About this transcript: This is a full AI-generated transcript of US Congress LIVE: Hearing Erupts Over Trump Admin DOJ Abuse, Corruption, Fraud & Chaos — Democrats from Hook Global, published October 13, 2026. The transcript contains 30,976 words with timestamps and was generated using Whisper AI.
"Mr. Brian Fair is the Interim CEO and President of the Southern Poverty Law Center. He previously served as the Chairman of SPLC's Board of Directors. Mr. Ryan Bangert is the Senior Vice President for Strategic Initiatives and Special Counsel to the President at the Alliance Defending Freedom. He..."
[0:00] Mr. Brian Fair is the Interim CEO and President of the Southern Poverty Law Center. He previously
[0:04] served as the Chairman of SPLC's Board of Directors. Mr. Ryan Bangert is the Senior Vice
[0:10] President for Strategic Initiatives and Special Counsel to the President at the Alliance Defending
[0:14] Freedom. He previously served in the Office of the Texas Attorney General and was a litigation partner
[0:19] at Baker Botts LLP. And Professor Mary McCord is a Visiting Professor of Law at the Georgetown
[0:25] University Law Center. She previously served in numerous roles in the Department of Justice. We
[0:29] welcome our witnesses and thank them for appearing today. We'll begin by swearing you in. You know
[0:33] how this works. Would you please rise and raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm under penalty
[0:42] of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge,
[0:46] information, beliefs? So help you God. The records show that the witnesses have answered in the
[0:52] affirmative. Thank you. Please be seated. Please know that your written testimony will be entered
[0:56] into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you summarize your testimony in five
[1:01] minutes. We're just going to start with Mr. Fair and we're going to go right down the line. So Mr.
[1:05] Fair, you are recognized for five minutes. Good morning, Chairman Jordan, Ranking Member Raskin,
[1:11] members of the committee. Last July, I took on a one-year leave from teaching to become the interim
[1:17] head of the Southern Poverty Law Center. So my testimony today will be one of my last official acts
[1:23] in this role. It has been one of the greatest honors of my life to work alongside the talented,
[1:29] dedicated, and principled SPLC staff. For 55 years, with the support of generous donors who appreciate
[1:37] our work, the SPLC has fought racial terror, white supremacy, and other forms of discrimination and
[1:44] hate, seeking to build and defend a multiracial democracy where we can all live and thrive. That
[1:51] was the goal of the Civil Rights Movement, and it is our mission. We are known for exposing and
[1:57] dismantling extremist hate groups. We took on the United Clans of America, whose hateful violence
[2:04] killed four little girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, and we sued them out of existence.
[2:10] In the decades since, hate has continued, but so have our efforts to expose it through litigation,
[2:17] policy, research, and education. We fight for the underdog, the poor, the unhoused, the hungry,
[2:26] the incarcerated, the disenfranchised, the immigrant, the outcast, the vilified. Many groups and some in
[2:35] this room have misrepresented our work, including our confidential informant program repeating various
[2:42] false allegations. Some say we've lost our way. That's false. We've never lost our North Star,
[2:49] a fair and just society for every person. All our programs advance that mission.
[2:57] Our work saves lives, but it comes at a price. Since our earliest days, we've been targeted
[3:06] by those who oppose our mission. Our office was firebombed. Our staff threatened. Our leaders,
[3:14] the target of assassination. We know political violence. We unequivocally condemn it. However,
[3:22] despite the danger, we will not stop exposing hate. This morning, we released our annual year in
[3:29] Hate and Extremism Report. It chronicles how the hard right has weaponized the levers of government to
[3:35] weaken the political and economic power of non-whites, immigrants, women, the LGBTQ plus community,
[3:44] religious minorities, and the poor. The forces turning back hard-won progress against discrimination
[3:50] are unrelenting and unashamed. The SPLC, alongside many civil rights groups and democracy defenders,
[3:59] is resisting them. To American people of goodwill, especially those left out of the American promise,
[4:06] your civic participation matters now more than any time since the Civil Rights Movement.
[4:13] Today, I'm joined by several people who inspire our work. First, Ms. Karen Finn and her son Aaron are here.
[4:22] Aaron faced expulsion from school for alleged conduct that was a manifestation of his disability.
[4:27] Aaron lives with autism, and federal law prohibits schools from excluding students from behaviors
[4:34] connected to their disabilities. We sued, and with his mother's courage and dedication and his perseverance,
[4:41] Aaron graduated from that school in 2023. Ms. Tanya Gersh is also here. A Jewish Montana mom, Gersh and her
[4:52] family became the target of relentless anti-Semitic harassment from white nationalists, including
[4:57] threatening phone calls, where all that could be heard on the line was gunshots. With the center's help,
[5:04] Gersh won a $14 million judgment against the neo-Nazi who incited her harassers.
[5:10] We stand with Karen, Aaron, Tanya, and thousands we protect every day.
[5:17] Fannie Lou Hamer said, nobody's free until everybody's free. The SPLC will continue our
[5:25] constitutionally protected work to ensure everyone in this country is treated with dignity, lives lives
[5:32] free of discrimination, and enjoys liberty and opportunity to thrive. These promises of our democracy
[5:40] are not self-executing. They require our collective vigilance, and we will continue to defend them when
[5:48] they come under attack. Finally, I must note that I'm constrained in answering some questions today
[5:54] because they may touch on matters involving pending criminal litigation against the SPLC,
[6:00] or conversations that I've had with counsel. Frankly, this constraint is the result of the majorities
[6:07] injecting itself into a pending criminal matter three days after it was filed, and then refusing our
[6:13] request to delay this hearing until that case is resolved. With that, I will answer what I can.
[6:20] Professor McCord, you're recognized. Members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify.
[6:26] The Department of Justice should not use its power as a weapon against people and organizations disliked
[6:32] by the president. No one has said this better than former U.S. Supreme Court Justice and U.S. Attorney
[6:37] General Robert Jackson in his 1940 speech, the federal prosecutor. He said, the prosecutor has more
[6:45] control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America. The prosecutor can order arrests,
[6:51] present cases to the grand jury in secret session, and on the basis of his one-sided presentation of the
[6:57] facts, can cause the citizen to be indicted and held for trial. If the prosecutor is obliged to choose
[7:03] his cases, it follows that he can choose his defendants. It is in this realm in which the
[7:08] prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass, or selects some group of unpopular
[7:14] persons and then looks for an offense, that the greatest danger of abuse of the prosecuting power
[7:19] lies. It is here that law enforcement becomes personal, and the real crime becomes that of being
[7:25] unpopular with the predominant or governing group, being attached to the wrong political views,
[7:31] or being personally obnoxious to or in the way of the prosecutor himself. What Justice Jackson warned
[7:37] about has come to pass. The DOJ has initiated fraud investigations against political enemies,
[7:43] such as New York Attorney General Letitia James, Federal Reserve Board Member Lisa Cook and former
[7:49] Chair Jerome Powell, and Senator Adam Schiff. And at the same time, the President has granted clemency to
[7:55] more than 70 allies, donors, and others convicted of hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud across
[8:01] his two terms, often after receiving financial or other benefits from them. And he, along with his
[8:07] Attorney General nominee, have orchestrated a fraud on the court, settling the President's collusive lawsuit
[8:12] against the IRS, in which he, his family members, and his businesses all received from the Justice
[8:18] Department an effective pardon from criminal and civil investigations, audits, claims, and prosecutions
[8:25] by any federal department or agency on any subject based on anything that could have been
[8:30] initiated as of the date of the settlement, known or unknown. The so-called settlement came after
[8:36] a federal judge ordered briefing on whether there was actual adversity between the parties,
[8:40] a constitutional requirement for a lawsuit. This one-sided use of prosecutorial power extends
[8:46] to the President's National Security Presidential Memorandum 7. Using the domestic terrorism label,
[8:52] it mandates that federal government, including the DOJ, use every tool in its toolbox to target groups
[8:59] with ideologies this administration perceives as, quote, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism,
[9:05] and anti-Christianity, extremism on migration, race, and gender, and hostility towards those who
[9:11] hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality. NSPM 7 states that the groups and
[9:18] entities that perpetuate this extremism have created a movement that embraces and elevates violence to
[9:24] achieve policy outcomes. It relies for support on the murder of Charlie Kirk, assassination attempts
[9:30] against the President and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and the so-called riots in protest of ICE activity.
[9:36] And although murders and threats of violence are reprehensible and illegal, the examples do not
[9:42] justify the stark lack of parody in NSPM 7's treatment of supposedly dangerous ideologies. There is no mention in
[9:50] NSPM 7 of the politically motivated murders of Minnesota Democratic Legislator Melissa Hortman
[9:56] and her husband or the mass shootings committed in Buffalo, New York, El Paso, Texas, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
[10:03] by white supremacists who justified their violence based on the Great Replacement Theory.
[10:08] The one-sided memorandum not only lacks legitimacy, it raises the stakes for organizations that hold views
[10:14] the administration dislikes. It has the strong potential to lead to the discriminatory targeting of
[10:19] organizations based on the exercise of First Amendment rights. Within months of then Attorney
[10:25] General Pan Bondi's December 2025 memo reminding prosecutors of the many federal criminal provisions
[10:32] that might be used in implementing NSPM 7, the SPLC was indicted. SPLC has for decades spoken out
[10:40] against racial violence, sued to protect civil rights and dismantle hate groups, and worked cooperatively
[10:46] with law enforcement. Commenting on the charges the president called SPLC one of the greatest political
[10:52] scams in American history. I'm not here to discuss the substance of the charges against SPLC, which is
[10:58] being ably defended in court, but the targeting of the organization harkens the very danger Justice
[11:04] Jackson warned about. That law enforcement becomes personal and the real crime becomes that of being
[11:10] unpopular with the predominant or governing group, being attached to the wrong political views,
[11:15] or being personally obnoxious to or in the way of the prosecutor himself. Thank you.
[11:21] Thank you. Recognizes the gentleman from Maryland. Thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman.
[11:25] Ms. McCord, our colleagues invoked the fact that the SPLC had an informant in a white nationalist group
[11:31] at the infamous Unite the Right rally in August of 2017 in Charlottesville as some kind of indictment of the
[11:39] SPLC. But didn't that SPLC informant create the information that allowed the SPLC to send three different
[11:47] FBI field offices a 45-page memorandum warning of planned violence and the potential for violence at this
[11:57] extremist confab? That is the facts that have been represented in court. Mr. Fair, is it true that the SPLC sent a memo based on that
[12:07] informant's work to three different FBI field offices? Yes, it is. Okay. The chairman spoke with some
[12:15] indignation about the fact that there were three million or four million dollars spent giving to
[12:21] undercover informants to try to expose the work of the extremist groups, as in Charlottesville in 2017,
[12:30] where Heather Heyer was killed by a fanatic racist. I'm just curious how the members of the panel feel
[12:38] about this proposed $1.776 billion political slush fund set up for the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers,
[12:46] and other convicted criminals and rioters from January 6th. Do you think that that fund should be
[12:53] shut down in any other similar fund? Mr. Fair? Yes or no? Yes, I do. Dr. King, do you agree that that
[13:00] should be shut down? I will not speak on whether that particular fund should be shut down. Or any such
[13:06] fund. I think some of these slush funds that SPLC is using. Okay, but my question is about the one
[13:13] proposed by Todd Blanche. It's a yes or no? I will not answer on that. I think they need to stop killing
[13:19] the babies and cutting the penises off. And so any slush fund. I have limited time. We can get money in
[13:24] that is the problem. Mr. Banger, do you believe that the $1.776 billion political slush fund should
[13:32] be shut down in any similar fund? I think that's a question for Congress to answer. Okay, and Professor
[13:37] McCord, what do you think? Should that political slush fund be shut down? Yes, it should. And any similar
[13:43] slush fund? Yes, it should. Okay. So the the conceit of the prosecution, this whole hearing, the whole
[13:50] attack on the SPLC is that there's some contradiction between fighting against extremist hate and racism
[13:57] for decades, and then sending people undercover as informants to find out what these groups are doing.
[14:03] Do you agree that there's a contradiction, Professor McCord? I agree that it is a very useful
[14:10] law enforcement tool to use informants and cooperative cooperators to learn more, not just about hate
[14:16] groups and potential domestic violent extremism, but also as a tool to dismantle drug trafficking
[14:22] groups and human trafficking. So if the FBI sent someone undercover to expose a mafia organization,
[14:29] narco traffickers, international human traffickers, that wouldn't mean that the FBI is supporting those
[14:35] groups, would it? That's correct. Okay. As a matter of law, and as a matter of fact, can you have a
[14:43] criminal fraud if there are no victims of the fraud? To have a criminal fraud, you have to have made
[14:53] statements and fraudulently to induce some activity. And if it did not induce some sort of activity like
[14:59] a gift or donation, then there is no. Well, what I don't understand is that suddenly out of the blue,
[15:04] there's a claim that the Southern Poverty Law Center is engaged in fraud because it's been extremely
[15:10] effective. I wish it had been even more effective, for example, in stopping the Oklahoma City bombing,
[15:16] where nearly 200 people were killed in an act of fanatical white nationalism. But it's been quite
[15:22] effective. I don't know of any group that's been more effective, other than potentially the FBI itself,
[15:28] in stopping extremist white violence. Well, do you believe that it is an act of fraud when the donors
[15:40] to the group understand perfectly well that people are being sent undercover to try to get information
[15:45] on what these groups are doing? If donors were not defrauded, and no donors have come forward,
[15:54] to my knowledge, suggesting that they were unaware of what the SBLC was doing, that program has been
[16:00] known for a long time. And so that creates a problem. I mean, it just seems to me amazing to
[16:07] be alleging a fraud when there are no victims. When I just looked up the Trump University case,
[16:11] there were hundreds and hundreds of people coming forward screaming to high heaven about how they'd
[16:15] been ripped off and exploited by this fake university, and they won $25 million. So do you pay the same
[16:22] people to do the bomb and then go and comfort the people from being bombed? You pay the same people to
[16:27] do both jobs? That's kind of fraud to me. That's weird and chaotic and confusing. Well, Dr. King,
[16:32] I don't think there's any allegation that anybody who was working with the Southern Poverty Law Center
[16:36] bombed anyone. Do you have information to that effect? I don't personally, but outside agitators
[16:42] did bomb our house in 63 and then ran back and took off the Ku Klux Klan sheets and put on police
[16:47] things and ran up in the yard. Well, that's the same people. It was crazy. I'm with you. And that's a
[16:52] statement about the racism of that police force working with the Ku Klux Klan. Hey,
[16:56] y'all pay both of them to do the double jobs. SPLC does. Really. You hire them to do the bombing,
[17:02] then you hire them to fix the bombing. That's weird. Dr. King, you're asserting a lot of things under
[17:06] oath and you haven't brought the evidence with you. I'll get some for you. Okay, please,
[17:11] bring us the evidence and I'll yield back to you, Mr. Chairman. I'll get some for you. Mr. Fair,
[17:14] did the Southern Poverty Law Center use donor money to have field sources attend extremist rallies across the
[17:20] country? Mr. Chairman. It's a simple question. Did you use your donor money for that purpose?
[17:30] We used donor money. Yes or no. Paid confidential informants to infiltrate extremist organizations.
[17:39] Did the Southern Poverty Law Center use donor dollars to have field sources host extremist rallies
[17:43] throughout the country? Not to my knowledge. That's not what the indictment says. Did the
[17:49] Southern Poverty Law Center use donor dollars to have field sources grow existing chapters of extremist
[17:53] groups? Mr. Chairman, as I said earlier. It's a simple question, Mr. Fair.
[17:58] Did you use donor money for the purpose I just read? I'm reading straight from the
[18:02] superseding indictment. And Mr. Chairman, the indictment will be managed and responded to by
[18:07] counsel in the criminal case. Well, you just answered a question from Mr. Raskin concerning
[18:12] the indictment. He asked you, did field sources send information to the FBI that help with things?
[18:15] You answered that question. That's a matter of public knowledge. That's in our public filing.
[18:19] Did the Southern Poverty Law Center use donor money to have field sources create new chapters of extremist
[18:25] groups? Again, Mr. Chairman. Did the Southern Poverty Law Center use donor money to recruit
[18:31] new individuals into those extremist groups? I assume you don't want me to answer since you're
[18:37] not giving me time to answer. No, I'm giving you time to answer because that's a yes. Did you use your
[18:41] donors money for that purpose? Yes or no? Again, those issues will be resolved in the pending allegations
[18:49] against the SPLC. It seems to me if the answer is no, you could say no. We have asserted that the
[18:55] allegations are false. Did the Southern Poverty Law Center use donor money to have field sources
[19:00] make donations to extremist group leaders and purchase materials for cross burnings?
[19:04] It's alleged in the indictment. Did it happen? We've alleged that those allegations are false.
[19:10] Did the Southern Poverty Law Center use donor dollars to have field sources create racist
[19:13] paraphernalia that extremist groups sold at rallies? We've alleged that those allegations are false.
[19:20] Okay, how about this? What is Fox Photography? Mr. Chairman, what I've learned about
[19:32] Fox Photography? I've learned from counsel in conversations with counsel. How about Northwest
[19:38] Technologies? And they're covered by the attorney-client privilege. And these are these are
[19:43] well, did the Southern Poverty Law Center establish shell companies to pay to run the money through to
[19:50] then pay the field sources? Again, all of the allegations that you are referring to, Chairman Jordan,
[19:59] will be responded to by our counsel in the middle district of Alabama. Did you pay the field sources
[20:11] directly or did you pay them through an intermediary? Mr. Chairman Jordan? Yep. Our counsel will respond
[20:20] to all the allegations in the indictment in the case pending in the middle district. Well,
[20:25] there's all these companies that you sent money to Center Investigative Agency, not the CIA, but your CIA,
[20:32] Fox Photography, Northwest Technologies, Tech Writers Group, Rare Books Warehouses, Imagery Link,
[20:37] J&J Electronics, and Kelly's Marine. And I just want to know if that was the intermediate shell
[20:42] companies that you guys set up to pay the field sources. Is that true? Will the good chairman yield
[20:49] for just a moment? No, I got just a minute and a half and then I'll be happy to entertain a question you
[20:52] may have. Chairman Jordan, our counsel will respond to all the allegations in the middle district of
[20:59] Alabama. Okay. Did you do it all for the money? I mean, you said now, I think the Southern
[21:08] Public Law Center said you're no longer going to use these field sources. You're going to stop the
[21:11] program, but you did it for multiple years. And according to the indictment, it was $4 million
[21:15] that you shelled out to these various field sources to engage in all the activities I just read.
[21:20] Was it all about the money? As we said in our public statement, Chairman Jordan,
[21:24] we did it to protect our staff and to protect the public. Did fundraising increase after paying people
[21:31] to stay in these groups who actually wanted out of them? Did your fundraising increase? Did the donations
[21:36] coming in increase? Chairman Jordan, I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to when you say
[21:43] How about this? After the crazy Charlottesville rally, did fundraising go up? Mr. Chairman,
[21:50] our fundraising went up. Fundraising where one of your field sources helped coordinate transportation.
[21:56] Our fundraising went up when President Donald Trump was elected in 2016. Fundraising go up after you
[22:03] paid a field source to coordinate the transportation at an event in Charlottesville where a person was killed.
[22:07] That's what I'm asking. Did it go up? Because according to what we know,
[22:09] you went from $51 million to $133 million in one year. And that happened when President Donald
[22:16] Trump was elected. Who's the president of the National Socialist Party? You know,
[22:25] you paid him $70,000. He was field source number 30. I just want to know who he is. Do you know who
[22:32] he is? Mr. Chairman, that's an allegation in the indictment that will be responded to by counsel
[22:39] in the Middle District of Alabama. My time has expired. The chair now recognizes
[22:43] the gentleman from New York. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman,
[22:48] in the Justice Department that has lost more than 10,000 attorneys since the start of President
[22:53] Trump's second term, it's not surprising that the indictment of SPLC are replete with mistakes of
[23:01] fact and law. In the words of one former prosecutor, DOJ's indictment of SPLC, quote,
[23:07] falls egregiously short of alleging a crime, close quote. At its core, the indictment claims that SPLC
[23:13] defrauded its donors and betrayed its stated mission to dismantle hate groups by paying informants
[23:18] who, quote, were either associated with violent extremist organizations or had infiltrated such
[23:23] organizations at the SPLC's donation direction, close quote. But this is directly contradicted by the
[23:29] fact that SPLC's donors have said that they knew about and liked the informant program. The truth is that
[23:35] SPLC's use of paid informants has been public knowledge for decades. Mr. Fair, has information
[23:42] provided by informants to the SPLC been used to prevent politically and political and racially
[23:48] motivated violence? I'm sorry, Congressman Nadler. Has information provided by informants to SPLC
[23:57] been used to prevent political and racially motivated violence? Yes, Congressman Nadler. We shared
[24:05] information that we learned through our confidential informant program with local, state, and federal
[24:12] law enforcement to prevent racial violence against the public at large and to protect our staff.
[24:18] Thank you. SPLC proactively shared information obtained from its informants with law enforcement
[24:24] agencies in order to prevent the activities of extremist groups, in other words. Mr. Fair, can you explain
[24:31] what actions the SPLC took before the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in an attempt to help law
[24:37] enforcement? Congressman Nadler, again, I must say that Council will respond to all allegations in the
[24:51] indictment in the Middle District of Alabama. That's not an allegation. It's part of the allegation. Okay.
[24:59] Mr. Fair, can you explain how the SPLC's informant program helped thwart a terrorist attack in Las Vegas?
[25:06] Yes, Congressman Nadler. In our public filings, we have already stated that SPLC shared information
[25:19] about a particular white nationalist group, Atomwaffen, to prevent a terrorist attack in Las Vegas in 2019.
[25:30] Thank you. And what about Philadelphia's Navy Yard? Can you tell us briefly about that?
[25:36] Mr. Again, in 2018, the SPLC shared information with the FBI and with law enforcement about potential
[25:46] criminal activity by a member of the Vanguard America. We shared that information with law enforcement.
[25:56] Thank you. It sounds to me like SPLC's informant program has been essential and that SPLC has worked
[26:01] with law enforcement to keep our community safe. And yet, shortly after the indictment was announced,
[26:07] Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche falsely claimed on Fox News that the DOJ had, quote,
[26:12] no information, unquote, that suggests that SPLC shared information collected through its informant
[26:18] program with federal law enforcement. This was obviously a lie. In fact, DOJ was forced to walk back
[26:24] Blanche's false claim after SPLC filed a motion to address the government's, quote, materially false
[26:30] statements. Ms. McCord, the acting attorney general, the chief law enforcement official in this country,
[26:37] made a patently false statement publicly about a material fact in ongoing prosecution. Can you explain
[26:44] why a false statement made by an acting attorney general directly related to an ongoing prosecution
[26:50] would be concerning? Well, this is something, first of all, given that Mr. Blanche has now rescinded that
[26:57] statement. It begs the question of whether he knew what he said was false at the time. And if he did,
[27:03] it's a terrible thing to try to prejudice the American public against the SPLC in these criminal
[27:08] charges by making a statement like that, which is really core to the indictment, whether they were
[27:14] sharing information with law enforcement. Thank you. DOJ's case against SPLC, much like the investigations
[27:20] into James Comey, Letitia James, Jerome Powell, Lisa Cook, and so many others as yet another example of
[27:26] the Trump administration's total weaponization of the Department of Justice. And this committee's hearing
[27:32] today is an example of slander against one of the greatest civil rights organizations we've had.
[27:40] I yield back. I move to enter into the record a letter from the Jewish Council of Public Affairs.
[27:47] With objection. Dozens of rabbis praising the role of the SPLC in opposing anti-Semitism.
[27:56] Objection. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California.
[27:59] So during a September 2020 presidential debate, when he was asked to condemn white supremacists and
[28:08] tell their militia groups to stand down, Donald Trump told the Proud Boys to, quote,
[28:15] stand back and stand by. That was a message that elated white supremacists online. Months later,
[28:23] President Trump had lost the election and spent months spreading the big lie about widespread fraud.
[28:30] And the Proud Boys were no longer standing by. On January 6th, they were on the ellipse.
[28:37] They were in the streets. And as we all know, we were here. They made it into our capital.
[28:43] As a member of the January 6th select committee, I saw firsthand how organized extremist groups
[28:50] helped transform political grievances into coordinated action, hate, and then violence.
[28:58] Before January 6th, the Southern Poverty Law Center spent years warning about organizations like the
[29:05] Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and other extremist movements. Professor McCord, can you explain what
[29:13] SPLC must have seen in those groups that caused them to raise concerns about them long before their
[29:20] attack on the Capitol? Yes, Congressmember. Like other research organizations that study the groups with
[29:30] ideologies that espouse things like white supremacism and the Great Replacement Theory and tend to,
[29:38] in some cases, not all cases, but advocate for violence on behalf of those ideologies and in
[29:44] furtherance of those ideologies. These are things that lead SPLC, as other research organizations do,
[29:50] to give warnings about violence that may be coming. And certainly before January 6th, the red flags and
[29:56] the warning signs were there and were communicated by SPLC as well as other organizations.
[30:02] How did the prosecution of anti-government actors who participated in the storming of the Capitol on
[30:09] January 6th affect groups like Oath Keepers and the activities of anti-government militias? And what
[30:17] happened after the Trump administration issued its pardons to January 6th insurrection participants? And
[30:25] did the pardons of the January 6th insurrectionists help or hurt the fight against white supremacist
[30:32] violence and extremism in this country? Three questions for you, Professor McCord.
[30:37] Right after January 6th, we saw groups like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the National Three
[30:43] Percenters dismantle their nationwide organizations. We saw the Oath Keepers pretty much dissolve. But of
[30:49] course, with the pardons and the clemency and the commutations, we've seen a resurgence of these
[30:55] groups. We've seen them monetizing things. And we've seen also, unfortunately, members not just of those
[31:02] groups, but people who were pardoned committing additional crimes.
[31:05] Additional? We have a list of the crimes they've committed, some really disgusting and serious
[31:11] measures. Mr. Fair, if Congress tries to diminish SPLC and dismiss its warnings about groups like the
[31:20] Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, what lessons would we miss about the threat posed by organized domestic
[31:28] extremism to our American democracy? Thank you, Congressman Longwood. The lessons we would miss is
[31:38] that all of us are less safe with the threat of domestic terrorism, that these groups that both express
[31:50] hate, that express white supremacy, that terrorize various groups are a danger to all of us.
[32:00] And we need to know about them. We need to know about what they say. And we need to know about the
[32:10] actions that they take. That's what we'll miss. I thank you for those answers. I think it's really
[32:16] quite telling that the Republican majority on this committee has now had a second hearing to scrutinize
[32:22] SPLC rather than discuss their findings and figure out how to prevent another such attack on our democracy.
[32:29] These lunatics that Donald Trump unleashed back onto America's streets are prepared to go to war for
[32:36] him again. They're violent. They're hate-filled. And they have a president who will not hold them
[32:42] accountable for violating the law. He's pardoned them. He says he wants to give them taxpayer money
[32:48] to reward them. That's the threat we need to be discussing, not the folks at SPLC who are pointing
[32:55] out this threat. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. General, I yield back. I would just remind
[33:00] Mr. Fair that the Family Research Council doesn't terrorize anyone. And shortly after you put them
[33:05] on the hate list, the individual came into their facility and shot the security guard.
[33:15] For unanimous consent? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I ask unanimous consent to introduce the SPLC's hate map,
[33:21] which lists a half a dozen different chapters of the Nation of Islam as anti-Semitic hate groups.
[33:27] Without objection, the chair now recognizes – and I should have mentioned this earlier. I apologize.
[33:31] If you need a break, just let us know. We'll be happy to give you a break. You understand,
[33:35] because it's going to, as you know, it's going to go on for a while here. And I think it's the
[33:38] gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Fair, why was the Southern Poverty Law Center
[33:47] called the Southern Poverty Law Center? We were founded to defend the poor, to assist the poor,
[33:55] to resist racial terror against poor people across the South. So anti-poverty work has been in our DNA.
[34:07] We continue to do work on behalf of the unhoused, the hungry, the poor.
[34:19] And your founders – I know – I knew Morris Dees. I know Morris Dees. I haven't seen him in ever
[34:23] for a while, and Julian Bond was a dear friend of mine. They were two of your founders, were they not?
[34:28] That's correct. Were there other founders that people might know?
[34:34] The three founders, Morris Dees and Joe Levin, came together and named Julian Bond the first president.
[34:41] Pretty good crew. Outstanding crew.
[34:43] Yeah, they all should have gotten presidential medals. I tried to get Julian one, but for some reason,
[34:47] our president – two of our presidents – failed. Why, I do not know.
[34:51] So the Southern Poverty Law Center was not formed to go after international discrimination and hate.
[34:59] There's plenty of hate in the South. The South's abundant with hate.
[35:03] Our initial work was primarily focused in the South, but that work has expanded
[35:08] to cover the entire country. I don't understand the questioning
[35:16] some of the people on the panel about suggesting the Southern Poverty Law Center is not concerned
[35:21] about anti-Semitism and Jewish hate. As a person who's been exposed to Jewish hate and anti-Semitism since
[35:27] my birth, I guess, and could get a ton of it on the ex-Mr. Musk's hate-filled organization,
[35:40] a lot of anti-Semitism, which has increased lately, why would they be asking such questions? You go after
[35:49] anti-Semitism, do you not? Absolutely. We've, as I said in my early response for 55 years,
[35:56] we've been resisting anti-Semitism. I mentioned that Tanya Gersh is here today. We've also recently
[36:05] filed two lawsuits against the Goem Defense League in Tennessee for attacks on a Jewish center and on
[36:13] Jewish and African-American people in Nashville. This is work that we've done that we will continue
[36:19] to do. Again, anti-Semitism is hateful and groups that traffic in it, whatever their political ideology,
[36:29] would be identified. Have you had any Jewish people contact you or Jewish organizations and complain?
[36:34] No, we have not. As a Jewish person, I welcome all faiths to come to our aid and support, and many
[36:46] have. Many, many have. But usually when there's anti-Semitism, the Anti-Defamation League is on it.
[36:57] Jewish groups are not afraid to stand up and speak out against anti-Semitism, but none of them have
[37:01] contacted you. Nor are we afraid to stand up and speak out against anti-Semitism, Congressman Cohen.
[37:11] What's going on in our country really is scary, and what Ms. Loughburn said was true. We're looking
[37:17] at a president who said, stand by, stand up and stand by, or stand down and stand by. And he has
[37:26] pardoned the people who committed treason against our country, violence against police people, and
[37:32] desecrated our capital. They were convicted or pled guilty, and he pardoned them. And now he wants to
[37:39] give them money, and he may not want to leave come January 2029, and he's got his army prepared.
[37:51] I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people in ICE aren't J6ers. That's why they wear their masks.
[37:57] They're not worried about COVID. They're hiding themselves from the public, and there's a reason
[38:03] for it. I value your work. When one of my best friends died about eight years ago, Urban Salke,
[38:11] who was also a friend of Julian Bond's, an outstanding member of the Ratner Sugarman Lucas Law Firm,
[38:17] the first African-American integrated law firm in Memphis, I ask that people give memorials
[38:25] to the Southern Poverty Law Center in his honor. I'm proud of every memorial that's been given,
[38:29] and I'm proud of every donation I've made. I thank you for your work, and I thank you for continuing
[38:33] the work of Julian Bond and Morris Dees and Mr. Levin. You are a blessing. Thank you. Thank you.
[38:38] Mr. Chairman, I've got a unanimous consideration. A statement from Kristen Clark, general counsel for
[38:51] the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People that unequivocally opposes the
[39:00] targeting of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization dedicated to combating hate violence
[39:06] in America. The chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[39:12] This hearing takes me back to the 50s, the time of McCarthyism, the time of demonic and demonizing
[39:24] attacks against political enemies that was in vogue by the notorious and infamous Joe McCarthy,
[39:34] the House Un-American Activities Committee. This is what this reminds me of. And when I go back to the
[39:40] 50s, I also think about how mainstreamed during that time was white supremacy. It was mainstreamed. It
[39:51] was so mainstreamed that presidents had to call out the troops to maintain order or to bring order. I'm
[40:01] reminded of the racist governor of Arkansas denying entry for the Little Rock Nine into the all-white
[40:10] Central High School. I'm sure you remember too, Dr. King, back in 57, the little girls trying to get into
[40:20] the building and being spat upon and taunted and threatened. And I'm sure you remember Dr. King
[40:28] King, in 1962 in Mississippi, when James Meredith was to enroll at the University of Mississippi and
[40:38] President Kennedy had to call out the troops to guarantee that they stopped the riots so that
[40:44] this man could enroll. And then again, in 63, when the troops were called out by the president,
[40:54] as George Wallace stood in the door of the school and said, segregation today, segregation tomorrow,
[41:04] and segregation forever. I mean, that's mainstream white supremacy. Same thing when the troops had to be
[41:13] called out by President Johnson in 1965 to protect the civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery,
[41:21] marching for voting rights. And today, the clock has turned back. White supremacy extremism is again
[41:32] mainstreamed. This president came into office and revoked a 60-year-old executive order banning racial
[41:43] discrimination in federal government hiring practices, saying that it was now unnecessary.
[41:51] We've had the stripping of employment protections from employees of the federal government. We've seen the
[42:00] civil rights division of the Department of Justice gutted and diverted from its mainstream activities.
[42:08] And at the same time, we have experienced wealthy, we've experienced attacks on the rule of law.
[42:19] The top wealthy, most powerful law firms, some of which bent the knee to this president because he
[42:27] threatened them. We've seen him go after the mainstream media because they would not renounce diversity,
[42:36] equity, and inclusion. We've seen him go after top universities trying to get at their research funding,
[42:46] threatening to cut it off, and actually cutting it off unless they rooted out diversity, equity,
[42:55] inclusion. It's mainstream. White supremacy is mainstreamed, extremism. Non-profit corporations
[43:03] have been attacked, like the SPLC, organizations that offer legal assistance and provide advocacy for
[43:15] victims of white supremacy and racial discrimination, organizations which advance the cause of civil
[43:24] rights and voting rights for black people like the SPLC does. Southern Poverty Law Center is under attack
[43:34] because they are standing up against the erosion of our democracy. Professor Fair, America may not
[43:47] realize that election workers have recently faced bomb threats, harassment, and targeted intimidation
[43:53] simply for doing your job. And you've issued reports about that. How are these threats part of the larger
[44:01] racial-based suppression tactics? And is this a reason why your organization has come under attack by this
[44:07] administration and by this committee? The gentleman's time has expired, but you may answer. Thank you.
[44:14] Congressman Johnson, yes. We believe that there is a direct threat to free and fair elections,
[44:24] and we believe that we are a target of this administration because of the effective work we've
[44:29] done for 55 years. Thank you, sir. I stand with you on your work. The gentleman's time is expired. Mr. Chairman.
[44:36] The gentleman from Georgia is recognized. I've got a unanimous consent request to introduce for the
[44:42] record an article from the Columbus Dispatch titled, quote, 50 white extremist groups thrive in Ohio's
[44:49] heart, period. SPLC indictment helps them, end quote. Objection. Gentle lady, I'm sorry, Mr. Garcia's unanimous
[45:01] consent. Thank you, Chairman. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record this letter from the
[45:07] Christian faith leaders expressing their deep and abiding support for the people and the vital work
[45:13] of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Without objection. Gentle lady, the committee wishes to express our
[45:19] boldness. I know you had a tough situation with your family. I'm sorry to hear about that, but welcome you
[45:23] back, and you're recognized for five minutes. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Really appreciate that.
[45:28] Well, here we are again for a third hearing in six months about the Southern Poverty Law Center,
[45:34] and I wanted to point out that voter confidence in the economy has plummeted to a four-year low.
[45:40] Seventy-six percent of Americans think that the economy is getting worse. The average price for a
[45:46] gallon of gas has almost doubled since Trump began his unconstitutional war of choice against Iran.
[45:52] And the top concerns of Americans across political party are gas prices, the cost of groceries,
[45:58] and rising health care costs. So perhaps it's a surprise to my Republican colleagues that the
[46:04] Southern Poverty Law Center is nowhere on the top list of concerns of Americans across this country.
[46:10] And the fact is that the factual falsehoods and ideological grievances that Republicans keep pushing
[46:19] in these endless hearings is all about fulfilling Donald Trump's mission of punishing perceived political
[46:26] enemies. So I want to be very clear. This hearing is allegedly about SPLC, quote, spreading hate,
[46:32] which is even more ironic given that it's Donald Trump himself who has used extreme rhetoric and gone
[46:40] out of his way to stoke racism, fear, and xenophobia. He has denounced Mexican immigrants as rapists.
[46:48] He's railed against immigration from, quote, shithole countries. His words, not mine.
[46:53] He has enacted travel bans against dozens of countries, which a federal court just ruled unlawfully
[47:00] targeted people from 39 African, Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern countries. And he and
[47:06] Republicans have tried to end birthright citizenship and have given hundreds of billions of dollars
[47:11] to rogue ICE and CBP agents to kidnap and disappear immigrants of all immigration statuses,
[47:17] including, by the way, United States citizens. But it isn't just the denigrating of black and brown
[47:23] communities that's so dangerous. It is the praising, the pardoning, the condoning of extreme white
[47:31] nationalists directly from the White House. In Trump's America, white supremacists at the Charlottesville
[47:38] rally are, quote, very fine people, even after images and videos showed participants making Nazi salutes
[47:45] and cheering on the former Grand Wizard of the KKK. Trump then urged the same network of extremists
[47:53] to storm the Capitol and is still trying to implement his $1.8 billion slush fund of U.S. taxpayer dollars
[48:02] to pardon convicted insurrectionists, at least 89 of whom have gone on to commit all kinds of serious crimes,
[48:11] from child sexual abuse to reckless homicide. And he's done so over and over again. And yet he's weaponizing
[48:18] the Department of Justice to go after the Southern Poverty Law Center because they have dared to call
[48:25] out that hate and extremism, including from people within the White House, like Stephen Miller and others
[48:32] within the administration. My Republican colleagues want you to think that SPLC is targeting mainstream
[48:38] conservative individuals and groups. But I want to dive in a little bit to set the record straight
[48:45] about exactly who we are talking about here. Many of these individuals and groups espouse something
[48:51] called the Great Replacement Theory, which argues that elites are trying to actively replace white
[48:57] Americans and Europeans with non-white immigrants. So Professor McCord, is the Great Replacement Theory
[49:04] an extreme and hateful fringe theory? It is a fringe extreme theory. Congress member, it is not something
[49:14] that is adhered to by the majority of the American public or even a large percentage. And it's true,
[49:20] is it not, that the Great Replacement Theory has stimulated violent reactionary responses in multiple
[49:25] cases, including mass murders, mass shootings? There have been numerous mass shootings, including in Buffalo,
[49:31] New York, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, El Paso, Texas, and many others, where the the writings and work of the
[49:39] people who have committed those heinous crimes reflected that they adhered to the Great Replacement
[49:44] theory as an ideology. Now one of the groups that espouses these views is the Center for Immigration
[49:49] Studies, or CIS. And it's an anti-immigrant think tank that SPLC has designated as a hate group. These are
[49:56] some of the statements behind me that CIS's leaders and writers have said, including advocating for the
[50:02] need to maintain a European American majority, claiming that blacks and Hispanics have lower IQ
[50:08] than white people. And I guess I want to ask you, Mr. Farah, why was it important for Southern Poverty
[50:14] Law Center to designate CIS as a hate group? It was important, Congressman Jayapal, because it is one of
[50:23] these go to think tank organizations that many people rely on. And our goal is to expose the
[50:30] statements of these groups and to let the people decide. We don't stop speech. We don't stop anyone's
[50:37] speech. There's plenty of speech in the public square from these groups. We expose their statements in the
[50:46] words of what they say and their activities and let the people decide what they think about it. So that they don't
[50:52] lead to violent actions that follow that. I think the gentlelady has expired. Chairman, I have a UC.
[50:58] The gentlelady can say a request. Yes, this is an article from ProPublica. Members of several
[51:06] well-known hate groups identified at Capitol Riot. Objection. And the next one is from Salon,
[51:16] and it says SPLC indictments lend support to hate groups for decades. The Southern Poverty Law Center
[51:21] has fought hate. Now the Justice Department wants to stop it. Without objection. Mr. Chairman,
[51:26] I have a unanimous consent as well. My colleague Ms. Jasmine Crockett said she was unaware
[51:33] that children's genitalia was being cut off. I'd like to submit this article that says Trump
[51:40] administration lauds plastic surgeon's statement on trans surgery for minors. I'll send you a copy,
[51:46] Ms. Crockett, so you can learn more about this heinous practice. Mr. Chairman, just for purposes of the
[51:51] record, I know that that side doesn't have too many women, so we may all look alike,
[51:58] but that was actually my colleague. I take full credit. I apologize. I just assumed it was you,
[52:05] Ms. Crockett. Please forgive me. Mr. Chairman from New Jersey. Unanimous consent from YouTube.
[52:12] DOJ indictment alleges SPLC funded Klan activities, including reimbursements for cross burnings.
[52:19] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here today and for your
[52:28] testimony. Reviewed all of your written testimony and appreciate the opportunity to ask you a couple
[52:32] of questions about it. Mr. Bangor, you work for Alliance Defending Freedom, correct? Yes, sir.
[52:39] Okay. I reviewed your written testimony. Safe to say you disagree with the Southern Poverty Law Center's
[52:46] designation of your group, right? We do. Okay. And based on your written testimony and based off
[52:53] some of what I found on your website, some deep resentment about that designation. Fair to say.
[52:57] Yes, sir. We don't resent them. We disagree with them. Disagree with them. Okay. Well,
[53:01] as I look at your testimony and as I review your website, it is pretty clear that you view Southern
[53:07] Poverty Law Center as an adversary or is that a fair characterization? We have disagreements with
[53:12] them on a number of issues, including policy and otherwise. That's how you would describe them?
[53:16] Disagreements? I mean, the words that you use to describe the Southern Poverty Law Center do not
[53:21] strike me as a simple matter of disagreement. It seems pretty clear to me based on your website,
[53:26] based on your testimony. I don't know why you'd be walking away from that now that you vehemently
[53:31] disagree with a Southern Poverty Law Center, that you are pleased that they have been indicted. You have
[53:37] called, I mean, this is from your recommendations for congressional action, direct banking regulators
[53:43] to investigate ECOA and Regulation B compliance at institutions using SPLC linked vetting tools,
[53:49] right? So you are calling for investigations into the Southern Poverty Law Center. That doesn't
[53:54] sound like something that you would do with someone you disagree with. This is, am I wrong?
[54:00] Well, Congressman, anytime that a designation by a nonprofit that's politically unaccountable is
[54:06] being used by federally regulated banks to discriminate based on religious belief,
[54:11] that's something that the government should be aware of. Okay, and so I'm simply saying that
[54:17] I didn't expect to have this much of an extended back and forth on the premise of the question. I
[54:22] think that your bosses at Alliance Defending Freedom, if they were testifying here, would say,
[54:25] we vehemently disagree with Southern Poverty Law Center. They're an adversary. They're an enemy. We are
[54:30] glad that they have been indicted and we are calling for more investigations of them, which you did in
[54:37] the written testimony that you provided to this committee. Do you think it would be inappropriate
[54:42] to harness a criminal prosecution of an entity to pursue the enemies of your organization? Would that be
[54:52] an inappropriate thing to do? Well, Congressman? No, that's a yes or no question. You can ask if it's,
[54:57] if you don't think it's inappropriate, you can say no. If there's true criminal activity,
[55:02] then of course the government has the right to investigate. Sure. But if there's no criminal
[55:05] activity, it would be wrong to do that, right? Well, it depends upon what facts ultimately show.
[55:10] Mr. Mr. Bingren, this is why I asked the question. You are a former attorney general. I think you know
[55:14] why I'm asking you the question. You're a former deputy attorney general within the Texas
[55:18] Office of Attorney General. You went to the FBI and gave a whistleblower complaint about Ken Paxton,
[55:25] the attorney general of Texas. You did so because you believed that there was criminal wrongdoing.
[55:31] Let me read this quote. In my view, the criminal process had been harnessed to pursue the business
[55:38] enemies of an individual who also happened to be under intensive investigation by law enforcement.
[55:44] That's your quote from an article a few years ago after you went to the FBI about Mr. Paxton.
[55:50] It is very clear that Alliance Defending Freedom and a wide variety of other organizations that have been
[55:55] designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center, resent it, vehemently disagree with it, have been demanding
[56:02] a criminal investigation and indictment of SPLC, and they have now gotten their wishes from the
[56:07] president's personal lawyer who, of course, as we know, now serves as the interim attorney general
[56:12] of the United States. And I just think it's important for us to be candid about that. I don't know if
[56:18] the chairman agrees with you going to the FBI about Ken Paxton. I'm not sure if Mr. Gill or Mr. Roy or some
[56:26] of my colleagues here, maybe they'll ask you a question or two about the Republican attorney general
[56:31] of Texas and why it was appropriate for you to go to the FBI with allegations of wrongdoing. I'm
[56:37] certainly glad that you did that. I would tell you that like you, the SPLC, as I understand it,
[56:44] has gone to the FBI on many occasions to provide the FBI with information about suspected criminal
[56:52] activity. And in fact, that criminal activity, the reported criminal activity, has ultimately
[56:58] been prosecuted, by the way, not by President Biden's Justice Department, but by Donald Trump's
[57:05] Justice Department. And the best example of this, which was brought up earlier, was the potential mass
[57:11] terror attack at a synagogue in Las Vegas. And Mr. Fair, I think you've already attested to this,
[57:17] but just to be clear, your organization gave information from a paid informant to the FBI
[57:25] when Donald Trump was president. And Donald Trump's FBI used that information to prosecute someone to
[57:34] prevent them from engaging in this mass terror attack. Is that true? That is correct. That is correct.
[57:39] Thank you, Mr. Fair. Thank you, Mr. Banker. Time to yield back.
[57:42] First, I ask unanimous consent to introduce this article about whether in fact people have been
[57:49] driven from the public square. 2025 was a banner year for Alliance Defending Freedom in their
[57:56] newsletter. And I ask unanimous consent to introduce for the record a report by the DOJ's Office of the
[58:01] Inspector General, which found no evidence of anti-Catholic bias or malicious intent on the part of the FBI
[58:07] personnel who prepared the Richmond domain perspective. Even though they apologize for it?
[58:13] Well, I've got the report right here from the Inspector General. Well, we have the apology from
[58:16] from Director Wray. So you typically don't apologize for something if you didn't do anything wrong.
[58:21] Let's submit it to the record and let everybody read both of them. Yeah, okay. We'll have to
[58:25] submit Director Wray's statement as well. Chair now recognizes the General Lady from North Carolina.
[58:30] Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. It is beyond ridiculous that we are having yet a second hearing on this topic,
[58:39] something that is in active litigation and that the courts should sort out. It's especially ridiculous
[58:46] because we've had no oversight hearings of what the DOJ is doing under Mr. Blanche when he is about to be
[58:57] in front of the Senate for confirmation for Attorney General. And he has had so many incidents that are
[59:05] worthy of investigation, including his handling of the Epstein files and Ghislaine Maxwell's transfer to
[59:13] Club Fed. But that's not why we're here today. My colleagues on the other side have continued to cite
[59:20] the indictment as if it is some kind of proof, proof, it's just an indictment, that SPLC has engaged in
[59:27] wrongdoing. This indictment essentially states that making payments to a confidential informant to
[59:34] infiltrate violent extremist organizations is the exact same thing as supporting those organizations.
[59:43] That also is ridiculous. The FBI pays informants all the time. Are they supporting the groups that
[59:51] they're trying to undermine? This is a bizarre Alice in Wonderland theory. And if allowed to stand,
[59:58] it would call into question decades of intelligence and law enforcement practices used to prevent violence
[1:00:06] and dismantle criminal networks. Mr. Fair, how does the intelligence and extremist monitoring program
[1:00:15] within SPLC support, support your work to combat violent hate groups in America? Thank you,
[1:00:25] Congresswoman Ross. Our confidential informant program helped save lives. We shared information
[1:00:32] with law enforcement. It helped protect the public. It helped protect our staff. We were able to gather
[1:00:42] intelligence and dismantle some of these groups. Thank you. It is astounding that our own Department of
[1:00:52] Justice, which benefited from this intelligence gathering, seems not to understand how this process works.
[1:00:59] But that's the current Department of Justice. Ms. McCord, you were a federal prosecutor for two decades
[1:01:08] and led the National Security Division of the DOJ, which prosecutes crimes like domestic terrorism.
[1:01:17] Did your work ever involve or rely on paid confidential informants? Yes, it is a practice, an investigative
[1:01:28] technique, tactic strategy that is used by law enforcement, paid informants, cooperators, not only to
[1:01:34] investigate potential crimes of terrorism, but also drug trafficking rings, human trafficking rings, child
[1:01:41] pedophilia. And can you give us an example of when information from an informant was used to build a
[1:01:50] federal case against a criminal network? There are many examples, Congresswoman Ross, and certainly
[1:01:58] oftentimes this results in allegations in indictments, including the information provided by paid informants,
[1:02:05] and oftentimes testimony at trial that also comes directly from informants. Great. Thank you, Ms. McCord.
[1:02:12] This is essential work. And of course, we know that SPLC donors have absolutely no problem with this
[1:02:19] practice. As one of them stated in the wake of this indictment, we knew they were paying informants. The
[1:02:28] indictment is a laughing stock. It is on specious legal grounds. Veteran prosecutors have called this
[1:02:37] indictment frail and deficient and particularly weak. One federal civil rights prosecutor and FBI agent even
[1:02:47] stated, and I quote, I don't think any prosecutor with white collar experience would look at this
[1:02:54] indictment and believe it makes out the elements of a crime. It is not a valid indictment. We know why
[1:03:04] this indictment was brought. It's just one of the many weaponized moves that Todd Blanche and the DOJ has
[1:03:12] taken at the president's behest to silence dissent for his month long audition for attorney general,
[1:03:22] and he's going to get his time in front of the cameras. This is proving loyalty to Donald Trump,
[1:03:30] but it's clearly not loyalty to the law. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I thank the witnesses
[1:03:36] for being here. We are now enduring yet another hearing of this committee regarding Republicans' absurd
[1:03:44] allegations against the Southern Poverty Law Center. And we already know about the battle between hateful
[1:03:50] extremist groups and the civil rights litigators at SPLC. And we know that President Trump, Acting
[1:03:57] Attorney General Blanche, and many other members of this administration have sided with extremists
[1:04:02] over and over again. This third hearing is clearly part of a broader effort built on a pathetic, blind
[1:04:11] loyalty to one man, Donald Trump. President Trump prizes loyalty over principles, loyalty over values,
[1:04:19] loyalty over competence. And that is why he wants to elevate his personal lawyer to serve as our Attorney
[1:04:27] General. Acting Attorney General Blanche has quickly earned President Trump's trust by using
[1:04:33] the Justice Department to attack people in groups like SPLC that have stood up to this
[1:04:38] administration and its lawlessness. Mr. Blanche has overseen the creation of perhaps the most
[1:04:44] corrupt scheme in our nation's history, the DOJ weaponization slush fund. Blanche signed off on an
[1:04:52] unconstitutional agreement to give taxpayers money to criminals and insurrectionists, people who beat cops
[1:04:59] in this building. But that's not all. Acting Attorney General has also initiated a criminal fraud
[1:05:06] investigation of E. Jean Carroll, the woman who successfully sued Donald Trump for sexual assault.
[1:05:12] He has indicted former FBI Director James Comey for an Instagram post with seashells, ladies and
[1:05:19] gentlemen, seashells. He has installed a Trump loyalist to replace a career prosecutor who would not
[1:05:27] indict former CIA director John Brennan on ridiculous charges. That's what we're doing here. Mr. Blanche
[1:05:33] is clear about his role. He knows he is auditioning to be the president's lawyer, his personal lawyer,
[1:05:41] the job that he's had before. He has said in his own words that the president has a quote right and duty
[1:05:48] to use the Justice Department to investigate his political enemies. That absurd idea, of course, conflicts with the
[1:05:57] entire concept of an independent DOJ. Professor McCord, is the role of Attorney General different from
[1:06:05] being the president's personal attorney? Yes, it is, Congressmember. The role of the Attorney General
[1:06:12] is to take an oath to the Constitution, as every single prosecutor in the Department of Justice does.
[1:06:17] It is not an oath to a person and certainly not an oath to the president. That's absolutely right. And why
[1:06:22] should the Justice Department be independent from the office of the president, regardless of which
[1:06:29] party is in power? Since Watergate, it has been important to attorneys general of both parties that
[1:06:36] the American public not believe that the Department of Justice will be used for political purposes. And
[1:06:41] so the policies have been for more than 50 years until now that it will not be directed by the White
[1:06:48] House when it comes to prosecutions and investigations. And what are those dangers? You know,
[1:06:52] the dangers of a system where politically driven prosecutions become the norm. Well, certainly one
[1:06:59] of those dangers is the infringement on First Amendment rights, among many other dangers. There's
[1:07:03] the legitimacy of the Department of Justice. There's the integrity of the prosecutors when they go into
[1:07:09] court. But on the First Amendment, when we see targeting of organizations and individuals based upon
[1:07:14] their speech, and that includes a number of the individuals you mentioned in your opening remarks,
[1:07:20] that infringes on constitutional rights. I agree with you. And now we're we're in a situation right
[1:07:26] now that I'd never I never imagined we would find ourselves in that we have a president who has
[1:07:32] installed a lackey to lead the Department of Justice. And now he wants to make him permanent. And I need
[1:07:40] much more than five minutes to touch on all the ways in which Mr. Blanche's conduct is disqualifying.
[1:07:48] In this case alone that we're here once again discussing in this case alone, he has misled
[1:07:55] Americans by stating on television that he did not know that SPLC was giving informant information
[1:08:03] to law enforcement. And of course, as my colleague from North Carolina has said, Mr. Blanche is a central
[1:08:09] figure in the Epstein files cover up. He was the person who met with Ghislaine Maxwell before she was
[1:08:15] transferred to a club fed facility. The accusations against SPLC are ridiculous. Legal experts are
[1:08:25] clear that the indictment being offered by Mr. Blanche is invalid. But like all things with this
[1:08:31] president, it is both ridiculous and completely serious. We have to make clear that his nomination
[1:08:39] is nothing more than a stamp of approval for scandal after corrupt scandal. I yield back.
[1:08:47] Senator Lee yields back. Senator Lee from California is recognized.
[1:08:50] Thank you, Mr. Chair. So on May 18th of this year, two teenage gunmen opened fire
[1:08:57] on a mosque in San Diego, California, and they murdered three people. Then they turned their weapons on
[1:09:03] themselves before law enforcement could apprehend them. These assailants, they were teenagers.
[1:09:10] They were children. And children are not born with hate. They are taught hate. President Fair,
[1:09:17] is that a fair assessment? Sorry, Congresswoman, it's our position that hate is never peaceful for its
[1:09:29] victims. Right. Ever. And you know, these assailants, they learned this hate somewhere,
[1:09:35] and they shared it actually in their very long, detailed, hate-filled manifesto,
[1:09:42] referencing a number of extremist organizations by name, like the Terrorgram Collective, the Base,
[1:09:49] and the Atomwaffen Division. So President Fair, are you familiar with some of these groups?
[1:09:54] Yes. The Atomwaffen Division is one of the groups that we shared intelligence on and was behind the
[1:10:05] threatened massacre in Las Vegas. That's right. It's a neo-Nazi extremist group. And in 2019,
[1:10:11] SPLC actually gave information. It was good enough for law enforcement that they were able to thwart
[1:10:18] a terrorist attack that was planned by one of the members of this Atomwaffen Division. And in fact,
[1:10:23] he said he was planning a terrorist attack, and he had explosives. And he was targeting a synagogue
[1:10:30] and a bar that was patronized by the LGBT community. So by the way, for everybody, happy Pride Month.
[1:10:38] And Ms. King, I say that in honor of your uncle's dear friend, Bayard Rustin. So we are talking about
[1:10:45] accelerationist neo-Nazi networks and two teenagers in San Diego who were inspired by them. And this is a
[1:10:54] hate-filled pipeline getting to our children. It's a pathway by which teenage boys and young men are drawn
[1:11:02] from mainstream platforms into these increasingly radicalized spaces where they are encountering
[1:11:09] content that glorifies hate, violence, and criminal activity. And to be fair, what happened at that mosque
[1:11:16] was a criminal act. I think it's curious that Republicans haven't had any of these groups come before
[1:11:24] this committee and prove that they are not spreading hate. Where are those hearings? But maybe my
[1:11:31] Republican colleagues are okay with having neo-Nazi extremist groups teaching your children or their
[1:11:38] children. But I'm not. We've also heard today that those with traditional Christian beliefs are being
[1:11:45] treated as threats and terrorists. We've heard a lot today about how the SPLC is anti-Christian.
[1:11:52] We're being told that the organization worked with the Biden administration to target traditional
[1:11:57] Catholics for their political and religious beliefs and that the org discriminates against anyone
[1:12:02] with traditional or Christian views. I think those are lies. So speaking of lies for the record,
[1:12:08] President Fair, do you maintain a domestic terrorist list? We do not. Okay. So Dr. King, for example,
[1:12:15] is not on this non-existent list. Is that true? That is true. I'm not sure what list she's referring to.
[1:12:21] Okay. Is she on a hate map? No. Okay. So per usual, the facts are being twisted to attack the SPLC and the
[1:12:29] work it does across this country to tackle hate groups and violent extremists because SPLC actually
[1:12:37] dares to dissent against this administration and therefore you all have a target on your back.
[1:12:43] But don't take my word for it. I have a video. I've been hearing that there are people who think
[1:12:49] the SPLC is anti-Christian and I really don't know what Bible they're reading because my experience of the
[1:12:57] SPLC is that they help churches feed hungry families. They help struggling communities. They informed me
[1:13:05] personally about need in our state about a decrease of SNAP benefits, about hospital shortages. And the
[1:13:14] work that we do in our community and without SPLC and the knowledge that they bring, it would limit us
[1:13:22] to be able to serve and understand what our community needs are. And certainly the values of SPLC in these
[1:13:28] more than four or five decades exemplify the values of the gospel. Inclusion, solidarity,
[1:13:35] concern for the least among us and a zeal for justice. So I fully support and want the SPLC
[1:13:44] to be known for who they are and in real time in real life because of what they do for others.
[1:13:51] Thank you and I yield back. The chair now recognizes the um gentlelady from as a gentleman from Illinois.
[1:14:00] Gentleman from Illinois. Thank you Mr. Chairman. It's astonishing to see Republicans
[1:14:10] choose to humiliate themselves for a third time with this hearing, which is more of an indictment
[1:14:18] of them than anyone else. Everyone knows that the SPLC indictment is a joke, a bad one at that.
[1:14:25] Everyone knows that the legal arguments are nonsense and everyone knows that Todd Blanche's corrupt
[1:14:31] henchman ordered the U.S. Attorney to do this pathetic hack job even though it'll never hold up in court.
[1:14:40] So why are Republicans putting us through this absurd gaslighting Olympics for a third time?
[1:14:47] Because their assault on the SPLC is a crucial part of the assault on democracy itself. The Republican Party
[1:14:55] used to be the party of Lincoln from Illinois. That's where I'm from. Today it's nothing more
[1:15:02] than a debt cult and a political front for the white supremacist movement tragically. That's as old
[1:15:10] as our country itself. As my Democratic colleagues have pointed out, there's a reason why Republicans
[1:15:17] are targeting the SPLC. No organization has been more effective in dismantling the Klan
[1:15:24] and other white nationalist groups, including through the use of informants. This is a non-profit
[1:15:32] organization. It has a board of directors. They govern organizations in places you don't know. So the
[1:15:40] Republican Party protects these groups because they have the same goals. Erase reconstruction, erase the
[1:15:48] civil rights movement, destroy multi-racial democracy, and restore Jim Crow in America.
[1:15:56] That's what this is all about. And it's right in front of us. They tried to violently overthrow an
[1:16:04] election, then got pardons from their ringleader, President Trump. They tried to embezzle billions of
[1:16:13] tax dollars to create a white nationalist slush fund at DOJ, but it ran into problems, didn't it?
[1:16:23] They divert law enforcement resources from combating white nationalism to low-level
[1:16:29] immigration enforcement. They accused the SPLC of being anti-Christian, for opposing anti-abortion,
[1:16:38] anti-LGBT bigotry, even though Christian leaders, as we saw in the prior video nationwide, support
[1:16:47] the SPLC overwhelmingly. Their morally bankrupt co-conspirators on the Supreme Court and in state
[1:17:00] legislatures are dismantling reconstruction amendments and rigging elections to strip black and brown people
[1:17:10] of political representation. Let's be clear. The president and his enablers are carrying out the vision of the Klan, the Proud Boys, the Oat Keepers, and every other hate group because they exist and they act.
[1:17:27] They are courageous patriots and they have fought for decades. It's the same old playbook on DEI and mass
[1:17:41] incarceration and the Voting Rights Act and immigration enforcement. The racial profiling, the mass detentions,
[1:17:48] the stripping of due process, the undermining of birthright citizenship, everything that's happening
[1:17:55] in communities like mine. It's all the same playbook and it's rooted in the same conspiracy theory, the Great Replacement Theory.
[1:18:07] Mr. Fair, thank you for being here today and for all that SPLC does. Would you agree that this administration's anti-immigrant agenda is part of the broader support of white nationalist movement?
[1:18:21] And how does the Great Replacement Theory underpin that movement?
[1:18:28] Yes, Congressman Garcia. The Great Replacement Theory suggests that whites in this country are being replaced by immigrants.
[1:18:40] And many of the groups that we identify as hate groups target immigrants, label them as criminals, as rapists, in the words of this administration and otherwise.
[1:18:52] There are any number of groups that express white supremacist views that this country should be a majority white nation.
[1:19:04] Those views are antithetical to the views of the SPLC.
[1:19:08] Thank you for sharing that. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
[1:19:10] Gentleman yields back. Gentleman from California is recognized for unanimous consent.
[1:19:13] Thank you, Mr. Chair. I forgot. I have some UC.
[1:19:16] Okay, our gentlelady can proceed.
[1:19:18] San Diego mosque shooters left document revealing racist neo-Nazi.
[1:19:23] Without objection.
[1:19:24] Vance praises YouTuber Nick Shirley reporting on Minnesota fraud.
[1:19:28] Without objection.
[1:19:29] Undocumented immigrant offending rate lower than U.S. born citizen rate.
[1:19:35] Without objection.
[1:19:36] Yeah, okay.
[1:19:37] Anti-Muslim bigotry surges ahead of International Day to combat Islamophobia.
[1:19:43] Not objection.
[1:19:44] The annual report 2025.
[1:19:46] The Council on, I'm sorry, American Islamic Relations 2025 annual report.
[1:19:54] The objection.
[1:19:55] Anti-Islamic rhetoric from GOP politicians sparks concern over religious hatred.
[1:20:01] Objection.
[1:20:02] The SPLC's year in hate and extremism 2024.
[1:20:07] Objection.
[1:20:08] And once again, the SPLC's hate map to establish clearly for the record who is and who is not on it.
[1:20:15] Without objection.
[1:20:16] I want to thank you all for your patience.
[1:20:18] We have about a half an hour based on the number of members yet to testify.
[1:20:22] So we'll move to that as quick as we can.
[1:20:23] And the gentlelady from Wyoming is recognized.
[1:20:25] Thank you.
[1:20:26] For any business to remain profitable, there must be both supply and demand.
[1:20:30] As for the Southern Poverty Law Center's business model, it needs to convince people that there exist certain types of discrimination and hatred in the United States,
[1:20:38] and that it alone has the expertise to identify, target, and eradicate it.
[1:20:43] A lack of such discrimination and hatred would render the SPLC's existence obsolete.
[1:20:49] And that is largely what has happened in America.
[1:20:52] So what is a business to do when its very existence is threatened by a dramatic decrease in the scourge that it exists to combat?
[1:20:59] What happens when racism, for example, is largely a thing of the past?
[1:21:03] The Brain Trust at SPLC came up with their own unique solution to this conundrum.
[1:21:09] They decided to fund the very hatred that they claim to be fighting against.
[1:21:13] And like magic, the money has continued to roll in.
[1:21:17] In fact, advancing hatred has become quite profitable for the SPLC.
[1:21:22] As in 2024, the organization had over $829 million in assets, an endowment of approximately $738 million and $129 million in revenue.
[1:21:34] The bulk of this money comes from the contributions of the SPLC's donors,
[1:21:38] contributions that the donors thought were made to, quote,
[1:21:41] confront hate, stand up to injustice, and defend our civil and human rights, end quote.
[1:21:47] But that isn't the case at all.
[1:21:49] Instead of confronting hate, standing up for justice, or defending civil and human rights,
[1:21:54] the SPLC has been funding the exact opposite, with the added bonus of then using their donations to target right-leaning organizations,
[1:22:03] such as the Family Research Council and Turning Point USA, simply because they believe in traditional marriage
[1:22:10] and the sanctity of the family unit, while also opposing abortion.
[1:22:14] Stated another way, SPLC has been using its funds to attack those very organizations that actually do confront hate,
[1:22:22] stand for justice, and defend civil and human rights.
[1:22:25] And the SPLC funded actual Nazis and white supremacists in order to do so.
[1:22:31] In order to get away with this scam, the SPLC knew that it had to hide what it was doing.
[1:22:36] I mean, who was going to donate to an organization that has actual Nazis on the payroll
[1:22:42] to organize astroturf rallies to try to smear conservatives?
[1:22:46] The DOJ's superseding indictment filed on June 2,
[1:22:51] approximates that between 2010 and 2023, the SPLC fumbled 4.1 million in tax-exempt donor funds
[1:22:59] to various violent extremist organizations, including the Aryan Nations, the National Socialist Movement,
[1:23:05] and the KKK via a series of fictitious accounts, and then committed bank fraud to cover it all up.
[1:23:13] The indictment goes on to say that these donor funds were ultimately used for the growth and recruitment of these organizations.
[1:23:19] The purchase of materials for cross burnings, that's despicable.
[1:23:23] And group attire and the production of racist paraphernalia sold at rallies.
[1:23:28] That's really despicable. That's gross.
[1:23:30] Mr. Fair, does the SPLC have any written policies to ensure that the payments you made to these organizations
[1:23:37] were not used to incite violence or engage in other activities that contradicts SPLC's public representations?
[1:23:46] Congresswoman Hageman, as I said earlier, all of the allegations that you've...
[1:23:53] You have written policies to make sure that you're not funding the KKK.
[1:23:57] We don't fund the KKK.
[1:23:59] Well, you do. Actually, that's what's in the...
[1:24:01] That's an allegation, Congresswoman.
[1:24:02] Sure.
[1:24:03] Have you produced any of these materials to us?
[1:24:04] And we will discuss all of those allegations.
[1:24:06] Have you produced those materials to this committee?
[1:24:08] What materials?
[1:24:09] Any materials or any written materials so that you are not...
[1:24:12] To show that you have a policy in place to not fund hate groups such as the KKK.
[1:24:17] SPLC's council is working with this committee's council to respond to your...
[1:24:22] Did anyone at the SPLC ever raise any concerns about your practice of funding hate groups?
[1:24:27] We don't fund hate groups.
[1:24:30] Why wasn't the SPLC...
[1:24:31] No, you're under oath.
[1:24:32] Remember that.
[1:24:33] You are under oath here today.
[1:24:34] I said we don't fund hate groups.
[1:24:36] Okay.
[1:24:37] Except the $4.1 million that you gave to the KKK, the National Socialist Movement, and the Aryan Nations.
[1:24:43] Congresswoman Hageman, those are allegations that will be addressed...
[1:24:47] You're under oath.
[1:24:48] That will be addressed in the criminal case pending against the SPLC.
[1:24:52] The SPLC also played a part in funding the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville,
[1:24:59] and you paid an organizer who drafted racist votes under the SPLC's supervision.
[1:25:04] You fomented the hate, and then you made bank off of it.
[1:25:07] About $80 million in the following months after that rally.
[1:25:11] But you didn't just make a ton of money that day.
[1:25:13] Three people actually died.
[1:25:14] Two police officers and a woman named Heather Danielle Heyer.
[1:25:18] So from the standpoint of your business model, making money off of hatred,
[1:25:22] you must say that that was actually a very successful day for the SPLC.
[1:25:26] Would you agree with that?
[1:25:27] SPLC doesn't foment hate.
[1:25:29] Well, that day you did.
[1:25:32] I guess that I'm out of time.
[1:25:34] With that, I yield back.
[1:25:35] Gentle lady yields back.
[1:25:36] Gentle lady from Georgia is recognized.
[1:25:38] Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[1:25:39] And thank you to each of our witnesses.
[1:25:41] I have read all of your testimonies.
[1:25:43] And most Americans now believe that political violence will increase in the next few years.
[1:25:48] With the attempted kidnapping of Gretchen Whitmer, the anti-Semitic firebombing of Josh Shapiro's home,
[1:25:55] and the recent attempted assassination of Donald Trump,
[1:25:58] there's no doubt that extremism is on the rise.
[1:26:02] Just a simple answer.
[1:26:04] Does everyone agree that this is a serious concern for our democracy?
[1:26:07] Ms. McCord?
[1:26:08] Yes.
[1:26:09] Mr. Bandert?
[1:26:11] Yes, political violence is always a serious concern.
[1:26:13] Dr. King?
[1:26:14] Yes or no?
[1:26:16] Just yes or no?
[1:26:17] All political violence is of great concern.
[1:26:21] Mr. Fair?
[1:26:22] Yes, Congressman McGrath.
[1:26:23] Thank you.
[1:26:24] Last year, someone tried to firebomb a Republican Party headquarters in Arizona,
[1:26:29] and someone else fired gunshots at a Democratic Party office building in New Mexico.
[1:26:34] There have been politically and racially motivated mass shootings in Charleston, El Paso, and beyond.
[1:26:40] Yes or no?
[1:26:41] For each of you, do you think it should be a priority of the Department of Justice and the FBI to combat extremism and political violence?
[1:26:50] Yes, regardless of the ideology.
[1:26:53] Thank you.
[1:26:54] Yes, Congressman.
[1:26:55] I believe the Department should be pursuing criminal acts of political violence.
[1:26:59] Thank you.
[1:27:02] Yes.
[1:27:03] Thank you.
[1:27:04] Yes, Congressman.
[1:27:05] Our priorities should be eliminating and deterring violence, a view that is not shared by the Trump administration.
[1:27:11] Last March, the Department of Homeland Security defunded the database at the University of Maryland that tracked domestic terrorism, hate crimes, and targeted violence,
[1:27:21] the only publicly available database of its kind in this country.
[1:27:25] Shut down at the very moment that its data showed a 25% increase in terrorism and targeted violence over the prior year.
[1:27:34] By summer 2025, the administration went on to dismantle DHS's Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships,
[1:27:40] the primary federal unit for proactively stopping extremist violence, credited with disrupting over 1,000 violent plots.
[1:27:49] Last fall, the Justice Department quietly removed from its website a study showing far-right extremists were responsible for the bulk of ideologically motivated deaths,
[1:28:00] a fact that has been shown numerous times in multiple studies.
[1:28:05] Professor McCord, why is the Trump administration shutting down these tools and burying studies on violence at a moment when extremism is on the rise?
[1:28:15] Well, I can't get into the heads of every person in this administration, but it is certainly consistent with their mass deportation plans and the vilifying of people of color and immigrants into the United States.
[1:28:31] Thank you. Americans expect their government to keep them safe, yet the administration seems determined to do so only when it fits their ideological narrative.
[1:28:42] There's no better example than the reckless pardon of the January 6 rioters, nearly 100 of whom have re-offended since the attack.
[1:28:52] One was arrested after threatening a person with a gun in a church parking lot.
[1:28:57] Another plotted to assassinate FBI agents and yet another one in a plot to assassinate an elected official, Dr. King.
[1:29:05] In a letter from a Birmingham jail, your uncle writes to fellow clergymen about the dangers of turning a blind eye to those who do wrong to your neighbors.
[1:29:15] How do you reconcile that with the presidential pardons of 1,200 violent extremists?
[1:29:21] May I answer in this manner? Manufactured hate, socially engineered racism, because we are one blood and we are one human race.
[1:29:33] All of this is generating unwarranted fear and chaos.
[1:29:38] George Wallace, who was mentioned earlier, was one of the most racist people on the planet and he repented.
[1:29:45] He admitted that he had been racist, he regretted it, and much healing came forth.
[1:29:51] Planned Parenthood admitted that it is racist as well.
[1:29:55] I'm asking you a question, how do you reconcile with the 1,200 parties that have been 25 minutes?
[1:29:58] It is time for SPLC to admit.
[1:30:00] Time belongs to Dr. King, time belongs to that lady.
[1:30:03] To admit, I'm answering you.
[1:30:05] And so, in a letter from the Birmingham jail, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
[1:30:10] Okay, thank you for that.
[1:30:11] Everything you just mentioned was terrible, but what about the guard that was shot?
[1:30:15] I'm moving up.
[1:30:16] Professor McCord.
[1:30:17] In the Family Research Council.
[1:30:18] I'm trying to answer.
[1:30:19] Thank you very much.
[1:30:20] You know, injustice, violence is wrong.
[1:30:22] I'm reclaiming my time.
[1:30:23] I'm reclaiming my time.
[1:30:24] I'm reclaiming my time.
[1:30:25] I'm reclaiming my time.
[1:30:26] Violence, all violence is wrong.
[1:30:27] Professor McCord.
[1:30:28] Mr. Chairman, could you restore her time?
[1:30:30] We've been very generous with the time.
[1:30:32] We'll give her a few seconds more.
[1:30:33] Okay.
[1:30:34] Professor McCord, does issuing blanket pardons to violent extremists who assaulted police officers
[1:30:39] help address this problem of rising extremism in America?
[1:30:42] No, it condones extremism by one side of the ideological spectrum.
[1:30:47] Okay.
[1:30:48] Thank you.
[1:30:49] We still need organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center.
[1:30:52] Just ask the committees in San Diego, Buffalo, and Jacksonville.
[1:30:55] You can ask me, a mother who lost her son to gun violence, because a man made assumptions
[1:31:01] about him based on the color of his skin.
[1:31:04] Hate-driven violence and policy still exists.
[1:31:08] And we should dare to be bold, as Dr. King was, to fight against it.
[1:31:13] And I yield.
[1:31:14] I'm the general ladies.
[1:31:15] Mr. Chairman, could I do a UC?
[1:31:16] Ms. Hagem, then I'll come to you.
[1:31:18] I have a UC request.
[1:31:20] An article from Life Set, the both sides political violence narrative completely debunked.
[1:31:25] They cooked the books as typical.
[1:31:28] Another one, a letter from Andrew Klovet to Chairman Jordan and the committee about SPLC
[1:31:35] putting the Turning Point USA on its fraudulent hate map in the spring of 2025.
[1:31:41] Objection.
[1:31:42] And a September 1, 2020 letter from the Coalition for Jewish Values related to the SPLC hate
[1:31:50] map and what it does to the Jewish community and the risk that it places the Jewish community
[1:31:54] in.
[1:31:55] Objection.
[1:31:57] Gentleman from Maryland.
[1:31:58] Yes.
[1:31:59] Just two, Mr. Chairman.
[1:32:00] The 2017 Trump Administration FBI document listing the SPLC as its partner in fighting hate.
[1:32:06] Objection.
[1:32:07] And then this is from National Public Radio.
[1:32:11] Author details the spy network that took on America's post-World War II Nazi groups.
[1:32:17] The Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish community went undercover.
[1:32:21] Objection.
[1:32:22] Gentleman from Texas.
[1:32:23] Recognize you.
[1:32:24] You know what?
[1:32:25] I hate that we have spent this much time, you know, on SPLC and we've not addressed the
[1:32:31] elephant in the room, the literal elephant in the room.
[1:32:35] The vast majority of the people on that side of the aisle and for those of you that are
[1:32:40] at home.
[1:32:41] Let me tell you, when I say that side of the aisle, I'm talking about the Republicans, the
[1:32:45] ones that brought this hearing.
[1:32:46] And again, you've heard that this is not the first hearing, but the vast majority of
[1:32:50] them are white men.
[1:32:51] White men are lecturing people of color because the vast majority, actually, any semblance
[1:32:58] of diversity comes from this side of the aisle.
[1:33:01] You want to tell people of color who is fighting for who?
[1:33:06] People of color do not feel comfortable or welcomed within your party.
[1:33:09] That's why you have to parade someone who has the name Dr. King attached to them so that
[1:33:15] people can be confused.
[1:33:16] Because I have been reading the comments online and people are like, who is this Dr. King?
[1:33:21] Because you want them to believe that somehow she espouses who Dr. King was.
[1:33:27] Yet you've yet to have MLK III come in here.
[1:33:31] You've yet to have Dr. Bernice King, the ones that were actually raised by Dr. King, the
[1:33:36] ones that actually probably understand the teachings of Dr. King.
[1:33:39] And I just want to be clear because I want to talk to y'all about what the Dr. King had
[1:33:44] to say about racism so that y'all don't get it twisted and don't get it confused just because
[1:33:49] you see the name sitting in this room.
[1:33:51] Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the
[1:33:58] Indian, was an inferior race.
[1:34:00] That was from his 1963 book, Why We Can't Wait.
[1:34:05] He also said in the final analysis, racism is evil because its ultimate logic is genocide.
[1:34:13] If one says that I am not good enough to live next door to him or to have a good decent
[1:34:19] job or to go to school with him merely because of my race, he is saying consciously or unconsciously
[1:34:25] that I do not deserve to exist.
[1:34:28] This was from his 1967 speech, The Other America.
[1:34:31] So just to be clear, y'all don't seem like y'all even understand what a hate organization
[1:34:38] is.
[1:34:39] So I went to Google to help you out.
[1:34:41] A hate group is an organized group whose beliefs, practices, and primary purpose are
[1:34:45] centered on advocating malice, hostility, or violence towards people based on their
[1:34:50] immutable race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or disability.
[1:34:58] So I know some of y'all are, you know, caping for Charlie Kirk because I didn't heard y'all
[1:35:05] talk about his organization over and over and over.
[1:35:08] So I'm not going to play with anybody who's going to play with my time.
[1:35:11] So I'm going directly to Miss McCord.
[1:35:13] Professor, let me put some respect on your name.
[1:35:16] All right.
[1:35:17] If I see a black pilot, I'm going to be like, boy, I hope he's qualified.
[1:35:23] Does that sound like a hater or not?
[1:35:26] That sounds like a racial stereotype.
[1:35:29] Okay.
[1:35:30] Sounds good to me.
[1:35:31] We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the mid 1960s.
[1:35:37] That sounds like someone who still adheres to racist views.
[1:35:42] Okay.
[1:35:43] America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank.
[1:35:47] Large, dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America.
[1:35:52] That is someone who can't accept that America is a multiracial, multireligious place.
[1:35:58] Okay.
[1:35:59] These all just happen to be comments from the fearless leader of Turning Point USA.
[1:36:05] So I could see where SPLC was going.
[1:36:07] I also think that it's so interesting that right now, just for those sitting at home,
[1:36:12] you may not know that oversight is not having any hearings right now because the Republicans don't want to deal with Ipsen.
[1:36:17] File.
[1:36:18] So they have shut down all of oversight committee hearings, right?
[1:36:21] So we've got an indictment for SPLC.
[1:36:24] I have still yet to see an indictment on any Epstein defendant, not not a one, but okay.
[1:36:32] And we want to talk about what happened in Charlottesville.
[1:36:35] And we are so upset about Charlottesville.
[1:36:39] All of a sudden, I would be interested to know which one of you has something to say about Charlottesville when it happened,
[1:36:47] because I don't think that y'all were saying those same things.
[1:36:50] In fact, our fearless leader at the time said there were pretty fine people on both sides.
[1:36:54] You were okay with the tiki torches.
[1:36:56] You were okay with it.
[1:36:57] But I digress.
[1:36:58] I'm gonna move on to Texas in my last 24 seconds.
[1:37:02] In your testimony before the Texas House of Representatives, you read aloud a series of messages between you and other whistleblowers,
[1:37:08] basically explaining the corruption happening directed by Attorney General Ken Paxton.
[1:37:12] On page 82, lines 5 through 11, you list all the corruption that Ken Paxton directed you and others to carry out,
[1:37:19] to, quote, demanding that we investigate facially bogus charges, refusing to take our advice,
[1:37:25] that there is no prosecutorial offense, demanding that we hire outside counsel and authorizing an improper fishing expedition.
[1:37:32] Is that correct?
[1:37:34] The gentleman can respond if you want.
[1:37:37] My testimony from that proceeding stands for itself.
[1:37:40] Yeah.
[1:37:41] So, just to clarify.
[1:37:44] The gentleman's time has expired.
[1:37:46] I understand.
[1:37:47] Our next-
[1:37:48] Welcome to our witnesses.
[1:37:49] Created in 1971 and headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama.
[1:37:54] Created in 1971, headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama.
[1:38:00] The Southern Poverty Law Center is one of America's leading civil rights groups.
[1:38:04] It fights for voting rights throughout the South, economic justice and criminal justice reform.
[1:38:09] Like every major civil rights group in our history, it's been subjected to serious white supremacist violence.
[1:38:15] Its leaders have been threatened and attacked since its founding.
[1:38:19] And SPLC headquarters were firebombed in 1983 by members of the Ku Klux Klan who were convicted of conspiracy in federal court.
[1:38:28] After this attack and escalating racial terror, the SPLC added to its work a focus on the Klan and neo-Nazi groups and other purveyors of hate violence and white supremacy.
[1:38:38] In 1988, the SPLC litigated against the Southern Whites of the Ku Klux Klan, the Southern White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and drove them into bankruptcy, winning a million-dollar damages verdict on behalf of more than 50 peaceful civil rights marchers in Forsyth County, Georgia, who had been savagely attacked and injured by the Klan.
[1:39:00] In 2019, it brought a $14 million judgment and won it against the neo-Nazi founder of the Daily Stormer for orchestrating an anti-Semitic troll storm harassment campaign consisting of more than 700 death threats and vile abuse against a Jewish woman and her family.
[1:39:20] The SPLC has defended the rights of anyone and everyone targeted for hate violence, oppression, and murder.
[1:39:28] Today, it's under attack by the Trump administration and MAGA.
[1:39:32] Like the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the great legislative achievement of the modern civil rights movement now dismantled by the Roberts Court,
[1:39:40] the SPLC is an enduring institutional beacon of hope for millions of people seeking to create a more perfect union.
[1:39:48] The Trump administration is thus naturally trying to tear it down.
[1:39:53] I've heard three main arguments for this astonishing crusade.
[1:39:57] The first is that the age of racism and white supremacy violence is over in the 21st century, and so the SPLC's work is unnecessary.
[1:40:06] Well, this is plainly ridiculous.
[1:40:08] We live in an age of resurgent racial injustice, profound economic inequality, and relentless assault on the right to vote.
[1:40:16] Racist violence still permeates our society.
[1:40:19] In recent memory, avowed racists and white supremacists have killed 23 people in the El Paso Walmart massacre,
[1:40:27] 11 people worshiping at the Tree of Life Synagogue in the worst anti-Semitic attack in American history,
[1:40:34] 10 people who were killed shopping for groceries in the Buffalo Supermarket massacre,
[1:40:40] nine worshiping parishioners were gunned down at the Mother Emanuel Church massacre in Charleston, South Carolina,
[1:40:47] and eight people were killed at the Atlanta spa shootings.
[1:40:51] To name just five examples out of thousands, in 2024 alone, the FBI recorded nearly 12,000 hate crime episodes in our country.
[1:41:01] Just a few weeks ago, three fathers died defending their mosque and 140 children at worship services in San Diego
[1:41:12] against two fanatical white supremacist teenagers jacked up on white great replacement theory and far-right neo-Nazi ideology
[1:41:21] who took their own lives tragically after the attack.
[1:41:26] But here's the second argument they use.
[1:41:28] They say, well, even if there's all this violence that we're engulfed in,
[1:41:31] the Southern Poverty Law Center itself is responsible for the violence that we see around us.
[1:41:38] The basis for this outlandish claim is that for decades, at least since the 1990s,
[1:41:43] the SBLC has infiltrated and investigated the Klan, neo-Nazis, and other groups by paying informants who go undercover.
[1:41:52] The purpose of these operations is obviously to derail and prevent white supremacist hate crimes and actions,
[1:41:59] both the kinds of hate crimes and shooting sprees we see all around us,
[1:42:03] but even more massive terrorist attacks like the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing,
[1:42:09] which took the lives of 168 Americans, many of them children, who were in a daycare center
[1:42:15] when the white nationalists unleashed their terrorism on the people of Oklahoma.
[1:42:20] In the course of their work to investigate the extreme right,
[1:42:24] the SBLC has worked closely with the FBI for decades and turned over to the bureau voluminous information,
[1:42:30] tips and leads from their field sources for further investigation, criminal arrest, and prosecution.
[1:42:37] In 2017, the FBI listed the SPLC as one of its partners on its website,
[1:42:44] where it remained for eight or nine years before this administration.
[1:42:48] There's nothing new about that work, but now Todd Blanch and the Trump DOJ in Alabama
[1:42:54] have twisted and corrupted this proud history of cooperation with law enforcement
[1:42:59] to bring an 11-count criminal indictment against the SPLC, claiming that it was defrauding its own donors.
[1:43:08] This is amazing, given not only that the SPLC donors and supporters cherish and prize the group
[1:43:15] precisely for its ability to get information in this way to stop hate crimes,
[1:43:20] but also, incredible, because the FBI itself uses the exact same practices for its own investigative work,
[1:43:27] spending in the neighborhood of not three or four million dollars on undercover informants,
[1:43:32] but more than 40 million dollars a year on undercover informants.
[1:43:37] There's nothing illegal about that.
[1:43:39] SPLC donors are not claiming fraud.
[1:43:43] They were proud to support this program.
[1:43:45] Even the extremist groups themselves understood they were being infiltrated
[1:43:49] and were constantly looking for the traitors, the spies.
[1:43:52] Well, my friends, we know what a real fraud looks like.
[1:43:57] Consider a fraud called Trump University, a scam from top to bottom,
[1:44:03] where 9,000 victims joined three different class action lawsuits to complain about the fact
[1:44:09] that they were cheated out of thousands of dollars for a university that existed in name only,
[1:44:14] without a real curriculum, without real professors, without an actual campus,
[1:44:20] or any way to keep their extravagant and seductive promises to their students.
[1:44:26] The thousands of outraged victims were not silent.
[1:44:30] They came forward to complain, and they won a 25 million dollar settlement
[1:44:35] against Donald Trump and the purveyors of this fraud.
[1:44:38] One former instructor at Trump University said it, quote,
[1:44:42] preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money.
[1:44:47] Another former instructor said the institution was, quote, a total lie.
[1:44:51] That's what real fraud looks like.
[1:44:53] What have SPLC's donors done in light of this criminal indictment?
[1:44:57] They've not lined up to file class action suits or to denounce the SPLC.
[1:45:03] They continue to support the SPLC's works.
[1:45:06] Donations to the organization have gone up since this fraudulent indictment
[1:45:10] was brought down by the Trump administration.
[1:45:13] Well, the final complaint I've heard from members of this committee
[1:45:16] speaking on behalf of certain groups who take exception to being called hate groups by the SPLC.
[1:45:23] So they're mad that certain groups that they like are called hate groups.
[1:45:27] And I can appreciate why people don't want to be called a hate group.
[1:45:30] I don't like a lot of things that are said about me and the groups that I like.
[1:45:35] Stephen Miller said the Democrat Party is not a political party.
[1:45:38] It's a domestic extremist organization. I don't like that.
[1:45:42] Kristi Noem called Alex Preddy and Renee Good law abiding citizens shot down by ICE domestic terrorists.
[1:45:50] Donald Trump said that Democratic donors like George Soros and Reid Hoffman
[1:45:54] were funding a conspiracy for domestic terrorists.
[1:45:58] Look, under our First Amendment, love and hate exist in the eye of the beholder.
[1:46:03] Donald Trump has repeatedly said that January 6th was a day of love
[1:46:07] when our police officers were bathed in hugs and kisses from the Proud Boys and the insurrectionists.
[1:46:13] For most of us who lived through that violent insurrection, it wasn't a day of love.
[1:46:17] It wasn't a day of hatred and sickening violence.
[1:46:20] But that's the great thing about the First Amendment.
[1:46:22] It's up to you. You can say whatever you want.
[1:46:24] If you don't like the fact that someone's called you a hate group,
[1:46:26] then you get up and then you rebut them. You denounce them.
[1:46:30] I've heard Chairman Jordan say it a dozen times in our hearings, and I agree with him.
[1:46:35] The proper response to speech you don't like is counter speech, not government prosecution,
[1:46:41] not government censorship. Counterpose honest speech to dishonest speech.
[1:46:47] The truth to the lies. Let the public figure it out.
[1:46:50] Whatever happens, I disagree with everything you say, but I will stand with my life for your right to say it.
[1:46:57] We need less vendetta and more Voltaire. All of this is a disgrace.
[1:47:02] When DOJ was founded in 1870, 156 years ago, it was to protect the newly freed African Americans against the Ku Klux Klan,
[1:47:12] which was rampaging violence throughout the South.
[1:47:16] Todd Blanche has capsized DOJ's commitment to the rights of all and disgraced the department.
[1:47:22] He has directed DOJ to savage the SPLC while he does everything in his power with the president to aid and abet the right-wing extremists
[1:47:31] who commit acts of violence against racial minorities.
[1:47:35] Just two weeks after becoming acting AG, he moved to vacate the criminal convictions of the leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers for seditious conspiracy.
[1:47:45] They were convicted and sentenced to jail for many, many years.
[1:47:49] Seditious conspiracy means working to overthrow the government of the United States.
[1:47:55] These were crimes so toxic that President Trump wouldn't even pardon them when he was pardoning en masse
[1:48:01] more than 1,600 other cop-beating, racist January 6 rioters and insurrectionists.
[1:48:07] These are the people that the DOJ now protects.
[1:48:10] And now, Todd Blanche wants to create a $1.776 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund
[1:48:18] to turn the January 6 foot soldiers into mega-millionaires.
[1:48:23] And while Blanche was at it, he signed an outrageous superpardon to give not just Donald Trump,
[1:48:28] but his entire family and all their businesses complete and total immunity
[1:48:32] from any investigation, audit, lawsuit, or prosecution by any federal agency
[1:48:37] for any criminal or civil violation against the United States up until this point.
[1:48:43] And while systematically firing prosecutors and FBI agents who worked on the January 6 investigation,
[1:48:49] the largest criminal probe in American history,
[1:48:52] Trump and Blanche are putting January 6 rioters, violent extremists, and their closest allies
[1:48:58] in key positions throughout the DOJ.
[1:49:01] Like Jared Wise, who urged writers to kill police officers on January 6.
[1:49:07] Like Ed Martin, who defended violent cop-beaters both as a defense attorney and a federal prosecutor.
[1:49:14] He's been given free reign now as DOJ's pardon attorney,
[1:49:18] despite his long history of consorting with neo-Nazis.
[1:49:22] Donald Trump nominated Paul Ingrassia three years out of law school to run the ethics watchdog Office of the Special Counsel
[1:49:29] and stood by him after it was revealed that he admitted to having, quote,
[1:49:33] a bit of a Nazi streak in him.
[1:49:38] And he wrote that the Martin Luther King holiday should be tossed into the seventh circle of hell.
[1:49:45] The Department of Defense hired Elias Irizarry, an unqualified, inexperienced 24-year-old Trump loyalist
[1:49:52] and convicted J6 rioter who was pardoned by the president to work on irregular warfare and counterterrorism.
[1:50:00] And so on.
[1:50:02] We understand that the extremist swamp that gave rise to this criminal indictment against the SPLC
[1:50:10] is just one more Orwellian attack on the civil rights movement
[1:50:14] and one more Kafkaesque prosecution designed to shame and ensnare the righteous
[1:50:19] and acquit and absolve the guilty.
[1:50:21] It is a tissue of lies that will join the pantheon of debunked fraudulent prosecutions
[1:50:27] that DOJ has been excoriated for by dozens of judges across the land,
[1:50:33] appointed by all different presidents.
[1:50:35] A few weeks ago, a federal judge in Rhode Island, Judge McElroy,
[1:50:38] called the government's submissions in a case misleading, if not utterly false.
[1:50:42] Another judge said that DOJ attorneys had submitted a patently false allegation to the court.
[1:50:48] Another judge rejected administration officials' testimony as disingenuous, squalid, and dishonorable.
[1:50:55] And another court found the administration had provided a highly misleading, if not intentionally false,
[1:51:01] sworn declaration so disingenuous that the court is left with little confidence that the United States can be trusted to tell the truth about anything.
[1:51:11] I predict it will not be long before another federal judge casts this obscene prosecution to the winds.
[1:51:18] I'm only sorry the great name of the House Judiciary Committee has now been made an accomplice to this fraud against the court in the country.
[1:51:26] I yield back to you, Mr. Chairman.
[1:51:27] The gentleman yields back.
[1:51:28] I don't think we're part of the fraud.
[1:51:30] I think the Southern Popular Law Center was defrauding their donors.
[1:51:33] Without objection, all other opening statements will be included in the record.
[1:51:36] Today's witnesses.
[1:51:37] Dr. Alveda King is the chair of the American Dream Initiative at the American First Policy Institute.
[1:51:43] She is the daughter of civil rights activist Reverend A.D. King and the niece of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
[1:51:48] She is the founder of Speak for Life, an organization that advocates for the sanctity and dignity of human life.
[1:51:54] Mr. Brian Fair is the interim CEO and president of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
[1:51:58] He previously served as the chairman of SPLC's board of directors.
[1:52:02] Mr. Ryan Bangert is the senior vice president for strategic initiatives and special counsel to the president at the Alliance Defending Freedom.
[1:52:10] He previously served in the office of the Texas Attorney General and was a litigation partner at Baker Botts LLP.
[1:52:16] And Professor Mary McCord is a visiting professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center.
[1:52:21] She previously served in numerous roles in the Department of Justice.
[1:52:24] We welcome our witnesses and thank them for appearing today.
[1:52:27] We'll begin by swearing you in.
[1:52:28] You know how this works.
[1:52:29] Would you please rise and raise your right hand?
[1:52:31] 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, beliefs, so help you God?
[1:52:42] The records show that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative.
[1:52:46] Thank you.
[1:52:47] Please be seated.
[1:52:48] Please know that your written testimony will be entered into the record in its entirety.
[1:52:52] Accordingly, we ask that you summarize your testimony in five minutes.
[1:52:55] We're just going to start with Mr. Fair and we're going to go right down the line.
[1:52:58] So, Mr. Fair, you are recognized for five minutes.
[1:53:01] Good morning, Chairman Jordan, Ranking Member Raskin, members of the committee.
[1:53:06] Last July, I took on a one-year leave from teaching to become the interim head of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
[1:53:14] So, my testimony today will be one of my last official acts in this role.
[1:53:18] It has been one of the greatest honors of my life to work alongside the talented, dedicated, and principled SPLC staff.
[1:53:27] For 55 years, with the support of generous donors who appreciate our work, the SPLC has fought racial terror, white supremacy, and other forms of discrimination and hate, seeking to build and defend a multiracial democracy where we can all live and thrive.
[1:53:45] That was the goal of the Civil Rights Movement, and it is our mission.
[1:53:50] We are known for exposing and dismantling extremist hate groups.
[1:53:54] We took on the United Klans of America, whose hateful violence killed four little girls in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, and we sued them out of existence.
[1:54:05] In the decades since, hate has continued, but so have our efforts to expose it through litigation, policy, research, and education.
[1:54:14] We fight for the underdog, the poor, the unhoused, the hungry, the incarcerated, the disenfranchised, the immigrant, the outcast, the vilified.
[1:54:27] Many groups, and some in this room, have misrepresented our work, including our confidential informant program repeating various false allegations.
[1:54:38] Some say we've lost our way. That's false.
[1:54:41] We've never lost our North Star, a fair and just society for every person.
[1:54:46] All our programs advance that mission.
[1:54:51] Our work saves lives, but it comes at a price.
[1:54:57] Since our earliest days, we've been targeted by those who oppose our mission.
[1:55:03] Our office was firebombed. Our staff threatened. Our leaders, the target of assassination.
[1:55:09] We know political violence. We unequivocally condemn it. However, despite the danger, we will not stop exposing hate.
[1:55:20] This morning, we released our annual Year in Hate and Extremism report.
[1:55:24] It chronicles how the hard right has weaponized the levers of government to weaken the political and economic power of non-whites, immigrants, women, the LGBTQ plus community, religious minorities, and the poor.
[1:55:40] The forces turning back hard-won progress against discrimination are unrelenting and unashamed.
[1:55:47] The SPLC, alongside many civil rights groups and democracy defenders, is resisting them.
[1:55:55] To American people of goodwill, especially those left out of the American promise, your civic participation matters now more than any time since the civil rights movement.
[1:56:07] Today, I'm joined by several people who inspire our work.
[1:56:12] First, Ms. Karen Finn and her son, Aaron, are here.
[1:56:17] Aaron faced expulsion from school for alleged conduct that was a manifestation of his disability.
[1:56:22] Aaron lives with autism, and federal law prohibits schools from excluding students from behaviors connected to their disabilities.
[1:56:31] We sued, and with his mother's courage and dedication, and his perseverance, Aaron graduated from that school in 2023.
[1:56:39] Ms. Tanya Gersh is also here.
[1:56:42] A Jewish Montana mom, Gersh and her family became the target of relentless anti-Semitic harassment from white nationalists, including threatening phone calls, where all that could be heard on the line was gunshots.
[1:56:56] With the Center's help, Gersh won a $14 million judgment against the neo-Nazi who incited her harassers.
[1:57:04] We stand with Karen, Aaron, Tanya, and thousands we protect every day.
[1:57:10] Fannie Lou Hamer said,
[1:57:13] Nobody's free until everybody's free.
[1:57:17] The SPLC will continue our constitutionally protected work to ensure everyone in this country is treated with dignity, lives lives free of discrimination, and enjoys liberty and opportunity to thrive.
[1:57:33] These promises of our democracy are not self-executing.
[1:57:36] They require our collective vigilance, and we will continue to defend them when they come under attack.
[1:57:43] Finally, I must note that I'm constrained in answering some questions today because they may touch on matters involving pending criminal litigation against the SPLC or conversations that I've had with counsel.
[1:57:57] Frankly, this constraint is the result of the majorities injecting itself into a pending criminal matter three days after it was filed and then refusing our request to delay this hearing until that case is resolved.
[1:58:11] With that, I will answer what I can.
[1:58:14] Professor McCord, you're recognized.
[1:58:16] Members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify.
[1:58:21] The Department of Justice should not use its power as a weapon against people and organizations disliked by the president.
[1:58:28] No one has said this better than former U.S. Supreme Court Justice and U.S. Attorney General Robert Jackson in his 1940 speech, The Federal Prosecutor.
[1:58:36] He said, the prosecutor has more control over life, liberty and reputation than any other person in America.
[1:58:44] The prosecutor can order arrests, present cases to the grand jury in secret session, and on the basis of his one sided presentation of the facts can cause the citizen to be indicted and held for trial.
[1:58:55] If the prosecutor is obliged to choose his cases, it follows that he can choose his defendants.
[1:59:00] It is in this realm in which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass or select some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense that the greatest danger of abuse of the prosecuting power lies.
[1:59:14] It is here that law enforcement becomes personal and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or government governing group, being attached to the wrong political views or being personally obnoxious to or in the way of the prosecutor himself.
[1:59:30] What Justice Jackson warned about has come to pass.
[1:59:33] The DOJ has initiated fraud investigations against political enemies such as New York Attorney General Letitia James, Federal Reserve Board Member Lisa Cook and former chair Jerome Powell and Senator Adam Schiff.
[1:59:46] And at the same time, the president has granted clemency to more than 70 allies, donors and others convicted of hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud across his two terms, often after receiving financial or other benefits from them.
[2:00:00] And he, along with his attorney general nominee, have orchestrated a fraud on the court, settling the president's collusive lawsuit against the IRS in which he, his family members and his businesses all received from the Justice Department an effective pardon from criminal and civil investigations, audits, claims and prosecutions by any federal department or agency on any subject based on anything that could have been initiated as of the date of the settlement, known or unknown.
[2:00:28] The so-called settlement came after a federal judge ordered briefing on whether there was actual adversity between the parties, a constitutional requirement for a lawsuit.
[2:00:37] This one sided use of prosecutorial power extends to the president's National Security Presidential Memorandum Seven.
[2:00:44] Using the domestic terrorism label, it mandates that federal government, including the DOJ, use every tool in its toolbox to target groups with ideologies this administration perceives as, quote, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism and anti-Christianity, extremism on migration, race and gender and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion and morality.
[2:01:10] NSPM seven states that the groups and entities that perpetuate this extremism have created a movement that embraces and elevates violence to achieve policy outcomes.
[2:01:20] It relies for support on the murder of Charlie Kirk, assassination attempts against the president and Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the so-called riots in protest of ICE activity.
[2:01:30] And although murders and threats of violence are reprehensible and illegal, the examples do not justify the stark lack of parody in NSPM seven treatment of supposedly dangerous ideologies.
[2:01:42] There is no mention in NSPM seven of the politically motivated murders of Minnesota Democratic Legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband or the mass shootings committed in Buffalo, New York, El Paso, Texas and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by white supremacists who justified their violence based on the great replacement theory.
[2:02:01] The one sided memorandum not only lacks legitimacy, it raises the stakes for organizations that hold views the administration dislikes.
[2:02:09] It is the strong potential to lead to the discriminatory targeting of organizations based on the exercise of First Amendment rights.
[2:02:17] Within months of of then Attorney General Pan Bondi's December 2025 memo reminding prosecutors of the many federal criminal provisions that might be used in implementing NSPM seven, the SPLC was indicted.
[2:02:32] SPLC has for decades spoken out against racial violence, sued to protect civil rights and dismantle hate groups and worked cooperatively with law enforcement.
[2:02:42] Commenting on the charges, the president called SPLC one of the greatest political scams in American history.
[2:02:48] I'm not here to discuss the substance of the charges against SPLC, which is being ably defended in court.
[2:02:54] But the targeting of the organization harkens the very danger Justice Jackson warned about that law enforcement becomes personal and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or governing group,
[2:03:06] being attached to the wrong political views or being personally obnoxious to or in the way of the prosecutor himself.
[2:03:13] Thank you.
[2:03:14] That recognizes the gentleman from Maryland.
[2:03:17] Thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman.
[2:03:19] Ms. McCord, our colleagues invoked the fact that the SPLC had an informant in a white nationalist group at the infamous Unite the Right rally in August of 2017 in Charlottesville as some kind of indictment of the SPLC.
[2:03:33] But didn't that SPLC informant create the information that allowed the SPLC to send three different FBI field offices a 45 page memorandum warning of planned violence and the potential for violence at this extremist confab?
[2:03:54] That that is the facts that have been represented in court.
[2:03:57] Mr. Fair, is it true that the SPLC sent a memo based on that informant's work to three different FBI field offices?
[2:04:04] Yes, it is.
[2:04:05] OK, the chairman spoke with some indignation about the fact that there were three million or four million dollars spent giving to undercover informants to try to expose the work of the extremist groups.
[2:04:20] As in Charlottesville in 2017, where Heather Heyer was killed by a fanatic racist.
[2:04:27] How does I'm just curious how the members of the panel feel about this proposed one point seven seven six billion dollar political slush funds set up for the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and other convicted criminals and rioters from January six.
[2:04:44] Do you think that that fund should be shut down in any other similar fund?
[2:04:50] Mr. Fair?
[2:04:51] Yes or no?
[2:04:52] Yes, I do.
[2:04:53] Dr. King, do you agree that that should be shut down?
[2:04:55] I will not speak on whether that particular fund should be shut down.
[2:05:00] Or any such fund.
[2:05:01] I think some of these slush funds that SPLC is using.
[2:05:05] OK.
[2:05:06] But my question is about the one proposed by Todd Blanche.
[2:05:09] It's a yes or no.
[2:05:10] I will not answer on that.
[2:05:11] I think they need to stop killing the babies and cutting the penises off.
[2:05:16] And so any slush fund.
[2:05:17] I have limited time.
[2:05:18] We can get money in that is the problem.
[2:05:20] Mr. Banger, do you believe that the one point seven seven six billion dollar political slush fund should be shut down in any similar fund?
[2:05:28] I think that's a question for Congress to answer.
[2:05:31] OK.
[2:05:32] And Professor McCord, what do you think?
[2:05:33] Should that political slush fund be shut down?
[2:05:36] Yes, it should.
[2:05:37] And any similar slush fund?
[2:05:38] Yes, it should.
[2:05:39] OK.
[2:05:40] So the the conceit of the prosecution, this whole hearing, the whole attack on the SPLC is that there's some contradiction between fighting against extremist hate and racism for decades and then sending people under cover as informants to find out what these groups are doing.
[2:05:57] Do you agree that there's a contradiction, Professor McCord?
[2:06:00] I agree that it is a very useful law enforcement tool to use informants and cooperative cooperators to learn more, not just about hate groups and potential domestic violent extremism, but also as a tool to dismantle drug trafficking groups and human trafficking.
[2:06:18] So if the FBI sent someone undercover to expose a mafia organization, narco traffickers, international human traffickers, that wouldn't mean that the FBI is supporting those groups, would it?
[2:06:30] That's correct.
[2:06:31] OK.
[2:06:32] OK.
[2:06:33] As a matter of law and as a matter of fact, can you have a criminal fraud if there are no victims of the fraud?
[2:06:41] To have a criminal fraud, you have to have made statements and fraudulently to induce some activity.
[2:06:50] And if it did not induce some sort of activity like a gift or donation, then there is no.
[2:06:55] Well, what I don't understand is that suddenly out of the blue, there's a claim that the Southern Poverty Law Centers engaged in fraud because it's been extremely effective.
[2:07:05] I wish it had been even more effective, for example, in stopping the Oklahoma City bombing where nearly 200 people were killed in an act of fanatical white nationalism.
[2:07:15] But it's been quite effective.
[2:07:17] I don't know of any group that's been more effective other than potentially the FBI itself in stopping extremist white violence.
[2:07:24] Well, do you believe that it is an act of fraud when the donors to the group understand perfectly well that people are being sent undercover to try to get information on what these groups are doing?
[2:07:45] If donors were not defrauded and no donors have come forward, to my knowledge, suggesting that they were unaware of what the SBLC was doing, that program has been known for a long time.
[2:07:57] And so that creates a problem.
[2:07:59] I mean, it just seems to me amazing to be alleging a fraud when there are no victims.
[2:08:03] When I just looked up the Trump University case, there were hundreds and hundreds of people coming forward screaming to high heaven about how they'd been ripped off and exploited by this fake university and they won $25 million.
[2:08:15] So do you pay the same people to do the bomb and then go and comfort the people from being bombed?
[2:08:21] You pay the same people to do both jobs?
[2:08:23] That's kind of fraud to me.
[2:08:24] That's weird and chaotic and confusing.
[2:08:26] Well, Dr. King, I don't think there's any allegation that anybody who was working with the Southern Poverty Law Center bombed anyone.
[2:08:32] Do you have information to that effect?
[2:08:33] I don't personally, but outside agitators did bomb our house in 63 and then ran back and took off the Ku Klux Klan sheets and put on police things and ran up in the yard.
[2:08:43] Well, that's the same people.
[2:08:45] It was crazy.
[2:08:46] I'm with you and that's a statement about the racism of that police force working with the Ku Klux Klan.
[2:08:50] Hey, y'all pay both of them to do the double jobs.
[2:08:53] SPLC does.
[2:08:54] Really.
[2:08:55] You hire them to do the bombing, then you hire them to fix the bombing.
[2:08:58] That's weird.
[2:08:59] Dr. King, you're asserting a lot of things under oath and you haven't brought the evidence with you.
[2:09:03] I'll get some for you.
[2:09:04] Okay, please.
[2:09:05] But bring us the evidence.
[2:09:06] And I'll yield back to you, Mr. Chairman.
[2:09:07] Mr. Fair, did the Southern Poverty Law Center use donor money to have field sources attend extremist rallies across the country?
[2:09:15] Mr. Chairman.
[2:09:19] It's a simple question.
[2:09:21] Did you use your donor money for that purpose?
[2:09:24] We used donor money.
[2:09:27] Is it yes or no?
[2:09:28] To pay confidential informants to infiltrate extremist organizations.
[2:09:33] Did the Southern Poverty Law Center use donor dollars to have field sources host extremist rallies throughout the country?
[2:09:38] Not to my knowledge.
[2:09:41] That's not what the indictment says.
[2:09:42] Did the Southern Poverty Law Center use donor dollars to have field sources grow existing chapters of extremist groups?
[2:09:49] Mr. Chairman.
[2:09:50] As I said earlier.
[2:09:51] It's a simple question, Mr. Fair.
[2:09:52] Did you use donor money for the purpose I just read?
[2:09:55] I'm reading straight from the superseding indictment.
[2:09:57] And Mr. Chairman, the indictment will be managed and responded to by counsel in the criminal case that's been needed.
[2:10:04] Well, you just answered a question from Mr. Raskin concerning the indictment.
[2:10:07] He asked you, did field sources send information to the FBI that help with things?
[2:10:10] You answered that question.
[2:10:11] That's a matter of public knowledge.
[2:10:12] That's in our public filing.
[2:10:13] Did the Southern Poverty Law Center use donor money to have field sources create new chapters of extremist groups?
[2:10:20] Again, Mr. Chairman.
[2:10:22] Did the Southern Poverty Law Center use donor money to recruit new individuals into those extremist groups?
[2:10:28] I assume you don't want me to answer since you're not giving me time to answer.
[2:10:33] No, I'm giving you time to answer because that's a yes.
[2:10:35] Did you use your donor's money for that purpose, yes or no?
[2:10:39] Again, those issues will be resolved in the pending allegations against the SPLC.
[2:10:45] It seems to me if the answer is no, you could say no.
[2:10:48] We have asserted that the allegations are false.
[2:10:51] Did the Southern Poverty Law Center use donor money to have field sources make donations to extremist group leaders and purchase materials for cross burnings?
[2:10:59] It's alleged in the indictment.
[2:11:01] Did it happen?
[2:11:02] We've alleged that those allegations are false.
[2:11:04] Did the Southern Poverty Law Center use donor dollars to have field sources create racist paraphernalia that extremist groups sold at rallies?
[2:11:10] We've alleged that those allegations are false.
[2:11:15] Okay, how about this?
[2:11:16] What is Fox Photography?
[2:11:18] Mr. Chairman, what I've learned about Fox Photography, I've learned from counsel in conversations with counsel.
[2:11:31] How about Northwest Technologies?
[2:11:33] And they're covered by the attorney-client privilege.
[2:11:35] And these are – these are – well, did the Southern Poverty Law Center establish shell companies to pay – to run the money through to then pay the field sources?
[2:11:45] Again, all of the allegations that you are referring to, Chairman Jordan, will be –
[2:11:55] Well, how about this?
[2:11:56] … responded to by our counsel in the Middle District of Alabama.
[2:12:00] Did you pay the field sources directly or did you pay them through an intermediary?
[2:12:07] Mr. Chairman Jordan?
[2:12:13] Yep.
[2:12:14] Our counsel will respond to all the allegations in the indictment in the case pending in the Middle District of Alabama.
[2:12:20] Well, there's all these companies that you sent money to.
[2:12:22] Center Investigative Agency, not the CIA, but your CIA, Fox Photography, Northwest Technologies, Tech Writers Group, Rare Books Warehouses.
[2:12:30] Imagery Link, J&J Electronics, and Kelly's Marine.
[2:12:34] And I just want to know if that was the intermediate shell companies that you guys set up to pay the field sources.
[2:12:39] Is that true?
[2:12:42] Will the good chairman yield for just a moment?
[2:12:43] No.
[2:12:44] I got just a minute and a half and then I'll be happy to entertain a question you may have.
[2:12:47] Chairman Jordan, our counsel will respond to all the allegations in the Middle District of Alabama.
[2:12:54] Okay.
[2:12:55] As the process allows.
[2:12:56] Did you do it all for the money?
[2:12:58] You said now, I think the Southern Private Law Center said you're no longer going to use these field sources.
[2:13:05] You're going to stop the program.
[2:13:06] But you did it for multiple years.
[2:13:08] And according to the indictment, it was $4 million that you shelled out to these various field sources to engage in all the activities I just read.
[2:13:14] Was it all about the money?
[2:13:16] As we said in our public statement, Chairman Jordan, we did it to protect our staff and to protect the public.
[2:13:22] Did fundraising increase after paying people to stay in these groups who actually wanted out of them?
[2:13:28] Did your fundraising increase?
[2:13:29] Did the donations coming in increase?
[2:13:31] Chairman Jordan, I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to when you say-
[2:13:38] How about this?
[2:13:39] After the crazy Charlottesville rally, did fundraising go up?
[2:13:42] Mr. Chairman, our fundraising went up-
[2:13:48] Fundraising where one of your field sources helped coordinate transportation-
[2:13:51] Our fundraising went up when President Donald Trump was elected in 2016.
[2:13:55] Fundraising go up after you paid a field source to coordinate the transportation at an event in Charlottesville where a person was killed.
[2:14:01] That's what I'm asking.
[2:14:02] Did it go up?
[2:14:03] Because according to what we know, you went from $51 million to $133 million in one year.
[2:14:08] And that happened when President Donald Trump was elected.
[2:14:12] Who's the president of the National Socialist Party?
[2:14:19] You know?
[2:14:23] You paid him $70,000.
[2:14:24] He was field source number 30.
[2:14:25] I just want to know who he is.
[2:14:26] Do you know who he is?
[2:14:27] Mr. Chairman, that's an allegation in the indictment that will be responded to by counsel in the Middle District of Alabama.
[2:14:35] My time has expired.
[2:14:36] The chair now recognizes the gentleman from New York.
[2:14:40] Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[2:14:41] Mr. Chairman, in the Justice Department that has lost more than 10,000 attorneys since the start of President Trump's second term,
[2:14:48] it's not surprising that the indictment of SPLC are replete with mistakes of fact and law.
[2:14:56] In the words of one former prosecutor, DOJ's indictment of SPLC, quote, falls egregiously short of alleging a crime, close quote.
[2:15:05] At its core, the indictment claims that SPLC defrauded its donors and betrayed its stated mission to dismantle hate groups by paying informants who, quote,
[2:15:13] were either associated with violent extremist organizations or had infiltrated such organizations at the SPLC's donation direction, close quote.
[2:15:22] But this is directly contradicted by the fact that SPLC's donors have said that they knew about and liked the informant program.
[2:15:29] The truth is that SPLC's use of paid informants has been public knowledge for decades.
[2:15:35] Mr. Fair, has information provided by informants to the SPLC been used to prevent political and racially motivated violence?
[2:15:44] I'm sorry, Congressman Nadler.
[2:15:48] Has information provided by informants to SPLC been used to prevent political and racially motivated violence?
[2:15:55] Yes, Congressman Nadler, we shared information that we learned through our confidential informant program with local, state and federal law enforcement to prevent racial violence against the public at large and to protect our staff.
[2:16:13] Thank you.
[2:16:14] SPLC proactively shared information obtained from its informants with law enforcement agencies in order to prevent the activities of extremist groups, in other words.
[2:16:22] Mr. Fair, can you explain what actions the SPLC took before the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in an attempt to help law enforcement?
[2:16:33] Congressman Nadler, again, I must say that Council will respond to all allegations in the indictment in the Middle District of Alabama.
[2:16:49] That's not an allegation.
[2:16:50] It's part of the allegation.
[2:16:53] Okay.
[2:16:54] Mr. Fair, can you explain how the SPLC's informant program helped thwart a terrorist attack in Las Vegas in 2019?
[2:17:03] Yes, Congressman Nadler.
[2:17:05] In our public filings, we have already stated that SPLC shared information about a particular white nationalist group, Atom Waffen, to prevent a terrorist attack in Las Vegas in 2019.
[2:17:25] Thank you.
[2:17:27] And what about Philadelphia's Navy Yard?
[2:17:28] Can you tell us briefly about that?
[2:17:30] Again, in 2018, the SPLC shared information with the FBI and with law enforcement about potential criminal activity by a member of Vanguard America.
[2:17:47] We shared that information with law enforcement.
[2:17:49] Thank you.
[2:17:51] It sounds to me like SPLC's informant program has been essential and that SPLC has worked with law enforcement to keep our community safe.
[2:17:59] And yet, shortly after the indictment was announced, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche falsely claimed on Fox News that the DOJ had, quote, no information, unquote, that suggests that SPLC shared information collected through its informant program with federal law enforcement.
[2:18:15] This was obviously a lie.
[2:18:16] In fact, DOJ was forced to walk back Blanche's false claim after SPLC filed a motion to address the government's, quote, materially false statements.
[2:18:25] Ms. McCord, the acting attorney general, the chief law enforcement official in this country made a patently false statement publicly about a material fact in ongoing prosecution.
[2:18:37] Can you explain why a false statement made by an acting attorney general directly related to an ongoing prosecution would be concerning?
[2:18:44] Well, this is something, first of all, given that Mr. Blanche has now rescinded that statement, it begs the question of whether he knew what he said was false at the time.
[2:18:56] And if he did, it's a it's a terrible thing to try to prejudice the American public against the SPLC in this these criminal charges by making a statement like that, which is really core to the indictment, whether they were sharing information with law enforcement.
[2:19:10] Thank you. DOJ's case against SPLC, much like the investigations into James Comey, Letitia James, Jerome Powell, Lisa Cook, and so many others is yet another example of the Trump administration's total weaponization of the Department of Justice.
[2:19:25] And this committee's hearing today is an example of slander against one of the greatest civil rights organizations we've had. I yield back.
[2:19:36] Move to enter into the record a letter from the Jewish Council of Public Affairs.
[2:19:41] With objection.
[2:19:42] Dozens of rabbis praising the role of the SPLC in opposing anti-Semitism.
[2:19:51] Objection. Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California.
[2:19:54] So during a September 2020 presidential debate, when he was asked to condemn white supremacists and tell their militia groups to stand down,
[2:20:06] Donald Trump told the Proud Boys to, quote, stand back and stand by.
[2:20:11] That was a message that elated white supremacists online.
[2:20:16] Months later, President Trump had lost the election and spent months spreading the big lie about widespread fraud.
[2:20:24] And the Proud Boys were no longer standing by.
[2:20:28] On January 6th, they were on the ellipse.
[2:20:32] They were in the streets.
[2:20:33] And as we all know, we were here.
[2:20:35] They made it into our capital.
[2:20:37] As a member of the January 6th Select Committee, I saw firsthand how organized extremist groups helped transform political grievances into coordinated action, hate, and then violence.
[2:20:52] Before January 6th, the Southern Poverty Law Center spent years warning about organizations like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and other extremist movements.
[2:21:04] Professor McCord, can you explain what SPLC must have seen in those groups that caused them to raise concerns about them long before their attack on the Capitol?
[2:21:15] Yes, Congressmember.
[2:21:19] Like other research organizations that study the groups with ideologies that espouse things like white supremacism and the Great Replacement Theory and tend to, in some cases, not all cases, but advocate for violence on behalf of those ideologies and in furtherance of those ideologies.
[2:21:39] These are things that lead SPLC, as other research organizations do, to give warnings about violence that may be coming.
[2:21:47] And certainly before January 6th, the red flags and the warning signs were there and were communicated by SPLC as well as other organizations.
[2:21:55] How did the prosecution of anti-government actors who participated in the storming of the Capitol on January 6th affect groups like Oath Keepers and the activities of anti-government militias?
[2:22:12] And what happened after the Trump administration issued its pardons to January 6th insurrection participants?
[2:22:20] And did the pardons of the January 6th insurrectionists help or hurt the fight against white supremacist violence and extremism in this country?
[2:22:29] Three questions for you, Professor McCord.
[2:22:31] Right after January 6th, we saw groups like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the National Three Percenters dismantle their nationwide organizations.
[2:22:40] We saw the Oath Keepers pretty much dissolve.
[2:22:43] But, of course, with the pardons and the clemency and the commutations, we've seen a resurgence of these groups.
[2:22:50] We've seen them monetizing things.
[2:22:52] And we've seen also, unfortunately, members, not just of those groups, but people who were pardoned, committing additional crimes.
[2:23:00] Additional?
[2:23:01] We have a list of the crimes they've committed, some really disgusting and serious measures.
[2:23:06] Mr. Fair, if Congress tries to diminish SPLC and dismiss its warnings about groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers,
[2:23:16] what lessons would we miss about the threat posed by organized domestic extremism to our American democracy?
[2:23:25] Thank you, Congressman Longwood.
[2:23:29] The lessons we would miss is that all of us are less safe with the threat of domestic terrorism.
[2:23:40] That these groups that both express hate, that express white supremacy, that terrorize various groups, are a danger to all of us.
[2:23:54] And we need to know about them.
[2:23:58] We need to know about what they say.
[2:24:01] And we need to know about the actions that they take.
[2:24:05] That's what we'll miss.
[2:24:06] I thank you for those answers.
[2:24:09] I think it's really quite telling that the Republican majority on this committee has now had a second hearing to scrutinize SPLC,
[2:24:17] rather than discuss their findings and figure out how to prevent another such attack on our democracy.
[2:24:24] These lunatics that Donald Trump unleashed back onto America's streets are prepared to go to war for him again.
[2:24:31] They're violent.
[2:24:32] They're hate-filled.
[2:24:33] And they have a president who will not hold them accountable for violating the law.
[2:24:38] He's pardoned them.
[2:24:40] He says he wants to give them taxpayer money to reward them.
[2:24:44] That's the threat we need to be discussing, not the folks at SPLC who are pointing out this threat.
[2:24:51] With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
[2:24:53] General, I yield back.
[2:24:54] I would just remind Mr. Fair that the Family Research Council doesn't terrorize anyone.
[2:24:59] And shortly after you put him on the hate list, the individual came into their facility and shot the security guard.
[2:25:08] For unanimous consent.
[2:25:11] Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[2:25:12] I ask unanimous consent to introduce the SPLC's hate map, which lists a half a dozen different chapters of the Nation of Islam as anti-Semitic hate groups.
[2:25:21] Without objection, the chair now recognizes – and I should have mentioned this earlier.
[2:25:25] I apologize.
[2:25:26] If you need a break, just let us know.
[2:25:28] We'll be happy to give you a break, because it's going to, as you know, going to go on for a while here.
[2:25:32] And I think it's the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Cohen.
[2:25:34] Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[2:25:36] Mr. Fair, why was the Southern Poverty Law Center called the Southern Poverty Law Center?
[2:25:43] We were founded to defend the poor, to assist the poor, to resist racial terror against poor people across the South.
[2:25:55] So anti-poverty work has been in our DNA.
[2:26:01] We continue to do work on behalf of the unhoused, the hungry, the poor.
[2:26:09] And your founders – I know – I knew Morris Dees.
[2:26:16] I know Morris Dees.
[2:26:17] I haven't seen him in ever for a while.
[2:26:18] And Julian Bond was a dear friend of mine.
[2:26:20] They were two of your founders, were they not?
[2:26:22] That's correct.
[2:26:23] Were there other founders that people might know?
[2:26:26] The three founders, Morris Dees and Joe Levin, came together and named Julian Bond the first president.
[2:26:34] Pretty good crew.
[2:26:35] Outstanding crew.
[2:26:36] Yeah, they all should have gotten presidential medals.
[2:26:39] I tried to get Julian one, but for some reason, our president – two of our presidents failed.
[2:26:44] Why, I do not know.
[2:26:45] So the Southern Poverty Law Center was not formed to go after international discrimination and hate.
[2:26:52] There's plenty of hate in the South.
[2:26:55] Yes.
[2:26:56] The South's abundant with hate.
[2:26:58] Our initial work was primarily focused in the South, but that work has expanded to cover the entire country.
[2:27:05] I don't understand the questioning – some of the people on the panel – about suggesting the Southern Poverty Law Center is not concerned about anti-Semitism and Jewish hate.
[2:27:18] As a person who's been exposed to Jewish hate and anti-Semitism since my birth, I guess, and could get a ton of it on the ex-Mr. Musk's hate-filled organization, a lot of anti-Semitism, which has increased lately, why would they be asking such questions?
[2:27:43] You go after anti-Semitism, do you not?
[2:27:45] Absolutely.
[2:27:46] We've, as I said in my early response for 55 years, we've been resisting anti-Semitism.
[2:27:54] I mentioned that Tanya Gersh is here today.
[2:27:57] We've also recently filed two lawsuits against the Goem Defense League in Tennessee for attacks on a Jewish center and on Jewish and African American people in Nashville.
[2:28:11] This is work that we've done that we will continue to do.
[2:28:14] Again, anti-Semitism is hateful, and groups that traffic in it, whatever their political ideology, would be identified.
[2:28:24] Have you had any Jewish people contact you or Jewish organizations and complain?
[2:28:29] No, we have not.
[2:28:32] As a Jewish person, I welcome all faiths to come to our aid and support, and many have. Many, many have.
[2:28:43] But usually when there's anti-Semitism, the Anti-Defamation League is on it.
[2:28:50] Jewish groups are not afraid to stand up and speak out against anti-Semitism, but none of them have contacted you.
[2:28:56] Nor are we afraid to stand up and speak out against anti-Semitism. Congressman Cohen.
[2:29:02] What's going on in our country really is scary, and what Ms. Loughran said was true.
[2:29:10] We're looking at a president who said stand, stand, stand by, stand up and stand by, or stand down and stand by.
[2:29:19] And he has pardoned the people who committed treason against our country, violence against police people, and desecrated our capital.
[2:29:30] They were convicted or pled guilty, and he pardoned them. And now he wants to give them money.
[2:29:36] And he may not want to leave come January 2029, and he's got his army prepared.
[2:29:46] I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people in ICE aren't J6ers.
[2:29:50] That's why they wear their masks. They're not worried about COVID.
[2:29:53] They're hiding themselves from the public, and there's a reason for it.
[2:29:58] I value your work.
[2:30:03] When one of my best friends died about eight years ago, Urban Salke, who was also a friend of Julian Bonds,
[2:30:08] an outstanding member of the Ratner Sugarman Lucas Law Firm, the first African-American integrated law firm in Memphis,
[2:30:15] I ask that people give memorials to the Southern Poverty Law Center in his honor.
[2:30:21] I'm proud of every memorial that's been given, and I'm proud of every donation I've made.
[2:30:25] I thank you for your work, and I thank you for continuing the work of Julian Bond and Morris Dees and Mr. Levin.
[2:30:30] You are a blessing. Thank you.
[2:30:32] Thank you.
[2:30:33] The time the gentleman has expired.
[2:30:36] Mr. Chairman, I've got a unanimous concern.
[2:30:39] The gentleman from Georgia is recognized.
[2:30:41] A statement from Kristen Clark, general counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,
[2:30:48] that unequivocally opposes the targeting of the Southern Poverty Law Center,
[2:30:57] an organization dedicated to combating hate violence in America.
[2:31:02] The chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Johnson.
[2:31:04] Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[2:31:06] And this hearing takes me back to the 50s, the time of McCarthyism, the time of demonic and demonizing attacks against political enemies that was in vogue by the notorious and infamous Joe McCarthy, the House Un-American Activities Committee.
[2:31:32] This is what this reminds me of.
[2:31:34] And when I go back to the 50s, I also think about how mainstreamed during that time was white supremacy.
[2:31:44] It was mainstreamed.
[2:31:45] It was so mainstreamed that presidents had to call out the troops to maintain order or to bring order.
[2:31:55] I'm reminded of the racist governor of Arkansas denying entry for the Little Rock Nine into the all-white Central High School.
[2:32:05] I'm sure you remember, too, Dr. King, back in 57, the little girls trying to get into the building and being spat upon and taunted and threatened.
[2:32:21] And I'm sure you remember, Dr. King, in 1962 in Mississippi when James Meredith was to enroll at the University of Mississippi and President Kennedy had to call out the troops to guarantee that they stopped the riots so that this man could enroll.
[2:32:42] And then again, in 63, when the troops were called out by the president, as George Wallace stood in the door of the school and said, segregation today, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.
[2:33:01] I mean, that's mainstream white supremacy.
[2:33:05] Same thing when the troops had to be called out by President Johnson in 1965 to protect the civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery marching for voting rights.
[2:33:18] And today the clock has turned back.
[2:33:23] White supremacy extremism is again mainstreamed.
[2:33:27] This president came into office and revoked a 60 year old executive order banning racial discrimination in federal government hiring practices, saying that it was now unnecessary.
[2:33:45] We've had the stripping of employment protections from employees of the federal government.
[2:33:53] We've seen the civil rights division of the Department of Justice gutted and diverted from its mainstream activities.
[2:34:03] And and at the same time, we have experienced wealthy.
[2:34:08] We've we've experienced attacks on the rule of law, the top wealthy, most powerful law firm, some of which bent the knee to this president because he threatened them.
[2:34:22] He's we've seen him go after the mainstream media because they would not renounce diversity, equity and inclusion.
[2:34:32] We've seen him go after top universities trying to get at their research funding, threatening to cut it off and actually cutting it off unless they rooted out diversity, equity, inclusion.
[2:34:50] It's it's it's mainstream white supremacy is mainstreamed extremism nonprofit corporations have been attacked like the SPLC organizations that offer legal assistance and provide advocacy for victims of white supremacy and racial discrimination organizations which advance the cause of civil rights and voting rights.
[2:35:21] For black people like the SPLC does Southern Poverty Law Center is under attack because they are standing up against the erosion of our democracy.
[2:35:32] Professor Fair America may not realize that election workers have recently faced bomb threats, harassment and targeted intimidation simply for doing your job.
[2:35:49] And you've issued reports about that.
[2:35:52] How are these threats part of the larger racial based suppression tactics?
[2:35:57] And is this a reason why your organization has come under attack by this administration and by this committee?
[2:36:04] Gentlemen, time is expired, but you may answer.
[2:36:07] Thank you.
[2:36:08] Congressman Johnson.
[2:36:09] Yes, we we believe that there is a direct threat to free and fair elections.
[2:36:16] And we believe that we are a target of this administration because of the effective work we've done for 55 years.
[2:36:25] Thank you, sir.
[2:36:26] I stand with you on your work.
[2:36:28] Gentlemen, time is expired.
[2:36:29] Mr. Chairman.
[2:36:30] Gentlemen from Georgia is recognized.
[2:36:31] I've got a unanimous consent request to introduce for the record an article from the Columbus Dispatch titled, quote, 50 white extremist groups thrive in Ohio's heart period.
[2:36:45] SPLC indictment helps them, end quote.
[2:36:49] Without objection.
[2:36:50] Gentle lady.
[2:36:52] I'm sorry, Mr. Garcia's unanimous consent.
[2:36:56] Thank you, Chairman.
[2:36:57] I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record this letter from the Christian faith leaders expressing their deep and abiding support for the people and the vital work of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
[2:37:09] Without objection.
[2:37:10] Gentle lady.
[2:37:11] Gentle lady and the committee wishes to express our boldness.
[2:37:14] I know you had a tough situation with your family.
[2:37:16] I'm sorry to hear about that, but welcome you back and you're recognized for five minutes.
[2:37:19] Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
[2:37:21] Really appreciate that.
[2:37:22] Well, here we are again for a third hearing in six months about the Southern Poverty Law Center.
[2:37:28] And I wanted to point out that voter confidence in the economy has plummeted to a four year low.
[2:37:34] 76% of Americans think that the economy is getting worse.
[2:37:38] The average price for a gallon of gas has almost doubled since Trump began his unconstitutional war of choice against Iran.
[2:37:46] And the top concerns of Americans across political party are gas prices, the cost of groceries and rising health care costs.
[2:37:54] So perhaps it's a surprise to my Republican colleagues that the Southern Poverty Law Center is nowhere on the top list of concerns of Americans across this country.
[2:38:04] And the fact is that the factual falsehoods and ideological grievances that Republicans keep pushing in these endless hearings is all about fulfilling Donald Trump's mission of punishing perceived political enemies.
[2:38:20] So I want to be very clear.
[2:38:22] This hearing is allegedly about SPLC, quote, spreading hate, which is even more ironic given that it's Donald Trump himself who has used extreme rhetoric and gone out of his way to stoke racism, fear and xenophobia.
[2:38:39] He has denounced Mexican immigrants as rapists.
[2:38:42] He's railed against immigration from, quote, shithole countries.
[2:38:46] His words, not mine.
[2:38:47] He has enacted travel bans against dozens of countries, which a federal court just ruled unlawfully targeted people from 39 African, Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern countries.
[2:39:00] And he and Republicans have tried to end birthright citizenship and have given hundreds of billions of dollars to rogue ICE and CBP agents to kidnap and disappear immigrants of all immigration statuses, including, by the way, United States citizens.
[2:39:14] But it isn't just the denigrating of black and brown communities that's so dangerous.
[2:39:19] It is the praising, the pardoning, the condoning of extreme white nationalists directly from the White House in Trump's America.
[2:39:30] White supremacists at the Charlottesville rally are, quote, very fine people, even after images and videos showed participants making Nazi salutes and cheering on the former Grand Wizard of the KKK.
[2:39:43] Trump then urged the same network of extremists to storm the Capitol and is still trying to implement his $1.8 billion slush fund of U.S. taxpayer dollars to pardon convicted insurrectionists,
[2:39:59] at least 89 of whom have gone on to commit all kinds of serious crimes from child sexual abuse to reckless homicide.
[2:40:06] And he's done so over and over again, and yet he's weaponizing the Department of Justice to go after the Southern Poverty Law Center because they have dared to call out that hate and extremism,
[2:40:22] including from people within the White House like Stephen Miller and others within the administration.
[2:40:27] My Republican colleagues want you to think that SPLC is targeting mainstream conservative individuals and groups.
[2:40:34] But I want to dive in a little bit to set the record straight about exactly who we are talking about here.
[2:40:41] Many of these individuals and groups espouse something called the Great Replacement Theory,
[2:40:46] which argues that elites are trying to actively replace white Americans and Europeans with non-white immigrants.
[2:40:55] So, Professor McCord, is the Great Replacement Theory an extreme and hateful fringe theory?
[2:41:03] It is a fringe extreme theory, Congress member. It is not something that is adhered to by the majority of the American public or even a large percentage.
[2:41:13] And it's true, is it not, that the Great Replacement Theory has stimulated violent reactionary responses in multiple cases, including mass murders, mass shootings?
[2:41:23] There have been numerous mass shootings, including in Buffalo, New York, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, El Paso, Texas, and many others,
[2:41:30] where the writings and work of the people who have committed those heinous crimes reflected that they adhered to the Great Replacement Theory as an ideology.
[2:41:40] Now, one of the groups that espouses these views is the Center for Immigration Studies, or CIS.
[2:41:45] And it's an anti-immigrant think tank that SPLC has designated as a hate group.
[2:41:50] These are some of the statements behind me that CIS's leaders and writers have said, including advocating for the need to maintain a European-American majority,
[2:41:59] claiming that blacks and Hispanics have lower IQ than white people.
[2:42:03] And I guess I want to ask you, Mr. Fair, why was it important for Southern Poverty Law Center to designate CIS as a hate group?
[2:42:11] It was important, Congressman Jayapal, because it is one of these go-to think tank organizations
[2:42:20] that many people rely on, and our goal is to expose the statements of these groups and to let the people decide.
[2:42:28] We don't stop speech. We don't stop anyone's speech.
[2:42:31] There's plenty of speech in the public square from these groups.
[2:42:36] We expose their statements in the words of what they say and their activities and let the people decide what they think about it.
[2:42:45] So that they don't lead to violent actions that follow that.
[2:42:49] I think you, Mr. Chairman.
[2:42:50] The general lady has expired.
[2:42:51] The general-
[2:42:52] Chairman, I have a UC.
[2:42:53] The general lady can say a request?
[2:42:55] Yes.
[2:42:56] This is an article from ProPublica.
[2:42:58] Members of several well-known hate groups identified at Capitol Riot.
[2:43:04] Objection.
[2:43:06] And the next one is from Salon.
[2:43:10] And it says, SPLC indictments lend support to hate groups for decades.
[2:43:14] The Southern Poverty Law Center has fought hate.
[2:43:17] Now the Justice Department wants to stop it.
[2:43:19] Without objection.
[2:43:20] Mr. Chairman, I have a unanimous consent as well.
[2:43:23] I'm from Texas.
[2:43:24] My colleague, Ms. Jasmine Crockett, said she was unaware that children's genitalia was being cut off.
[2:43:31] I'd like to submit this article that says, Trump administration lauds plastic surgeon's statement on trans surgery for minors.
[2:43:40] I'll send you a copy, Ms. Crockett, so you can learn more about this heinous practice.
[2:43:44] Mr. Chairman, just for purposes of the record, I want to-
[2:43:46] Not objection.
[2:43:47] I know that that side doesn't have too many women, so we may all look alike.
[2:43:52] But that was actually my colleague.
[2:43:54] I take full credit.
[2:43:56] Gentlemen.
[2:43:57] I apologize.
[2:43:58] I just assumed it was you, Ms. Crockett.
[2:44:00] Please forgive me.
[2:44:01] The gentleman from New Jersey for-
[2:44:04] Unanimous consent from YouTube.
[2:44:07] DOJ indictment alleges SPLC-funded Klan activities, including reimbursements for cross burnings.
[2:44:13] Without objection.
[2:44:14] The chair recognizes the gentleman from Colorado.
[2:44:16] Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[2:44:19] Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here today and for your testimony.
[2:44:23] Reviewed all of your written testimony and appreciate the opportunity to ask you a couple of questions about it.
[2:44:27] Mr. Banger, you work for Alliance Defending Freedom, correct?
[2:44:32] Yes, sir.
[2:44:33] Okay.
[2:44:34] I reviewed your written testimony.
[2:44:37] Safe to say you disagree with Southern Poverty Law Center's designation of your group, right?
[2:44:43] We do.
[2:44:44] Okay.
[2:44:45] And based on your written testimony and based off some of what I found on your website, some deep resentment about that designation.
[2:44:51] Fair to say.
[2:44:52] Yes, sir.
[2:44:53] We don't resent them.
[2:44:54] We disagree with them.
[2:44:55] Okay.
[2:44:56] Well, as I look at your testimony and as I review your website, it is pretty clear that you view Southern Poverty Law Center as an adversary or is that a fair characterization?
[2:45:05] We have disagreements with them on a number of issues, including policy and otherwise.
[2:45:09] That's how you would describe them?
[2:45:11] Disagreements?
[2:45:12] I mean, the words that you use to describe the Southern Poverty Law Center do not strike me as a simple matter of disagreement.
[2:45:18] It seems pretty clear to me based on your website, based on your testimony.
[2:45:22] I don't know why you'd be walking away from that now, that you vehemently disagree with the Southern Poverty Law Center, that you are pleased that they have been indicted.
[2:45:31] You have called.
[2:45:32] I mean, this is from your recommendations for congressional action.
[2:45:36] Direct banking regulators to investigate ECOA and Regulation B compliance at institutions using SPLC linked vetting tools, right?
[2:45:44] So you are calling for investigations into the Southern Poverty Law Center.
[2:45:48] That doesn't sound like something that you would do with someone you disagree with.
[2:45:51] Am I wrong?
[2:45:52] Well, Congressman, any time that a designation by a nonprofit that's politically unaccountable is being used by federally regulated banks to discriminate based on religious belief, that's something that the government should be aware of.
[2:46:07] Okay.
[2:46:08] And so I'm simply saying that I didn't expect to have this much of an extended back and forth on the premise of the question.
[2:46:16] I think that your bosses at Alliance Defending Freedom, if they were testifying here, would say, we vehemently disagree with Southern Poverty Law Center.
[2:46:23] They're an adversary.
[2:46:24] They are an enemy.
[2:46:25] We are glad that they have been indicted.
[2:46:28] And we are calling for more investigations of them, which you did in the written testimony that you provided to this committee.
[2:46:34] Do you think it would be inappropriate to harness a criminal prosecution of an entity to pursue the enemies of your organization?
[2:46:46] Would that be an inappropriate thing to do?
[2:46:48] Well, Congressman.
[2:46:49] No, that's a yes or no question.
[2:46:50] You can ask.
[2:46:51] If you don't think it's inappropriate, you can say no.
[2:46:54] If there's true criminal activity, then of course the government has the right to investigate.
[2:46:58] Sure.
[2:46:59] But if there's no criminal activity, it would be wrong to do that, right?
[2:47:01] Well, it depends upon what facts ultimately show.
[2:47:05] Mr. Bingren, this is why I asked the question.
[2:47:07] You are a former attorney general.
[2:47:08] I think you know why I'm asking you the question.
[2:47:09] You're a former deputy attorney general within the Texas Office of Attorney General.
[2:47:15] You went to the FBI and gave a whistleblower complaint about Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas.
[2:47:22] You did so because you believed that there was criminal wrongdoing.
[2:47:26] Let me read this quote.
[2:47:27] In my view, the criminal process had been harnessed to pursue the business enemies of an individual
[2:47:34] who also happened to be under intensive investigation by law enforcement.
[2:47:39] That's your quote from an article a few years ago after you went to the FBI about Mr. Paxton.
[2:47:44] It is very clear that Alliance Defending Freedom and a wide variety of other organizations
[2:47:49] that have been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center, resent it, vehemently disagree with it,
[2:47:55] have been demanding a criminal investigation and indictment of SPLC,
[2:47:59] and they have now gotten their wishes from the president's personal lawyer who, of course, as we know,
[2:48:04] now serves as the interim attorney general of the United States.
[2:48:07] And I just think it's important for us to be candid about that.
[2:48:11] I don't know if the chairman agrees with you going to the FBI about Ken Paxton.
[2:48:17] I'm not sure if Mr. Gill or Mr. Roy or some of my colleagues here,
[2:48:21] maybe they'll ask you a question or two about the Republican Attorney General of Texas
[2:48:26] and why it was appropriate for you to go to the FBI with allegations of wrongdoing.
[2:48:31] I'm certainly glad that you did that.
[2:48:33] I would tell you that, like you, the SPLC, as I understand it, has gone to the FBI on many occasions to provide the FBI with information about suspected criminal activity.
[2:48:47] And in fact, that criminal activity, the reported criminal activity has ultimately been prosecuted,
[2:48:54] by the way, not by President Biden's Justice Department, but by Donald Trump's Justice Department.
[2:49:00] And the best example of this, which was brought up earlier, was the potential mass terror attack at a synagogue in Las Vegas.
[2:49:09] And Mr. Fair, I think you've already attested to this.
[2:49:12] But just to be clear, your organization gave information from a paid informant to the FBI when Donald Trump was president.
[2:49:21] And Donald Trump's FBI used that information to prosecute someone to prevent them from engaging in this mass terror attack.
[2:49:31] Is that true?
[2:49:32] That is correct.
[2:49:33] That is correct.
[2:49:34] That is correct.
[2:49:35] Thank you, Mr. Fair.
[2:49:36] Thank you, Mr. Banker.
[2:49:37] Time to yield back.
[2:49:38] First, I ask unanimous consent to introduce this article about whether, in fact, people have been driven from the public square.
[2:49:45] 2025 was a banner year for Alliance Defending Freedom in their newsletter.
[2:49:52] And I ask unanimous consent to introduce for the record a report by the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General,
[2:49:57] which found no evidence of anti-Catholic bias or malicious intent on the part of the FBI personnel who prepared the Richmond domain perspective.
[2:50:05] Even though they apologize for it?
[2:50:07] Well, I've got the report right here from the Inspector General.
[2:50:10] Well, we have the apology from Director Wray.
[2:50:12] So you typically don't apologize for something if you didn't do anything wrong.
[2:50:16] Let's submit it to the record and let everybody read both of them.
[2:50:18] Yeah, okay.
[2:50:19] We'll have to submit to Director Wray's statement as well.
[2:50:22] Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from North Carolina.
[2:50:24] Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
[2:50:26] It is beyond ridiculous that we are having yet a second hearing on this topic, something that is in active litigation and that the courts should sort out.
[2:50:37] It's especially ridiculous because we've had no oversight hearings of what the DOJ is doing under Mr. Blanche when he is about to be in front of the Senate for confirmation for Attorney General.
[2:50:55] And he has had so many incidents that are worthy of investigation, including his handling of the Epstein files and Ghislaine Maxwell's transfer to Club Fed.
[2:51:08] But that's not why we're here today.
[2:51:10] My colleagues on the other side have continued to cite the indictment as if it is some kind of proof.
[2:51:17] Proof.
[2:51:18] Proof.
[2:51:19] It's just an indictment that SPLC has engaged in wrongdoing.
[2:51:23] This indictment essentially states that making payments to a confidential informant to infiltrate violent extremist organizations is the exact same thing as supporting those organizations.
[2:51:36] That also is ridiculous.
[2:51:39] The FBI pays informants all the time.
[2:51:43] Are they supporting the groups that they're trying to undermine?
[2:51:46] This is a bizarre Alice in Wonderland theory.
[2:51:51] And if allowed to stand, it would call into question decades of intelligence and law enforcement practices used to prevent violence and dismantle criminal networks.
[2:52:03] Mr. Fair, how does the intelligence and extremist monitoring program within SPLC support, support your work to combat violent hate groups in America?
[2:52:18] Thank you, Congresswoman Ross.
[2:52:22] Our confidential informant program helped save lives.
[2:52:26] We shared information with law enforcement.
[2:52:28] It helped protect the public.
[2:52:30] It helped protect our staff.
[2:52:34] We were able to gather intelligence and dismantle some of these groups.
[2:52:41] Thank you.
[2:52:43] It is astounding that our own Department of Justice, which benefited from this intelligence gathering,
[2:52:50] seems not to understand how this process works.
[2:52:54] But that's the current Department of Justice.
[2:52:57] Ms. McCord, you were a federal prosecutor for two decades and led the National Security Division of the DOJ,
[2:53:06] which prosecutes crimes like domestic terrorism.
[2:53:11] Did your work ever involve or rely on paid confidential informants?
[2:53:17] Yes, it is a practice, an investigative technique, tactic strategy that is used by law enforcement, paid informants, cooperators,
[2:53:28] not only to investigate potential crimes of terrorism, but also drug trafficking rings, human trafficking rings, child pedophilia.
[2:53:36] And can you give us an example of when information from an informant was used to build a federal case against a criminal network?
[2:53:47] There are many examples, Congresswoman Ross, and certainly oftentimes this results in allegations in indictments,
[2:53:57] including the information provided by paid informants and oftentimes testimony at trial that also comes directly from informants.
[2:54:04] Great. Thank you, Ms. McCord.
[2:54:07] This is essential work.
[2:54:08] And of course, we know that SPLC donors have absolutely no problem with this practice.
[2:54:14] As one of them stated in the wake of this indictment, we knew they were paying informants.
[2:54:21] The indictment is a laughing stock.
[2:54:25] It is on specious legal grounds.
[2:54:28] Veteran prosecutors have called this indictment frail and deficient and particularly weak.
[2:54:36] One federal civil rights prosecutor and FBI agent even stated, and I quote,
[2:54:43] I don't think any prosecutor with white collar experience would look at this indictment and believe it makes out the elements of a crime.
[2:54:53] It is not a valid indictment.
[2:54:55] We know why this indictment was brought.
[2:54:59] It's just one of the many weaponized moves that Todd Blanche and the DOJ has taken at the president's behest to silence dissent for his month long audition for attorney general.
[2:55:15] And he's going to get his time in front of the cameras.
[2:55:20] This is proving loyalty to Donald Trump, but it's clearly not loyalty to the law.
[2:55:27] I yield back.
[2:55:28] Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[2:55:29] And I thank the witnesses for being here.
[2:55:31] We are now enduring yet another hearing of this committee regarding Republicans absurd allegations against the Southern Poverty Law Center.
[2:55:41] And we already know about the battle between hateful extremist groups and the civil rights litigators at SPLC.
[2:55:49] And we know that President Trump, Acting Attorney General Blanche and many other members of this administration have sided with extremists over and over again.
[2:55:58] This third hearing is clearly part of a broader effort built on a pathetic, blind loyalty to one man, Donald Trump.
[2:56:08] President Trump prizes loyalty over principles, loyalty over values, loyalty over competence.
[2:56:16] And that is why he wants to elevate his personal lawyer to serve as our attorney general.
[2:56:22] Acting Attorney General Blanche has quickly earned President Trump's trust by using the Justice Department to attack people in groups like SPLC that have stood up to this administration and its lawlessness.
[2:56:34] Mr. Blanche has overseen the creation of perhaps the most corrupt scheme in our nation's history, the DOJ weaponization slush fund.
[2:56:44] Blanche signed off on an unconstitutional agreement to give taxpayers money to criminals and insurrectionists, people who beat cops in this building.
[2:56:55] But that's not all. Acting Attorney General has also initiated a criminal fraud investigation of E. Jean Carroll, the woman who successfully sued Donald Trump for sexual assault.
[2:57:06] He has indicted former FBI director James Comey for an Instagram post with seashells, ladies and gentlemen, seashells.
[2:57:14] He has installed a Trump loyalist to replace a career prosecutor who would not indict former CIA director John Brennan on ridiculous charges.
[2:57:25] That's what we're doing here.
[2:57:26] Mr. Blanche is clear about his role.
[2:57:29] He knows he is auditioning to be the president's lawyer, his personal lawyer, the job that he's had before.
[2:57:38] He has said in his own words that the president has a quote right and duty to use the Justice Department to investigate his political enemies.
[2:57:47] That absurd idea, of course, conflicts with the entire concept of an independent DOJ.
[2:57:55] Professor McCord, is the role of attorney general different from being the president's personal attorney?
[2:58:02] Yes, it is, Congress member.
[2:58:05] The role of the attorney general is to take an oath to the Constitution, as every single prosecutor in the Department of Justice does.
[2:58:11] It is not an oath to a person and certainly not an oath to the president.
[2:58:15] That's absolutely right.
[2:58:16] And why should the Justice Department be independent from the office of the president, regardless of which party is in power?
[2:58:24] Since Watergate, it has been important to attorneys general of both parties that the American public not believe that the Department of Justice will be used for political purposes.
[2:58:34] And so the policies have been for more than 50 years until now that it will not be directed by the White House when it comes to prosecutions and investigations.
[2:58:44] And what are those dangers? You know, the dangers of a system where politically driven prosecutions become the norm?
[2:58:51] Well, certainly one of those dangers is the infringement on First Amendment rights, among many other dangers.
[2:58:57] There's the legitimacy of the Department of Justice. There's the integrity of the prosecutors when they go into court.
[2:59:03] But on the First Amendment, when we see targeting of organizations and individuals based upon their speech,
[2:59:09] and that includes a number of the individuals you mentioned in your opening remarks, that infringes on constitutional rights.
[2:59:16] I agree with you. And now we're we're in a situation right now that I'd never I never imagined we would find ourselves in,
[2:59:23] that we have a president who has installed a lackey to lead the Department of Justice, and now he wants to make him permanent.
[2:59:33] And I need much more than five minutes to touch on all the ways in which Mr. Blanche's conduct is disqualifying.
[2:59:43] In this case alone that we're here once again discussing in this case alone, he has misled Americans by stating on television that he did not know that SPLC was giving informant information to law enforcement.
[2:59:58] And of course, as my colleague from North Carolina has said, Mr. Blanche is a central figure in the Epstein files cover up.
[3:00:05] He was the person who met with Ghislaine Maxwell before she was transferred to a club fed facility.
[3:00:11] The accusations against SPLC are ridiculous.
[3:00:17] Legal experts are clear that the indictment being offered by Mr. Blanche is invalid.
[3:00:24] But like all things with this president, it is both ridiculous and completely serious.
[3:00:29] We have to make clear that his nomination is nothing more than a stamp of approval for scandal after corrupt scandal.
[3:00:40] I yield back.
[3:00:41] General Lee yields back.
[3:00:42] General Lee from California is recognized.
[3:00:44] Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[3:00:45] So on May 18th of this year, two teenage gunmen opened fire on a mosque in San Diego, California, and they murdered three people.
[3:00:55] Then they turned their weapons on themselves before law enforcement could apprehend them.
[3:01:01] These assailants, they were teenagers.
[3:01:04] They were children.
[3:01:05] And children are not born with hate.
[3:01:09] They are taught hate.
[3:01:11] President Fair, is that a fair assessment?
[3:01:13] Sorry.
[3:01:20] Congresswoman, it's our position that hate is never peaceful for its victims.
[3:01:25] Right.
[3:01:26] Ever.
[3:01:27] And you know, these assailants, they learned this hate somewhere.
[3:01:30] And they shared it, actually, in their very long, detailed, hate-filled manifesto, referencing a number of extremist organizations by name, like the Terrorgram Collective, the Base, and the Adam Waffen Division.
[3:01:45] So, President Fair, are you familiar with some of these groups?
[3:01:48] Yes.
[3:01:49] The Adam Waffen Division is one of the groups that we shared intelligence on and was behind the threatened massacre in Las Vegas.
[3:02:01] That's right.
[3:02:02] It's a neo-Nazi extremist group.
[3:02:04] And in 2019, SPLC actually gave information it was good enough for law enforcement that they were able to thwart a terrorist attack that was planned by one of the members of this Adam Waffen Division.
[3:02:17] And in fact, he said he was planning a terrorist attack.
[3:02:21] And he had explosives.
[3:02:23] And he was targeting a synagogue and a bar that was patronized by the LGBT community.
[3:02:30] So, by the way, for everybody, happy Pride Month.
[3:02:33] And Miss King, I say that in honor of your uncle's dear friend, Bayard Rustin.
[3:02:38] So, we are talking about accelerationist neo-Nazi networks and two teenagers in San Diego who were inspired by them.
[3:02:47] And this is a hate-filled pipeline getting to our children.
[3:02:52] It's a pathway by which teenage boys and young men are drawn from mainstream platforms into these increasingly radicalized spaces where they are encountering content that glorifies hate, violence, and criminal activity.
[3:03:07] And to be fair, what happened at that mosque was a criminal act.
[3:03:13] I think it's curious that Republicans haven't had any of these groups come before this committee and prove that they are not spreading hate.
[3:03:22] Where are those hearings?
[3:03:24] But maybe my Republican colleagues are okay with having neo-Nazi extremist groups teaching your children or their children.
[3:03:33] But I'm not.
[3:03:34] We've also heard today that those with traditional Christian beliefs are being treated as threats and terrorists.
[3:03:42] We've heard a lot today about how the SPLC is anti-Christian.
[3:03:46] We're being told that the organization worked with the Biden administration to target traditional Catholics for their political and religious beliefs.
[3:03:54] And that the org discriminates against anyone with traditional or Christian views.
[3:03:59] I think those are lies.
[3:04:00] So speaking of lies for the record, President Fair, do you maintain a domestic terrorist list?
[3:04:06] We do not.
[3:04:07] Okay.
[3:04:08] So Dr. King, for example, is not on this non-existent list.
[3:04:13] Is that true?
[3:04:14] That is true.
[3:04:15] I'm not sure what list she's referring to.
[3:04:16] Okay.
[3:04:17] Is she on a hate map?
[3:04:18] No.
[3:04:19] Okay.
[3:04:20] So per usual, the facts are being twisted to attack the SPLC and the work it does across this country to tackle hate groups and violent extremists.
[3:04:28] Because SPLC actually dares to dissent against this administration and therefore you all have a target on your back.
[3:04:37] But don't take my word for it.
[3:04:39] I have a video.
[3:04:40] I've been hearing that there are people who think that SPLC is anti-Christian.
[3:04:46] And I really don't know what Bible they're reading because my experience of the SPLC is that they help churches feed hungry families.
[3:04:56] They help struggling communities.
[3:04:58] They informed me personally about need in our state, about a decrease of SNAP benefits, about hospital shortages.
[3:05:08] And the work that we do in our community and without SPLC and the knowledge that they bring, it would limit us to be able to serve and understand what our community needs are.
[3:05:19] And certainly the values of SPLC in these more than four or five decades exemplify the values of the gospel.
[3:05:27] Inclusion, solidarity, concern for the least among us, and a zeal for justice.
[3:05:33] So I fully support and want the SPLC to be known for who they are in real time and real life because of what they do for others.
[3:05:46] Thank you, and I yield back.
[3:05:48] The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from, or the gentleman from Illinois.
[3:05:54] Gentleman from Illinois.
[3:05:55] Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[3:05:59] It's astonishing to see Republicans choose to humiliate themselves for a third time with this hearing, which is more of an indictment of them than anyone else.
[3:06:14] Everyone knows that the SPLC indictment is a joke, a bad one at that.
[3:06:20] Everyone knows that the legal arguments are nonsense.
[3:06:23] And everyone knows that Todd Blanche's corrupt henchmen ordered the U.S. Attorney to do this pathetic hack job, even though it'll never hold up in court.
[3:06:35] So why are Republicans putting us through this absurd gaslighting Olympics for a third time?
[3:06:41] Because their assault on the SPLC is a crucial part of the assault on democracy itself.
[3:06:47] The Republican Party used to be the party of Lincoln from Illinois.
[3:06:53] That's where I'm from.
[3:06:55] Today, it's nothing more than a debt cult and a political front for the white supremacist movement, tragically.
[3:07:03] That's as old as our country itself.
[3:07:06] As my Democratic colleagues have pointed out, there's a reason why Republicans are targeting the SPLC.
[3:07:13] No organization has been more effective in dismantling the Klan and other white nationalist groups, including through the use of informants.
[3:07:24] This is a nonprofit organization.
[3:07:27] It has a board of directors.
[3:07:29] They govern organizations in places you don't know.
[3:07:33] So the Republican Party protects these groups because they have the same goals.
[3:07:39] Erase Reconstruction.
[3:07:41] Erase the civil rights movement.
[3:07:44] Destroy multi-racial democracy.
[3:07:48] And restore Jim Crow in America.
[3:07:50] That's what this is all about.
[3:07:53] And it's right in front of us.
[3:07:55] They tried to violently overthrow an election, then got pardons from their ringleader, President Trump.
[3:08:04] They tried to embezzle billions of tax dollars to create a white nationalist slush fund at DOJ.
[3:08:14] But it ran into problems, didn't it?
[3:08:18] They divert law enforcement resources from combating white nationalism to low-level immigration enforcement.
[3:08:26] They accused the SPLC of being anti-Christian for opposing anti-abortion, anti-LGBT bigotry.
[3:08:35] Even though Christian leaders, as we saw in the prior video nationwide, support the SPLC overwhelmingly.
[3:08:45] They are morally bankrupt co-conspirators on the Supreme Court and in state legislatures are dismantling reconstruction amendments and rigging elections to strip black and brown people of political representation.
[3:09:08] Let's be clear.
[3:09:09] The President and his enablers are carrying out the vision of the Klan, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and every other hate group.
[3:09:19] Because they exist and they act.
[3:09:22] They are courageous patriots.
[3:09:27] And they have fought for decades.
[3:09:31] It's the same old playbook on DEI and mass incarceration and the Voting Rights Act and immigration enforcement.
[3:09:39] The racial profiling, the mass detentions, the stripping of due process, the undermining of birthright citizenship.
[3:09:48] Everything that's happening in communities like mine, it's all the same playbook.
[3:09:55] And it's rooted in the same conspiracy theory, the Great Replacement Theory.
[3:10:02] Mr. Fair, thank you for being here today and for all that SPLC does.
[3:10:09] Would you agree that this administration's anti-immigrant agenda is part of the broader support of white nationalist movement?
[3:10:17] And how does the Great Replacement Theory underpin that movement?
[3:10:21] Yes, Congressman Garcia.
[3:10:25] The Great Replacement Theory suggests that whites in this country are being replaced by immigrants.
[3:10:33] And many of the groups that we identify as hate groups target immigrants, label them as criminals, as rapists, in the words of this administration and otherwise.
[3:10:46] There are any number of groups that express white supremacist views that this country should be a majority white nation.
[3:10:59] Those views are antithetical to the views of the SPLC.
[3:11:02] Thank you for sharing that.
[3:11:03] I yield back.
[3:11:04] Gentleman yields back.
[3:11:05] Gentleman yields back.
[3:11:06] Gentleman for California is recognized for unanimous consent.
[3:11:07] Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[3:11:08] I forgot.
[3:11:09] I have some UC.
[3:11:10] Okay.
[3:11:11] Gentleman, or gentlelady can proceed.
[3:11:13] San Diego mosque shooters left document revealing racist neo-Nazi bodies.
[3:11:18] Without objection.
[3:11:19] Vance praises YouTuber Nick Shirley reporting on Minnesota fraud.
[3:11:23] Without objection.
[3:11:24] Undocumented immigrant offending rate lower than U.S. born citizen rate.
[3:11:30] Without objection.
[3:11:31] Yeah, okay.
[3:11:32] Anti-Muslim bigotry surges ahead of International Day to combat Islamophobia.
[3:11:38] The annual report 2025, the Council on, I'm sorry, American Islamic Relations 2025 annual report.
[3:11:48] The objection.
[3:11:49] Anti-Islamic rhetoric from GOP politicians sparks concern over religious hatred.
[3:11:55] Objection.
[3:11:56] The SPLC's year in hate and extremism 2024.
[3:12:01] Objection.
[3:12:02] And once again, the SPLC's hate map to establish clearly for the record who is and who is not on it.
[3:12:09] Without objection.
[3:12:11] I want to thank you all for your patience.
[3:12:13] We have about a half an hour based on the number of members yet to testify, so we'll move through that as quick as we can.
[3:12:18] And the gentlelady from Wyoming is recognized.
[3:12:20] Thank you.
[3:12:21] For any business to remain profitable, there must be both supply and demand.
[3:12:25] As for the Southern Poverty Law Center's business model, it needs to convince people that there exists certain types of discrimination and hatred in the United States and that it alone has the expertise to identify, target, and eradicate it.
[3:12:38] A lack of such discrimination and hatred would render the SPLC's existence obsolete.
[3:12:44] And that is largely what has happened in America.
[3:12:47] So what is a business to do when its very existence is threatened by a dramatic decrease in the scourge that it exists to combat?
[3:12:54] What happens when racism, for example, is largely a thing of the past?
[3:12:58] The brain trust at SPLC came up with their own unique solution to this conundrum.
[3:13:03] They decided to fund the very hatred that they claim to be fighting against.
[3:13:07] And like magic, the money has continued to roll in.
[3:13:11] In fact, advancing hatred has become quite profitable for the SPLC.
[3:13:16] As in 2024, the organization had over $829 million in assets and endowment of approximately $738 million and $129 million in revenue.
[3:13:28] The bulk of this money comes from the contributions of the SPLC's donors.
[3:13:32] Contributions that the donors thought were made to, quote, confront hate, stand up to injustice, and defend our civil and human rights.
[3:13:40] End quote.
[3:13:41] But that isn't the case at all.
[3:13:43] Instead of confronting hate, standing up for justice, or defending civil and human rights,
[3:13:48] the SPLC has been funding the exact opposite.
[3:13:51] With the added bonus of then using their donations to target right-leaning organizations such as the Family Research Council and Turning Point USA,
[3:14:01] simply because they believe in traditional marriage and the sanctity of the family unit while also opposing abortion.
[3:14:08] Stated another way, SPLC has been using its funds to attack those very organizations that actually do confront hate,
[3:14:16] stand for justice, and defend civil and human rights.
[3:14:19] And the SPLC funded actual Nazis and white supremacists in order to do so.
[3:14:25] In order to get away with this scam, the SPLC knew that it had to hide what it was doing.
[3:14:31] I mean, who was going to donate to an organization that has actual Nazis on the payroll to organize astroturf rallies to try to smear conservatives?
[3:14:41] The DOJ's superseding indictment filed on June 2nd approximates that between 2010 and 2023,
[3:14:49] the SPLC fumbled 4.1 million in tax-exempt donor funds to various violent extremist organizations,
[3:14:56] including the Aryan Nations, the National Socialist Movement, and the KKK,
[3:15:01] by a series of fictitious accounts and then committed bank fraud to cover it all up.
[3:15:07] The indictment goes on to say that these donor funds were ultimately used for the growth and recruitment of these organizations.
[3:15:14] The purchase of materials for cross burnings, that's despicable.
[3:15:18] And group attire and the production of racist paraphernalia sold at rallies.
[3:15:22] That's really despicable. That's gross.
[3:15:24] Mr. Fair, does the SPLC have any written policies to ensure that the payments you made to these organizations
[3:15:32] were not used to incite violence or engage in other activities that contradicts SPLC's public representations?
[3:15:41] Congresswoman Hageman, as I said earlier, all of the allegations that you've...
[3:15:47] You have written policies to make sure that you're not funding the KKK.
[3:15:51] We don't fund the KKK.
[3:15:53] Well, you do. Actually, that's what's in the...
[3:15:55] That's an allegation, Congresswoman.
[3:15:57] Sure. Have you produced any of these materials to us?
[3:15:58] And we will discuss all of those allegations.
[3:16:00] Have you produced those materials to this committee?
[3:16:02] What materials?
[3:16:03] Any materials or any written materials so that you are not...
[3:16:06] To show that you have a policy in place to not fund hate groups such as the KKK.
[3:16:11] SPLC's council is working with this committee's council to respond to your...
[3:16:16] Did anyone at the SPLC ever raise any concerns about your practice of funding hate groups?
[3:16:22] We don't fund hate groups.
[3:16:25] Why wasn't the SPLC...
[3:16:27] No, you're under oath.
[3:16:28] Remember that.
[3:16:29] You are under oath here today.
[3:16:30] I said we don't fund hate groups.
[3:16:31] Okay.
[3:16:32] Except the $4.1 million that you gave to the KKK, the National Socialist Movement, and the Aryan Nations.
[3:16:38] Congresswoman Hageman, those are allegations that will be addressed...
[3:16:42] You're under oath.
[3:16:43] That will be addressed in the criminal case pending against the SPLC.
[3:16:47] The SPLC also played a part in funding the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.
[3:16:54] And you paid an organizer who drafted racist votes under the SPLC's supervision.
[3:16:59] You fomented the hate and then you made bank off of it.
[3:17:02] About $80 million in the following months after that rally.
[3:17:06] But you didn't just make a ton of money that day.
[3:17:08] Three people actually died.
[3:17:09] Two police officers and a woman named Heather Danielle Heyer.
[3:17:13] So from the standpoint of your business model, making money off of hatred,
[3:17:17] you must say that that was actually a very successful day for the SPLC.
[3:17:21] Would you agree with that?
[3:17:22] SPLC doesn't foment hate.
[3:17:24] Well, that day you did.
[3:17:27] I guess that I'm out of time.
[3:17:29] With that, I yield back.
[3:17:30] Gentlelady yields back.
[3:17:31] Gentlelady from Georgia is recognized.
[3:17:32] Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[3:17:34] And thank you to each of our witnesses.
[3:17:36] I have read all of your testimonies.
[3:17:38] And most Americans now believe that political violence will increase in the next few years.
[3:17:43] With the attempted kidnapping of Gretchen Whitmer,
[3:17:46] the anti-Semitic firebombing of Josh Shapiro's home,
[3:17:50] and the recent attempted assassination of Donald Trump,
[3:17:53] there's no doubt that extremism is on the rise.
[3:17:57] Just a simple answer.
[3:17:59] Does everyone agree that this is a serious concern for our democracy?
[3:18:02] Ms. McCord?
[3:18:03] Yes.
[3:18:04] Mr. Vandert?
[3:18:06] Yes, political violence is always a serious concern.
[3:18:08] Dr. King?
[3:18:09] Yes or no?
[3:18:12] Just yes or no?
[3:18:13] All political violence is of great concern.
[3:18:16] Mr. Fair?
[3:18:17] Yes, Congressman McGrath.
[3:18:18] Thank you.
[3:18:19] Last year, someone tried to firebomb a Republican Party headquarters in Arizona,
[3:18:23] and someone else fired gunshots at a Democratic Party office building in New Mexico.
[3:18:28] There have been politically and racially motivated mass shootings in Charleston, El Paso, and beyond.
[3:18:35] Yes or no?
[3:18:36] For each of you, do you think it should be a priority of the Department of Justice and the FBI to combat extremism and political violence?
[3:18:46] Yes, regardless of the ideology.
[3:18:48] Thank you.
[3:18:50] Yes, Congressman.
[3:18:51] I believe the Department should be pursuing criminal acts of political violence.
[3:18:54] Thank you.
[3:18:55] Yes.
[3:18:57] Thank you.
[3:18:58] Yes, Congressman.
[3:18:59] Thank you.
[3:19:00] Our priorities should be eliminating and deterring violence, a view that is not shared by the Trump administration.
[3:19:05] Last March, the Department of Homeland Security defunded the database at the University of Maryland that tracked domestic terrorism, hate crimes, and targeted violence,
[3:19:15] the only publicly available database of its kind in this country.
[3:19:20] Shut down at the very moment that its data showed a 25% increase in terrorism and targeted violence over the prior year.
[3:19:28] By summer 2025, the administration went on to dismantle DHS's Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships,
[3:19:35] the primary federal unit for proactively stopping extremist violence, credited with disrupting over 1,000 violent plots.
[3:19:44] Last fall, the Justice Department quietly removed from its website a study showing far-right extremists were responsible for the bulk of ideologically motivated deaths,
[3:19:55] a fact that has been shown numerous times in multiple studies.
[3:20:00] Professor McCord, why is the Trump administration shutting down these tools and burying studies on violence at a moment when extremism is on the rise?
[3:20:10] Well, I can't get into the heads of every person in this administration, but it is certainly consistent with their mass deportation plans and the vilifying of people of color and immigrants into the United States.
[3:20:27] Thank you. Americans expect their government to keep them safe.
[3:20:31] Yet the administration seems determined to do so only when it fits their ideological narrative.
[3:20:37] There's no better example than the reckless pardon of the January 6 rioters, nearly 100 of whom have re-offended since the attack.
[3:20:46] One was arrested after threatening a person with a gun in a church parking lot.
[3:20:52] Another plotted to assassinate FBI agents and yet another one on a plot to assassinate an elected official, Dr. King.
[3:21:01] In a letter from a Birmingham jail, your uncle writes to fellow clergymen about the dangers of turning a blind eye to those who do wrong to your neighbors.
[3:21:11] How do you reconcile that with the presidential pardons of 1200 violent extremists?
[3:21:16] May I answer in this manner?
[3:21:21] Manufactured hate, socially engineered racism, because we are one blood and we are one human race.
[3:21:28] All of this is generating unwarranted fear and chaos.
[3:21:33] George Wallace, who was mentioned earlier, was one of the most racist people on the planet.
[3:21:39] And he repented.
[3:21:40] He admitted that he had been racist.
[3:21:43] He regretted it.
[3:21:44] And much healing came forth.
[3:21:46] Planned Parenthood admitted that it is racist as well.
[3:21:51] It is time for SPLC to admit, to admit, I'm answering you.
[3:22:00] And so, in a letter from the Birmingham jail, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
[3:22:05] Okay, thank you for that.
[3:22:06] Everything you just mentioned was terrible.
[3:22:07] But what about the guard that was shot?
[3:22:09] I'm moving up.
[3:22:10] Professor McCoy.
[3:22:11] I'm trying to answer.
[3:22:14] Thank you very much.
[3:22:15] You know, injustice, violence is wrong.
[3:22:17] I'm reclaiming my time.
[3:22:18] I'm reclaiming my time.
[3:22:19] I'm reclaiming my time.
[3:22:20] Balance, all balance is wrong.
[3:22:22] Professor McCoy.
[3:22:23] Mr. Chairman, could you restore her time?
[3:22:24] We've been very generous with the time.
[3:22:26] We'll give her a few seconds more.
[3:22:27] Okay.
[3:22:28] Professor McCoy, does issuing blanket pardons to violent extremists who assaulted police officers
[3:22:33] help address this problem of rising extremism in America?
[3:22:37] No, it condones extremism by one side of the ideological spectrum.
[3:22:43] Okay.
[3:22:44] Thank you.
[3:22:45] We still need organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center.
[3:22:47] Just ask the committees in San Diego, Buffalo, and Jacksonville.
[3:22:51] You can ask me, a mother who lost her son to gun violence, because a man made assumptions
[3:22:56] about him based on the color of his skin.
[3:22:59] Hate-driven violence and policy still exists.
[3:23:03] And we should dare to be bold, as Dr. King was, to fight against it.
[3:23:08] And I yield.
[3:23:09] I'm the general ladies.
[3:23:10] Ms. Chairman, could you have UC?
[3:23:12] Ms. Hagem, then I'll come to you.
[3:23:14] I have a UC request.
[3:23:16] An article from Life Set, the both sides political violence narrative completely debunked.
[3:23:21] They cooked the books as typical.
[3:23:23] Another one, a letter from Andrew Klovet to Chairman Jordan and the committee about SPLC
[3:23:31] putting the Turning Point USA on its fraudulent hate map in the spring of 2025.
[3:23:38] Objection.
[3:23:39] And a September 1, 2020 letter from the Coalition for Jewish Values related to the SPLC hate
[3:23:46] map and what it does to the Jewish community and the risk that it places the Jewish community in.
[3:23:50] Without objection.
[3:23:51] Gentleman from Maryland.
[3:23:52] Just two, Mr. Chairman, the 2017 Trump administration FBI document listing the SPLC as its partner
[3:24:00] in fighting hate.
[3:24:01] Objection.
[3:24:02] And then this is from National Public Radio.
[3:24:06] Author details the spy network that took on America's post-World War II Nazi groups,
[3:24:11] the Anti-Defamation League, and the American Jewish community went undercover.
[3:24:16] Objection.
[3:24:17] Gentleman from Texas.
[3:24:18] Recognize you.
[3:24:19] You know what?
[3:24:20] I hate that we have spent this much time, you know, on SPLC, and we've not addressed
[3:24:25] the elephant in the room, the literal elephant in the room.
[3:24:29] The vast majority of the people on that side of the aisle, and for those of you that are
[3:24:34] at home, let me tell you, when I say that side of the aisle, I'm talking about the Republicans,
[3:24:39] the ones that brought this hearing, and again, you've heard that this is not the first hearing,
[3:24:43] but the vast majority of them are white men.
[3:24:47] White men are lecturing people of color because the vast majority actually any semblance of diversity comes from this side of the aisle.
[3:24:56] You want to tell people of color who is fighting for who?
[3:25:00] People of color do not feel comfortable or welcomed within your party.
[3:25:05] That's why you have to parade someone who has the name Dr. King attached to them so that people can be confused.
[3:25:12] Because I have been reading the comments online and people are like, who is this Dr. King?
[3:25:16] Because you want them to believe that somehow she espouses who Dr. King was, yet you've yet to have MLK III come in here.
[3:25:25] You've yet to have Dr. Bernice King, the ones that were actually raised by Dr. King, the ones that actually probably understand the teachings of Dr. King.
[3:25:34] And I just want to be clear because I want to talk to y'all about what the Dr. King had to say about racism so that y'all don't get it twisted
[3:25:42] and don't get it confused just because you see the name sitting in this room.
[3:25:46] Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race.
[3:25:55] That was from his 1963 book, Why We Can't Wait.
[3:26:01] He also said in the final analysis, racism is evil because its ultimate logic is genocide.
[3:26:08] If one says that I am not good enough to live next door to him or to have a good, decent job or to go to school with him merely because of my race,
[3:26:17] he is saying consciously or unconsciously that I do not deserve to exist.
[3:26:22] This was from his 1967 speech, The Other America.
[3:26:26] So just to be clear, y'all don't seem like y'all even understand what a hate organization is.
[3:26:33] So I went to Google to help you out.
[3:26:35] A hate group is an organized group whose beliefs, practices and primary purpose are centered on advocating malice,
[3:26:42] hostility or violence towards people based on their immutable race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or disability.
[3:26:53] So I know some of y'all are, you know, caping for Charlie Kirk because I didn't heard y'all talk about his organization over and over and over.
[3:27:03] So I'm not going to play with anybody who's going to play with my time.
[3:27:06] So I'm going directly to Miss McCord.
[3:27:08] Professor, let me put some respect on your name.
[3:27:11] All right.
[3:27:12] If I see a black pilot, I'm going to be like, boy, I hope he's qualified.
[3:27:18] Does that sound like a hater or not?
[3:27:20] That sounds like a racial stereotype.
[3:27:24] Okay, sounds good to me.
[3:27:26] We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the mid 1960s.
[3:27:31] That sounds like someone who still adheres to racist views.
[3:27:37] Okay.
[3:27:38] America has freedom of religion, of course.
[3:27:40] But we should be frank.
[3:27:42] Large, dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America.
[3:27:46] That is someone who can't accept that America is a multiracial, multi-religious place.
[3:27:52] Okay.
[3:27:53] These all just happened to be comments from the fearless leader of Turning Point USA.
[3:28:00] So I could see where SPLC was going.
[3:28:02] I also think that it's so interesting that right now, just for those sitting at home, you may not know that oversight is not having any hearings right now because the Republicans don't want to deal with Epstein files.
[3:28:12] So they have shut down all of oversight committee hearings, right?
[3:28:16] So we've got an indictment for SPLC.
[3:28:20] I have still yet to see an indictment on any Epstein defendant, not a one, but okay.
[3:28:27] And we want to talk about what happened in Charlottesville.
[3:28:30] And we are so upset about Charlottesville all of a sudden.
[3:28:36] I would be interested to know which one of you had something to say about Charlottesville when it happened.
[3:28:42] Because I don't think that y'all were saying those same things.
[3:28:45] In fact, our fearless leader at the time said that there were pretty fine people on both sides.
[3:28:49] You were okay with the tiki torches.
[3:28:51] You were okay with it.
[3:28:52] But I digress.
[3:28:53] I'm going to move on to Texas in my last 24 seconds.
[3:28:57] In your testimony before the Texas House of Representatives, you read aloud a series of messages between you and other whistleblowers basically explaining the corruption happening directed by Attorney General Ken Paxton.
[3:29:07] On page 82, lines 5 through 11, you list all the corruption that Ken Paxton directed you and others to carry out to, quote, demanding that we investigate facially bogus charges, refusing to take our advice that there is no prosecutable offense, demanding that we hire outside counsel and authorizing an improper fishing expedition.
[3:29:26] Is that correct?
[3:29:27] The time is expired.
[3:29:28] The gentleman can respond if you want.
[3:29:33] My testimony from that proceeding stands for itself.
[3:29:35] Yeah.
[3:29:36] So, just to clarify.
[3:29:37] The gentleman's time has expired.
[3:29:40] I understand.
[3:29:41] Our next.
[3:29:42] Welcome to our witnesses.
[3:29:43] Created in 1971 and headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama.
[3:29:48] Created in 1971, headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama.
[3:29:54] The Southern Poverty Law Center is one of America's.
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