Language in an FBI report detailing alleged criminal activity by a civil rights group was lifted in part from a letter that far-right groups sent to White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, a new court filing alleges.
The Trump Justice Department hit the Southern Poverty Law Center with federal fraud charges in April over allegations that it had improperly raised millions of dollars to pay leaders of the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups for inside information.
The SPLC acknowledged that it had an informant program to get intelligence on right-wing extremist groups to monitor threats of violence, but called the allegations of fraud false. It is seeking to dismiss the charges.
Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images
As part of the supposed evidence of the group’s wrongdoing, an FBI incident report pointed to the SPLC’s “Hate Map,” which tracks the locations of extremist groups in the U.S.
“[T]he SPLC labels conservative values and faith-based organizations like Liberty Counsel, Moms for Liberty, Family Research Council, Alliance Defending Freedom, Focus on the Family, and Turning Point USA as hate groups on the hate map,” the report reads, according to a Monday court filing.
The SPLC obtained the FBI report through the court’s discovery process — and found out that it parroted a letter that some of those same “faith-based organizations” had sent to Miller.
As the SPLC filing states: “The month before the FBI opened the investigation into whether the Hate Map was a ‘scheme to defraud,’ several of these ‘victim’ groups (Moms for Liberty, Alliance Defending Freedom, Turning Point USA, and Liberty Counsel) sent a joint letter to Stephen Miller, Deputy White House Chief of Staff. The Incident Summary and Miller Letter closely track each other, sometimes word-for-word.”
The civil rights group then cited six examples of the FBI report copying language and arguments from the right-wing groups’ letter to Miller.
“The Justice Department’s justification for opening a ‘Full’ investigation into the SPLC in October 2025 — that led to the indictment in April 2026 — appears to be a rehashing of a letter sent by conservative groups to Stephen Miller complaining about being designated as hate groups by the SPLC,” the group argued in the filing.
The SPLC added that “the documents provided by the government reviewed to date do not reveal whether Miller directed the Justice Department to convert or open this investigation, but the facts suggest that may be the case.”
The Justice Department acknowledged it had used the letter in its investigation, but denied that Miller had directed the FBI to investigate.
“Stephen Miller had nothing to do with FBI-Mobile’s investigation of the SPLC,” a DOJ spokesperson told JS. “The referenced letter was provided by one of the signatory groups in the initial stages of an investigation of potential criminal law violations committed by the SPLC. The Department of Justice will continue to follow the facts to ensure the SPLC is held accountable for their fraudulent actions.”
