because you've run out of time. But, it looks like the ranking member wants to make a unanimous consent request.
Speaker 5
Mister chairman, thank you. Walmart gunman attacked El Paso because that's what his president was telling him, his defense attorney says. I'd like to introduce that for the record.
Speaker 2
Our objection. Democrats, we talked about a slush fund. I would just point out, was it a slush fund when Peter Struck got $1,200,000 from the Garland Justice Department? Was it a slush fund when Lisa Page got $800,000? You know, Peter Strucks, the guy that said, I'm in the Northern Virginia Walmart.
I can smell the Trump supporters. And the Biden Justice Department gave him $1,200,000. Gentlemen from North Carolina is recognized.
Speaker 18
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Miss Wiley, I want to talk to you about the Charles Morell case that you mentioned earlier. You said it happened where?
Speaker 18
The Patriot Front. The SPLC did not give the Patriot Front any money. Is that correct?
Speaker 18
You don't know? No. And how was he attacked? And pardon me. I don't, I'm just not familiar with this case.
Speaker 10
The patriot front was, had a march that they were engaged in without a permit, and he was attacked on the street.
Speaker 10
I don't know that it matters if we're talking about a hate crime, which is what we're.
Speaker 18
talking about. Trying to get the details, ma'am. And I'm leading up to this. Would you be willing to condemn the local leaders' efforts to defund the police? Because I agree with you.
We should have safe streets.
Speaker 18
Condemn Boston's local leaders for trying to defund the police. They did that in their recent budget proposal.
Speaker 10
The question I think, that I was asked to come speak to was the rise of hate, right. And the critical importance of us addressing and protecting civil rights.
Speaker 18
Well, you said earlier that you respect Mister Mural's right to a free street. So I'm asking you, will you condemn the local leaders' efforts to deepen the police?
Speaker 18
Local districts. What is Mayor Wu's policy of offering sanctuary to people here illegally regardless of their criminal history? Will you condemn that? No. So it seems like your qualification in public safety is very limited.
Correct?
Speaker 18
Well, let's talk about hate crimes. In terms of the neo-Nazis, I actually agree with just about every word that Jerry Nadler said. I'm working on a bill to promote safe places of worship, increase penalties for attacks on worshipers. And neo Nazis and neo Nazism is certainly on the rise. You would agree with that?
Speaker 18
Antisemitism, attacks against Jews, Christians, and members of other faiths is on the rise.
Speaker 10
Well, I think that's why we've been so concerned about the cuts to grants and programs that are helping us understand the rise and exactly why we have young men like we saw in San Diego. Yep. Murdered three men at a mosque.
Speaker 10
Concerned about the attacks on the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is also seeking to.
Speaker 18
Do you find it at all problematic that one of the leading candidates for United States Senate proudly commissioned and displayed a Nazi tattoo on his chest for almost 20 years? Does that concern you?
Speaker 10
I don't know who you're referring to. I would only say that antisemitism, neonazism, hate, always concerns me.
Speaker 18
Would you condemn that candidate? He's a United States Senate candidate who proudly wore a Nazi tattoo right on his chest.
Speaker 18
Okay. Now I'm detecting a little bit of, it seems like, viewpoint and partisan bias from the SPLC. Mister Perkins, I want to talk to you a little bit about this. Do you know why there is such fervent resistance, or I would say, fervent hatred for traditional viewpoints, for Christians, for people like yourself?
Speaker 3
I do because we have a fixed view of marriage, of human sexuality, and that stands in the way of the left's ideological push to transgender our children and to redefine marriage. And so in order to shut us up, knock us off the media, defund us, they have to label us alongside these racist groups.
Speaker 10
I believe that people have the right. Sure. To have their beliefs, including their interpretations of religion, whatever their religion is.
Speaker 18
Is Mister Perkins' belief in traditional biblical values what brought him to the forefront of the SPLC's hate group map?
Speaker 10
What I'm very clear on is that we have a constitution that protects First Amendment rights, including freedom of religion. We support that as a civil rights community that includes almost every faith.
Speaker 18
Me, just stop you there. I, you know, I know Doctor Swain well. She's a scholar. She's independent. She's very well-thought-out.
Why was she listed as someone to be concerned about?
Speaker 5
Mister chairman, could we just clarify Miss Wiley's organizational identification? I think there's some confusion here.
Speaker 10
Yeah. I am the president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, which is the nation's oldest and largest civil rights coalition of almost 250 national organizations.
Speaker 13
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanna go back really quick to the questioning by Miss Crockett just because I thought it was actually an easy line of questioning, and I wanna give everyone an opportunity just to clarify. Miss Swan, the neo Nazis are a supremacist group. Right? I know you talked about your book, but neo-Nazis are a supremacist group.
Speaker 7
May I define a white supremacist? Because I did a Cambridge University Press book.
Speaker 13
Your point, I know, my businessman. You're Kai, I gotta be you're doing what the university professors did with Elise Stefanik.
Speaker 13
No. No. I oh, I the neo-Nazis are a supremacist group. They believe they're supreme. Right?
That's why they wanted to put people in camps that they believed were impure. Neo-Nazis are a supremacist group. Right? I mean, this doesn't, this is not a trick question, Miss Swan. I'm not trying to trip you up in the fact that you're
Speaker 7
I would like to define a white supremacist. And when I did my research, it was white people who believed that because of their race, they were superior to other groups. But the left redefined white supremacists so that it could include any white person.
Speaker 13
A wonderful speech and a filibuster. No. It's true. Are neo-Nazis supremacists? It depends on which ones.
Speaker 13
Miss Swan, listen. I'm not reading your book if you literally can't answer this question. Are neo-Nazis supremacists? They're individuals. Some are.
Speaker 13
But they're also supremacists, Miss Swan. Okay. If you agree. No. No.
You don't have to take my word for it. Right? Like, they are.
Speaker 13
I'm not a neo-Nazi. Who are they all? I'm a regular person asking another regular person.
Speaker 7
I would agree with you, but I suggest you all take the time and read my Cambridge University Press book. Listen.
Speaker 13
I was nominated for a Doctor. Swan, I can promise you there's no freaking way I'm buying your book. When it took two minutes for you to look at me and not how to convince you that neo Nazis listen.
Speaker 13
us not a talking point. This is 100 years of history. Watch this. I'm gonna show you how easy it is. Mister Perkins, are neo-Nazi supremacists?
Speaker 13
Mister O'Neill? Yes. Okay. Doctor Swan, that wasn't a trick question for them. I wasn't trying to trip them up.
I wasn't using the DNC talking points. This is part of the problem. And I didn't even wanna do this, quite frankly, because I don't want, I'm not interested in making this stuff political. Right? I got democratic candidates in Texas coming out yesterday and saying that Jews belong in concentration camps again.
Speaker 13
And so if we put all this, if we put these hateful conversations in our political box and we do the whataboutism, this is just gonna continue to spread. Hey. I agree with.
Speaker 13
it. Right. Right. And that's why we gotta be able to at least agree to a simple set of facts that neo Nazis are supremacists. Right?
Okay. We've moved on. We've moved on. We're you there.
Speaker 13
statement. I just don't wanna listen. I didn't say anything other than their supremacists.
Speaker 13
No. You don't apologize to me. I just want you to understand, like, if we can agree on a simple set of facts, then we can't solve real problems. So, you know, mister chairman, you know, this obviously was a specific topic that you had scheduled a couple weeks ago and invited these witnesses in. But I gotta be honest, like, the last week, the amount of antisemitic messages, voice mails, text messages I have gotten, stuff on my social media, an assassination plot, you know, a couple months ago, someone serving twenty-five years in jail.
And now watching someone running for office trying to join the greatest deliberative body ever created on this planet who thinks the way forward for America is to look at 1940s Germany. Okay? My grandmother was part of the Kindertransport out of Germany. Her parents died in Auschwitz. My kids are not going to an internment camp, I can assure you.
And it's becoming so normalized. It is, you know, we've gone from, you know, like, oh, there's Americans who donate to elected officials, you know, that are APAC, and then it's, you know, okay, Netanyahu, and then it's, you know, oh, okay. You know, maybe we shouldn't support foreign money, and then, okay. Now we're gonna call these people Zionists. And now we're at concentration camps.
By the way, we got the concentration camps much faster than I thought we would, but here we are. And it's really scary. The people are scared. Peep people don't want to show their Jewish stars anymore. They're moving into neighborhoods just to be around other Jews because they're concerned.
And one of my Republican colleagues, I know, I'm over, mister chairman. I'm gonna wrap it up. One of my Republican colleagues asked, like, do we know why it's spreading? Hate. All sorts of hate, not just antisemitism.
Why this is why it's spreading. It's all here. It's really here. Go poll young kids versus seniors. It's a dramatic difference in the amount of hate young kids have versus seniors.
This is the difference. You're seeing it in the voting patterns. You're seeing it in belief systems. We've let foreign governments and bots just totally weaponize this, getting no countries can beat us militarily. We're stronger than everyone combined, but they are gotten us fighting amongst ourselves, dividing us at each other's throats.
So if you ask me why things are so bad, I mean, just spend a couple minutes. Go to my Twitter. Go look at some happy things.
Speaker 13
A happy Veterans Day or happy Memorial Day that I posted. Look at the hate I get. You know? It is out of control. So, mister Jim, I appreciate you doing this hearing in general, but hate, real hate is spreading in this country in ways that my grandparents, they're gone.
In fact, I can't imagine if they were alive to see what was going on here. And I yield back.
Speaker 2
Well, I appreciate what the gentleman said. And one of the things I have personally made a commitment to do is keep it out of our part the party I belong to. And I know you are doing an unbelievable amount of work trying to keep it out of your party. The once great party of FDR and JFK is, we're seeing things there that are just not healthy for this great nation, and I'm committed to doing everything I can to make sure it doesn't get involved in the Republican Party. And I appreciate your words because it is scary.
Very scary. The gentleman from Missouri is recognized.
Speaker 33
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes. Mister chairman, I have to say I agree with a lot of what my colleague, mister Moskowitz, just said. And I think a lot of the hatred and division is driven by social media, by this, especially since COVID. And I believe our foreign adversaries in many times are intervening, and I believe the algorithms are driving our young people particularly into more and more extreme views, and that's sowing social division, and that is not good for anyone other than our foreign adversaries.
But, mister chairman, thank you for holding this committee. It is truly astounding to me the lengths to which the Southern Poverty Law Center has gone to preserve its relevance. And I think it's telling that on at this, our second hearing about the Southern Poverty Law Center, my Democrat colleagues have not called someone from SPLC to defend themselves. In fact, the previous Democrat witness, very similar to the witness today, just over and over again, well, I don't speak for the SPLC. Well, why are you here then?
Look. An organization that was ostensibly committed to advancing civil rights should strive to make its own intervention less necessary by encouraging productive dialogue and fostering equal treatment under the law rather than continually framing disagreements through the lens of racial animosity. If the SPLC were serious about dismantling hate, it would not be funding it, nor would it be engaging in conduct that promotes division for institutional or political gain. Mister O'Neill, is it a common practice? You've written a lot about nonprofit organizations or NGOs.
Is it a common practice for NGOs to channel money through intermediaries, entities, in ways that obscure the ultimate recipient or purpose of those funds?
Speaker 9
Yes. To some degree, there is dark money funding through and this happens on both the right and the left. Sure. You have groups like Sixteen Thirty Fund and the Tides Foundation that purpose that seems set up to hide which donors are funding which projects.
Speaker 33
Okay. And are there legal or ethical issues with this? This, I don't know. Money laundering, if you will.
Speaker 9
There is a very important First Amendment right established and upheld through NAACP via Alabama and most recently AFP v Banta that Americans have the right to give to causes they believe in.
Speaker 9
That said, you know, there are questions about this cloaking of dark money. What is not covered in this is lying to a bank, right. By saying you established an account for one purpose, and then using it for another.
Speaker 33
Okay. Does the SPLC reveal what the criteria or metrics are to determine which organizations or individuals are included in their hate map?
Speaker 9
They claim to. Yes. They have, they have because, when I weaselly language. They say, when a group vilifies other people typically by their immutable characteristics, but they use the word typically.
Speaker 33
So far is, Center for Immigration Studies. Correct. I've studied their work quite a bit, and all I see is, desire to enforce federal immigration law, but somehow that makes you a hate group. Well, let's go to someone right here. Doctor Swain, are you an apologist for white supremacists?
Speaker 7
I don't think so. I try to stand up for all Americans. I believe in the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It applies to all races. And in America, we should not be discriminating for or against any group.
Speaker 33
So you have a dream that someday your young children would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character? Yes. I don't know. I think if someone says something like that, they would be labeled a hate group by the SPLC, maybe.
Speaker 33
Probably. And, I think you said it very well, doctor Swain, that rather than monitoring hate groups, the Southern Poverty Law Center has become one.
Speaker 7
And that was 2009. And I had been a democrat all of my life. And so, well, at that time, I was about ready to make a transition, but.
Speaker 33
So that was 2009. Yes. In the last 17 years, has anything changed your mind about SPLC?
Speaker 31
Thank you, chairman. Mister O'Neill, I wanted to talk a little bit about this, the hate map concept. But isn't it true the Southern Poverty Law Center began as a public interest law firm? Correct. Yeah.
And, actually, as a member of the state legislature, we had some issues in which the Southern Poverty Law Center had weighed in on. So I was familiar with the group before this latest set of issues made us kind of more aware of what's going on internally. But, when did the organization start to stray from that original mission or that original course?
Speaker 9
So it strayed from that course in at least two ways and two time periods. The first was in the 1980s when the lawyers all quit because they said that Morris Dees took the organization in a direction of fighting the clan instead of representing poor people in the South. And then the more recent time was really starting in the late 1990s, but ramping up by, you know, a thousand percent in 2010 when they had their hate map and they started going after conservative organizations.
Speaker 31
So let's talk about the hate map. So, first of all, can you explain the hate map?
Speaker 9
Yes. This is a map. The SPLC is best known for suing clan groups into bankruptcy. And so they had a program called Clan Watch. They expanded it to hate-watch because they ran out of grand dragons to slay.
And not to say that white supremacy doesn't exist anymore in America. There are some isolated groups, but by and large, not enough to justify the sort of money that the SPLC gets. And they have this map that's supposed to, and in their words, they say it reveals the infrastructure upholding white supremacy in America today. And this map now includes social conservative organizations like the Family Research Council, Moms for Liberty. It includes now Turning Point USA, PragerU.
It includes Alliance Defending Freedom. It includes the Center for Immigration Studies, the Federation for American Immigration. I mean, I could just go down the list. And it also includes a group of LGBT people who oppose sexualized lessons for children in schools.
Speaker 9
There are a few left-leaning groups on the hate map, but nowhere near, like, the overall bias is very clear against the right. They don't have Antifa. They don't have Jane's Revenge. They do have the new Black Panther party, I believe, which they always reference when they're asked this question. But by and large, the hate map is, well, not solely, but by and large targeted on conservative organizations.
Speaker 31
Very good. Thank you. Mister Perkins, do you think the Southern Poverty Law Center is intentionally trying to draw a distinction between you and these kinds of legitimate hate groups? Do you think they're trying to maybe?
Speaker 3
They use those organizations to marginalize and demean legitimate, conservative Christian organizations.
Speaker 31
Do you think they're purposely diverting money from your organization and reducing your operations, or do you think that's a tactic?
Speaker 3
A part of their con, their broader conspiracy with financial platforms and banks to debank us and other organizations to keep us from being able to get funds from donor advised funds. Yes. So they're trying to bankrupt conservative groups.
Speaker 31
The last thing I would say is do they have relationship with, if there is, for with corporate donations. Is there any linkage between kind of what they were doing to suppress further corporate donations to their organization or to you? Either way.
Speaker 3
I think most of the work was with corporations that had platforms or financial corporations that, like PayPal, would facilitate funding to conservative groups. Most corporations were not giving to conservative groups directly. So it was they were intermediates. They were the vehicles through which people would donate to conservative organizations.
Speaker 31
Yeah. So it wasn't about the ideology of the corporation. It was more about how they facilitated the actual movement of funds.
Speaker 3
Well, I would say some of them willingly went along. Others were pressured by the SPLC using their government connections. And I think some in the tech world have suggested that there were threats about regulating regulators, like in the banking industry. Yep. So I think they use threats and bullying tactics.
Speaker 6
Yes. I seek unanimous consent to introduce an article from 05/08/2026, from The Intercept, which is entitled Big Finance might be dooming the SPLC even before its day in court, describing how some of these larger financial institutions have been blocking donor advised fund donations to the SPLC.
Speaker 34
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So the hate map, you don't like it. I get it. But the SPLC is not a government organization, and we have the First Amendment. So they're free to put what they want, and you, all of you, are free to speak out against it, and to explain why they're wrong.
But as I think of my Republican colleagues, we believe in the First Amendment except, I guess, when it's critical of far-right groups or conservative groups who support these Republicans. But you are not free to use the government to criminally indict an organization based on a completely bogus charge. And I wanna dig into this indictment. On April 21, hours after acting attorney general Todd Blanche and the FBI director, Cash Patel, announced this indictment. Mister Blanche went on Fox and said this.
Speaker 20
No information that we have suggests that the money that they were paying to these informants and these members of these organizations, they then turned around and shared what they learned with law enforcement. To the contrary, or else we would have known from their own words that they had given this money to these guys, and we didn't know it.
Speaker 34
So they had no idea that the SPLC was using informants and providing information to the government. Five days later, mister Blanche was forced to acknowledge that was a false statement. In fact, it was in a document filed by the Department of Justice where he said it is true he went on TV and said it is true that over the years they have selectively shared information with law enforcement. That's well documented and no dispute, but they aren't charged with any of that conduct. What the hell does that mean, they aren't charged with any of that conduct?
The entire premise of this fraud scheme is that SPLC was actually using the money given by the donors to support the hate groups, not to dismantle them as they represented. So any knowledge by the government that the SPLC shared information with them to dismantle these groups completely undermines and defeats the fraud claim. But there's plenty of evidence that the FBI knew that the information provided to them by the SPLC to help the FBI dismantle these groups came from informants. In fact, two weeks before the indictment, the SPLC presented the US attorney's office with evidence that showed that they had been sharing information from informants with the FBI dating back to 2018. And even Blanche's statement that none of the information shared with the FBI was charged in the indictment is false.
It doesn't matter because that's not what the fraud claim is, but it is false because the Charlottesville Unite the Right movement is specifically mentioned in the indictment. But the indictment does not mention the 45-page report that the SPLC sent to multiple FBI offices before the Unite the Right event that included information from their informants. Now we've established that. Now we know this fraud claim is completely bogus, but it gets worse, because it's not even part of the allegations. In paragraph 19 of the indictment, it explains the fraud scheme.
It says that the SPLC represented to the victim donors that their money would be used to help dismantle violent extremist groups, but that they did not tell those donors exactly how. So it actually charges fraud by omission, not misrepresentation. But in order to have fraud by omission, you must prove that the omission was material to the victims, such that they would have acted differently if they had known about it. But there isn't a single allegation in the indictment that any donor would not have donated if they had known about the payments to informants. In fact, everything we know is the opposite.
Miss Wiley has pointed out repeatedly how donors are trying to continue to give. And that intercept article that ranking member Raskin introduced cites 20 donors who now say that they either knew about the paid informants or they would have made their donations anyway. And so, what is this really about? It is weaponizing and politicizing the Department of Justice, not any of your groups, to quash and squash free speech, to muzzle people because you are trying to protect far-right investigations who are huge supporters of the Republican Party. They may not do any oversight over this indictment, but I guarantee you when we take the majority back in January, we will be doing that oversight, and they will.
Speaker 2
Be held accountable. I yield back. Gentleman is back. Someone from Texas is recognized.
Speaker 35
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for holding this hearing, and thank you to the witnesses for taking the time to be here and testify before. So certainly, really appreciate that, and appreciate your expertise. Miss Wiley, have a couple questions for you. Do you still believe in defunding the police?
Speaker 10
I believe in public safety, and that means driving dollars to where we're most likely to prevent crimes from happening, and ensure that we have responsive law enforcement that doesn't violate people's rights and then prevents crime.
Speaker 10
It means making sure we're driving dollars to the things that support public safety, and that's a variety of things.
Speaker 10
Well, I think we have law enforcement. We have talked about the need for law enforcement, particularly when we're fighting hate and bias crimes, which have more than doubled in this country since 2015.
Speaker 35
Very important. During your mayoral race, a few years ago, you said, quote, I'm going to take a billion dollars from New York City police department. Do you still think that's a good idea?
Speaker 10
Well, I'm here to talk about hate crimes, not my run for city. I stand by my run for mayor, and
Speaker 35
It's a stated view. You have to cut the police budget and change what we mean by policing. Do you still stand by that statement as well?
Speaker 10
I stand by the need to invest in community safety to ensure that we have a vibrant civil rights community that is able to participate in.
Speaker 10
I am here to say that I'm really grateful we have the Southern Law Center because it is doing work, including with.
Speaker 35
I'm not sure what that means. I'm referring to a statement that you made a year ago on your LinkedIn. I was so honored and proud to be a New York state delegate for our next president, with vice president Kamala Harris ascending to her job.
Speaker 10
Donald Trump made a comment that was very stereotypical about black people, and it was a joke about his stereotypical statement about black.
Speaker 10
Well, I'm here to talk about hate crime, which I hope you wanna talk about.
Speaker 35
Can you clarify that? Good. I'd like to hear it from the witness, but I appreciate it. Could Hillary Clinton have filled that black job? You called him.
Speaker 35
Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. Doctor Swain, I'd like got a couple questions for you, and thank you again for being here. In your book, The New White Nationalism, which is excellent, you wrote that in 2002, there were approximately 2,000 KKK members in the entire nation.
Sounds like you believe a large portion of them were paid informants. Do you think that the SPLC was involved back in 2002?
Speaker 7
That I referenced, and he did the research. And he was very critical of the Southern Poverty Law Center. And he said at one point that there were more paid informants than actual KKK members. And I will concede that the Southern Poverty Law Center was very successful as far as bankrupting the neo Nazis and the southern, the KKK. So I will concede that.
But I will also argue that as early as 2009, when I wrote the article that triggered the Southern Poverty Law Center, at that time, the new Black Panther party was patrolling the polls, I think, in Philadelphia, and they were intimidating white people, and they had sticks in their hands. And the Southern Poverty Law Center had not labeled them as a hate group. And so in the blog where I ended with, instead of monitoring hate groups, the Southern Poverty Law Center has become one. Instead of labeling or listing the new Black Panther Party, what they did, they went after Lou Dobbs, and they went after the Center for Immigration Studies and anyone who questioned liberal immigration policies.
Speaker 35
Mhmm. And we've got about fifteen, twenty seconds left. You need just to sort of close this out. What are the dangers of paying for these informants and extremist groups like the KKK?
Speaker 7
You get biased information if you're paying people for information. And one of the dangers for our society is that the Southern Poverty Law Center has pretty much become an arm of the Democratic Party. They are very partisan. They should not have that 501c3 status if they're gonna take a side in, to if they're gonna be biased in how they monitor groups and how they destroy individuals like me.
Speaker 5
So sorry. This is an indirect answer to the gentleman from Texas's question. New York Times, what's a black job? Trump's anti-immigration remarks are met with derision. Trump accused immigrants of stealing black jobs during Thursday's debate, prompting criticism from Democrats and other social media users.
So I'm glad to see that the gentleman is on our side. Thank you very much.
Speaker 34
I have another unanimous consent motion to enter into the record an April 17 letter from the attorneys for the SPLC, four days before the indictment, where the organization reminded him of his obligation as a federal prosecutor to inform the grand jury of information that negates evidence of wrongdoing by SPLC, of which there is much. I was
Speaker 2
Our objection. Chair now recognizes the gentle gentleman from Washington.
Speaker 32
Well, thank you, Mister Chair and our distinguished panelists. You know, I don't know what happened to the Southern Poverty Law Center. I know growing up in the Inland Northwest in Eastern Washington. I had some fond, at least favorable, memories towards the Southern Poverty Law Center when we had an Aryan Nations compound in the Coeur D'Alene area, and it resonated with me that the SPLC had played a role in getting those folks out of our communities, and it was generally viewed upon favorably. So I don't know how it went from that organization to what I think today could be accurately described as an almost militant weaponized arm of a progressive Marxist pro political project, here in The United States.
So I guess, you know, mister Neil O'Neill, I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase jump the shark and happy days when Fonzie jumped over the shark, and it certainly the show went downhill from there. Yeah. And you spoke about the quest to start focusing on raising money from SPLC. But how did this organization again go from doing some good work against real racists like the Area Nations to suddenly targeting people trying to exercise their First Amendment rights and care about kids like Moms for Liberty? What where is that process?
Speaker 9
Yeah. The answer to that question is long and complicated, and that's what my book was trying to do. But the main, so first, there was Morsetees who was a consummate fundraiser, and he decided to take the SPLC and that suing the clan direction. And the lawyers said it was like shooting fish in a barrel. But I think the real answer to your question, the substantive answer, is that we've seen on the left this ideological drift where it used to be that they would stand for your right to disagree and speak openly.
And now it is as though if you disagree with anything that the left says, you must be a vile racist hater. Like, this has always been a little bit of the rhetoric, but it got supercharged after 2020. And one of the reasons why Moms for Liberty is on the hate map is because they keep many people on the left seem to work themselves into a lather and think that America is still systemically racist. And critical race theory is so deeply, you know, their idea of critical race theory is that white supremacy is so deeply embedded in our institutions that you have to have a fundamental revolution on a systemic basis. Otherwise, you are supporting white supremacy.
And that's the main reason, I think, why the SPLC justifies calling conservatives the infrastructure upholding white supremacy.
Speaker 9
I don't have expertise on that particularly. I think, I wish I could say that I do believe that, but I don't know.
Speaker 32
You know, they, our colleague from Florida, I think, spoke very passionately, congressman, about really concerning rise on antisemitism. And, you know, when we see these issues of hate that can manifest themselves online in the social media sphere, often with foreign actors, you know, the area that I'm really concerned about is the conspiracy theory mindset in this kind of derangement in the fever swamps of the Internet that can play upon these things. And that's one of the reasons why what's happened to SPLC is so concerning because not only does their own activities of funding these informants, so called informants, using donations to fund racism itself, but just this whole project certainly is laden with fervor for conspiracy theories, and we really do need some good think tank work, NGO work, and other work to focus on this issue across the board of fighting conspiracy theory. And so, you know, however it did happen, this jumping of the heart of the shark for SPLC really did, some poverty law center, think, really did was a detriment to society as a whole. I'll just close by saying, thank you to all the panelists, for all the good work you do, Miss Swane, Mister Perkins, Mister Neil, and Miss Wiley.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I'll yield back.
Speaker 2
Gentlemen, yields back. The, I wanna thank our witnesses for being here today for their great testimony, and I wanna thank those members of the audience who are here with us for the entire hearing, particularly Leo. Thank you. But we appreciate you all being here and what the committee was able to gather from your fine testimony. And you, the witnesses, are excused.
Speaker 15
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have two I'd like to enter into the record. The first, yes.
Speaker 15
Thank you. From the Center for Economic and Policy Research, January 26. The black jobs deficit cost black Americans $87,000,000,000 in 2025 of strong anti-black bias in hiring.
Speaker 15
And I would like to introduce the record, June 24. Forbes, black Americans respond to Trump's notion of black jobs.
Speaker 5
Yes, mister chairman. Thank you. Pursuing the clause 2k6 of rule 11, I hereby move to subpoena acting attorney general Todd Blanche, associate attorney general Stanley Woodward, treasury secretary Scott Bessent, IRS chief executive officer Frank Bisignano, treasury department general counsel Brian Morrissey, to testify before the committee to hearing on Donald Trump's nearly $1,800,000,000 slush fund to reward insurrectionist riders and other alleged victims of weaponization. Ranking members made a motion, sir.
Speaker 2
The motion has been moved. There's been a motion to move and put the, lay the motion on the table. The motion is non-debatable. So, the question occurs on the motion to table. Those in favor, say aye.
Aye. Those opposed, no. No. Opinion of the chair. The ayes have it, and the motion is tabled.
Speaker 2
Request for a court of vote being asked for a recorded vote is requested that clerk will call the roll.
Speaker 36
Mr. Jordan? Yes. Mister Jordan votes yes. Mister Aiza, Mister Biggs, Mister McClintock. Mister McClintock votes aye.
Mister Tiffany, Mister Massey, Mister Roy, Mister Fitzgerald. Mister Fitzgerald votes. Mister Klein, mister Klein votes. I. Mister Goodin, mister Goodin votes I. Mister Vandrew, Mister Nells.
Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore. Votes, aye. Miss Hageman. Miss Hageman votes aye.
Miss Lee. Mr. Hunt. Mr. Fry. Mister Kylie. Mister Kylie votes no.
Mister Grogman? Mister Grogman votes aye. Mister, not? Aye. Mister not votes aye.
Mr. Harris? Aye. Mr. Harris votes aye. Mister Onder? Mister Onder?
Mister Schmidt? Mr Gil? Mister Gil votes, Mister Baumgartner?
Speaker 36
Baumgartner? Raskin? No. Mister Raskin votes no. Mr Nadler?
Miss Lofgren? No. Miss Lofgren votes no. Mister Cohen? Mr Johnson?
No. Mr Johnson votes no. Mister Lu? No. Mister Lu votes no.
Miss Jaipaul? No. Miss Jaipaul votes no. Mister Korea? Miss Scanlan?
No. Miss Scanlan votes no. Mister Nagus? Mister Nagus votes no. Miss Macbeth?
Miss Ross? No. Miss Ross votes no. Miss Ballant? Miss Ballant votes no.
Mister Garcia? Miss Kim Lagarde? No. Miss Kim Lagarde votes no. Mister Moskowitz?
Mister Goldman? No. Mister Goldman votes no. Miss Crockett? Mister Nadler?
Mr. Nadler votes no.
Speaker 36
Mister Garcia. Mister Garcia votes no. Mister Korea? No. Mister Korea votes no.
Speaker 36
Mister Moskowitz votes no. Mister Schmidt, you're not recorded. Mr. Schmidt votes aye. Mister Aiza? Yes.
Mister Aizavoets, yes. Mister Vandru? Yes. Mister Vandruvitz, yes. Mister Fry, you're not recorded.
Mister Fry, votes aye.
Speaker 2
The motion is tabled. That concludes today's hearing. We thank our witnesses for, well, the witness to right, left. We thank them now. Again, without objection, all members will have five legislative days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses or additional materials for the record.
Without objection, the hearing is adjourned.
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