Family Research Council Demands Southern Poverty Law Center Pay Up After DOJ Terror-Funding Indictment

‘Every time we walk through those doors, we remember what the SPLC’s reckless rhetoric unleashed.’ – Leo Johnson, FRC building manager and 2012 shooting survivor

It’s a story the corporate media wants you to forget: a conservative Christian group, smeared as a ‘hate group’ for simply defending traditional values, nearly lost lives to a gunman fueled by the inflammatory propaganda of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Now, with the Department of Justice unsealing a bombshell indictment that calls the SPLC’s so-called ‘anti-hate’ activism into disgrace, the Family Research Council (FRC) is demanding restitution and answers for a decade of fear and staggering costs.

Ripped from the Headlines: DOJ Calls Out SPLC’s ‘Manufactured Extremism’ Scheme

For years, the SPLC wielded its ‘hate group’ list like a political weapon, slapping it on conservative, Christian, and pro-family organizations-often with little more justification than a refusal to cave to far-left LGBT activists. Now, the tides have turned. In an 11-count indictment unsealed in April, the DOJ accused the SPLC of ‘defrauding donors by secretly paying over $3 million to informants within white supremacist groups,’ effectively fueling the very hate it claimed to fight.

The federal case, led by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and grand juries out of Montgomery, Alabama, details wire fraud, bank fraud, and a conspiracy to commit money laundering spanning years. But it’s Blanche’s words that have heads spinning: the SPLC, he said, was ‘manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.’

Who paid the steepest price for this? Conservative groups like the FRC, targeted with violence and forced to spend millions to keep their doors open. FRC president Tony Perkins refused to mince words, telling Fox News Digital he hopes the SPLC is ‘forced to pay restitution.’ According to Perkins, the group has spent a staggering $8 million out of pocket on security since a shooting at its Washington, D.C. headquarters, while the SPLC sits on ‘about $750 million’ in assets. ‘Restitution is only right,’ Perkins told supporters.

‘They’re fattening these extremist groups up, keeping them alive so they could use them for their bigger political purpose.’ – Tony Perkins, Family Research Council president

But here’s the kicker: the SPLC is crying foul, calling the prosecution a ‘top-down campaign of retribution’ orchestrated by President Trump. They may try to play the victim, but Americans know the real victims are those put in the crosshairs of SPLC-listed ‘hate groups.’

The 2012 FRC Shooting: SPLC’s Deadly Rhetoric Turns Real

What started all this? For the FRC, the answer is chillingly clear.

Back on August 15, 2012, the unimaginable happened: Floyd Lee Corkins II strolled into the FRC’s headquarters with ‘two fully loaded 15-round magazines, a box of .9mm ammunition, and 15 Chick-fil-A chicken sandwiches’-the latter, he told investigators, he planned to smear on the faces of his victims. His twisted motive? He’d read on the SPLC’s website that the FRC was an ‘anti-gay hate group.’ The mainstream media glossed over that detail, but Corkins confessed: the SPLC’s list inspired him to target the group. Only the brave actions of building manager Leo Johnson, who was shot and nearly died subduing Corkins, prevented a massacre.

In the decade since, the FRC has pumped millions of donor dollars into enhanced security and legal battles-money Perkins says was meant for ministry and outreach, not metal detectors and bulletproof glass. All because, in his words, ‘the SPLC is fattening up extremist groups, keeping them alive so that they could use them for their bigger political purpose.’

‘My family suffered, my staff suffered, and yet the SPLC called what happened to us “an unusual event” and insinuated that WE were to blame.’ – Tony Perkins

How did the SPLC respond? With a statement so cold and clinical it left FRC supporters livid: ‘[A] man who was apparently sympathetic to LGBT people walked into the lobby of the anti-gay [FRC] … and shot a staff member.’ No apology, no admission that years of demonizing language contributed to real-world violence-just more spin.

Gateway Pundit and conservative voices blasted the SPLC for twisting the event and refusing to take accountability, framing it as another example of the left-wing establishment blaming the victim. ‘The facts make it plain,’ thundered The Gateway Pundit: ‘the only group “fanning the flames” of American division is the SPLC itself.’

Follow the Money: SPLC, Extremist Funding, and the Accountability Challenge

The deeper you dig, the more disturbing the revelations become. The DOJ indictment accuses the SPLC of secretly funneling millions not just to monitor extremism, but to keep it alive. According to DOJ filings, the SPLC sent donor money to informants within the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and even the organizers behind the notorious Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. The SPLC argues the payments were part of long-standing efforts to monitor threats-yet even left-leaning legal analysts at Just Security are skeptical, highlighting that the indictment ‘lacks detailed evidence‘ connecting the donor funds directly to violent outcomes.

But for conservatives, the real lesson is that when leftist nonprofits play with fire, innocent people get burned. Perkins estimates the FRC has poured more than $8 million into security since 2012, and paid another $14 million in lawsuits just to protect their good name. Meanwhile, the SPLC’s tax-exempt war chest has soared to over $750 million-plenty to provide justice for the victims, yet the group refuses even a token apology.

‘Tax-exempt millions, no remorse, and a record of stoking violence against law-abiding Christians? If the SPLC had an “R” after its name, it’d be history by now.’ – RedPledgeInfo editorial

Meanwhile, the Treasury Department signaled it’s not done: new rules on nonprofit financial disclosures are on the table. Yet the SPLC’s army of lawyers keeps up the resistance, filing motions to dismiss the indictment and playing the victim card for progressive media. Only in 2026’s twisted political ecosystem could a group facing federal fraud charges command so much establishment sympathy.

2026 Elections on the Horizon: Will Accountability Finally Come?

With the Trump administration doubling down on cleaning up the nonprofit world, and Congressional Republicans grilling Biden-aligned activists over years of ‘manufactured extremism,’ the SPLC finds itself in the national hot seat. Conservatives have no plans to let up: House Judiciary chair Jim Jordan is promising a full inquiry into whether DOJ-era policies under Biden and Obama shielded the SPLC from investigation. ‘We will follow the money; we will get to the truth,’ vowed Jordan at a recent hearing.

The FRC’s demand is similarly clear. Perkins isn’t calling for a ban, but for accountability and restitution. ‘We don’t want the SPLC shut down. We want justice. They need to pay for the harm they did-period.’ The American people, especially those in flyover country who watch Christian and pro-family groups smeared as villains, are watching closely. Will the DOJ case succeed-or will leftwing lawyers and sympathetic judges kill it in the cradle?

‘Absolutely, we’ll keep fighting. Our donors, our staff, and our families deserve to feel safe doing the Lord’s work.’ – Tony Perkins

As the November elections approach, one question won’t go away: Will the SPLC be forced to pay up, or will justice in America remain a one-way street for leftist elites?