This past week the Department of Justice announced that a federal grand jury in Alabama has charged the Southern Poverty Law Center with multiple counts of wire and bank fraud related charges. One portion of the indictment that drew much attention alleged that the SPLC paid an informant involved in planning the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017. Specifically, it stated that a “field source” was a member of the online leadership chat group that planned the rally and attended the event at the direction of the SPLC. The field source purportedly helped arrange transportation for some attendees, and was paid $270,000 by the SPLC between 2015 and 2023, or about $30,000 a year during that time period.
The Public Reaction
The public reaction to the news was explosive. Among the attendees of Unite the Right and other members of the dissident right, speculation abounded regarding who might have been the SPLC operative. Notable personalities of the not-at-all-united dissident right engaged in finger-pointing and accusations against each other. Higher profile names like Richard Spencer and Jason Kessler were accused by some observers of being the SPLC plant, though the indictment description seems to indicate that the SPLC informant had a minor role in planning and was probably not a high-profile figure. Kessler shared the archive of the group chat with the New York Post, explaining on X that “The best thing to do in this moment is provide absolute transparency. 90% of the people in that chat were not “leaders” and, in fact, were anonymous nobodies.”
Though little is known about the informant, the revelation has provided a pretext for blasting an entirely new narrative about Charlottesville across the web. US Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt retweeted a Real Clear Politics article which stated, “Now, we learn that the entire hoax of Trump and Charlottesville is, itself, built upon another grand lie….it now turns out that the “Unite the Right” rally was organized and financed by the highly partisan, left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center.” While there is a kernel of truth there, this and many other mainstream articles spun the revelation as implying much more than was warranted about the SPLC’s role in the event.
Charlottesville Unite the Right rally
The idea that the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally was “bankrolled” by the SPLC (in the words of The Federalist CEO Sean Davis), seems to imply that the entire event was funded by the leftist group, rather than that they paid a single, low-level informant. Megyn Kelly tweeted Alex Jones’ 2017 claim that “Charlottesville was a false flag run by Southern Poverty Law Center operatives who hired actors to pose at Nazis.” Katie Pavlich tweeted that the rally was “Funded, planned, coordinated and executed” by the SPLC. One Fox news personality claimed the SPLC paid to bus in protesters, preposterously described as mysterious figures whose identities are unknown to this day. One tweet that got a million and a half views described the demonstrators as “paid actors.” Mike Cernovich tweeted “Charlottesville was fake,“ and Jack Posobiec claimed, “The SPLC paid a guy $270,000 who staged Charlottesville.” All week, nationally known commentators and large influencer accounts were pushing implications far beyond what the indictment actually claims.
SPLC Manufactured Racism
Influencer Seth Dillon’s post captures a common theme among mainstream conservatives. “There simply wasn’t enough racism and right-wing extremism to keep the SPLC alive. They had to manufacture it.” This widely-shared claim, echoed by many others, embeds several false ideas. For one, the assumption that standing up for ones’ heritage should be framed negatively as “racism and extremism.” Also, the SPLC didn’t “pay to keep it alive.” A more accurate interpretation is that the desire for White Heritage Americans to collectivize and defend their common interests has been rising, so the SPLC sought to subvert it. But the political figures who still treat “White” like a dirty word prefer Dillon’s interpretation.
One exceptionally vile post by “media personality” Benny Johnson, who has over four million followers, used AI to portray the Charlottesville torch marchers wearing tuxedos and diamonds, shouting things like “We hate everything except money! Check out my bling!” Considering that a dozen men have been charged with felonies for their participation in the march, and at least one man hounded by antifa to the point of committing suicide (there is reason to believe the number is higher), this portrayal is not only preposterous but wildly offensive.
It was bad enough – unforgivable, really – that cowardly and unprincipled politicians and conservative influencers failed to stand up for the First Amendment rights of the marchers in 2017. Now they have added a new twisted layer to their betrayal. They aim to steal the truth of their identity and the purpose of their sacrifice by describing them, despite no basis in fact whatsoever, as phonies, shills, and tools of the very people they stood to oppose.
Additional posts by high-profile influencers took another seemingly coordinated and strange turn which may be telling. Synchronously, many started posting videos of nationalist the group Patriot Front which implied that they were connected to the SPLC scandal. Mike Lee shared video of Patriot Front marchers with the remark “SPLC in action. Shameless bastards.” Similarly, Buzz Patterson stated “These dudes were Southern Poverty Law Center dudes. They thought we were stupid and racist. Of course we aren’t, so nobody bit. It was all a setup.” Millions of people saw these and other similar posts. This is odd for a number of reasons – and not just because of the close timing of the strangely similar posts. Patriot Front was not only absent from the SPLC indictment, but the group did not even exist at the time of the Charlottesville rally. If I were the suspicious type, I might believe that someone (?!) was trying to muddy the waters of public perception by targeting a group they fear or disfavor with these non-fact-based accusations.
One wonders who is behind this strong push for revisionism about Unite the Right, and why? Is the Trump administration trying to put an end to the “fine people hoax” once and for all? Are establishment conservatives trying to dampen the effectiveness of more racially aware, nationalistic grass roots movements? Whatever the catalyst, this new wave of distorted Charlottesville theories is wearying to those of us who have been standing against a tsunami of misinformation about the rally since 2017.
One more possible implication is worth mentioning. In 2021, the Sines v Kessler trial rendered a multi-million dollar verdict against over a dozen notables involved with Unite the Right based on a very loosely defined “conspiracy.” The plaintiffs in the case connected planners and speakers of the event to the damage caused by the car crash involving James Fields, though none of the other defendants had ever interacted with him – or even knew who he was – prior to Unite the Right. An important part of that case was the presentation of posts from chat rooms that took place in the days and weeks leading up to the event. Some of the most inflammatory chat room comments, read to the jury to bolster the plaintiff’s claims that Unite the Right was a “violent conspiracy,” were posted by people who were not party to the lawsuit at all. It is entirely possible that the paid SPLC operative made some of the posts which were used to inflame the jury against the Sines defendants, and thus contributed to the multi-million dollar judgment against them. If so, the injustice against the Charlottesville demonstrators is multiplied even further than we originally believed.
Let us continue to pray for justice and the revelation of truth, echoing the words of Jefferson Davis, ‘“Truth crushed to earth is truth still and like a seed will rise again.”
~ This article was re-posted by TSNL with the expressed permission of Anne Wilson Smith – The Abbeville Institute Press
