Democrats Slam Republicans’ Effort to Attack Americans’ Civil Rights and Silence the Groups that Defend Them

Washington, D.C. (May 21, 2026)—Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, led committee Democrats in exposing House Republicans’ ridiculous charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a blatant attempt to intimidate progressive institutions and attack and disenfranchise Black and Brown Americans.

During the hearing, Ranking Member Raskin moved to subpoena the architects of Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund, including Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Associate Attorney General Stanly Woodward, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank Bisignano, as well as former Treasury Department General Counsel Brian Morrissey who resigned on the same day the settlement was announced, regarding their involvement in Trump’s illegal use of taxpayer money to reward his supporters and friends. Republicans voted against providing the American people with any transparency about this abuse of their tax dollars, rejecting the motion in a final vote of 18-17, with Rep. Kevin Kiley joining Judiciary Democrats. 

The hearing included testimony from: Maya Wiley, President and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; Tyler O’Neil, Senior Editor, The Daily Signal; Dr. Carol Swain, Author, Commentator, Former Professor at Vanderbilt University; Tony Perkins, President, Family Research Council. 

The SPLC has spent 50 years tracking, dismantling, and bankrupting hate groups while protecting civil rights, voting rights, and immigrants. The Trump Administration targeted the SPLC because it continues to fight groups like the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis—and it does so effectively. 

• Rep. Jerry Nadler said: “The Southern Poverty Law Center is on the front lines fighting antisemitism. In 2019, the SPLC won a $14 million judgment against the founder of a neo-Nazi website, the Daily Stormer, who orchestrated a full-blown doxing and harassment campaign against the local Jewish woman. [...] And, last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed suit against the white supremacist extremist group Goyim Defense League, an openly antisemitic group that calls for the return of the Nazi party.”
   
• Rep. Hank Johnson said: “The SPLC was responsible for filing a lawsuit against the United Klans of America, which was whose members were responsible for lynching Michael Donald, a 19-year-old who was murdered in a racial attack in 1981.” 
   
• Rep. Deborah Ross said: “In 1987, the Southern Poverty Law Center won a groundbreaking lawsuit, securing $7 million in a judgment against the United Klans of America after their members lynched 19-year-old student Michael Donald in Mobile, Alabama six years earlier. [...] Mercifully, the judgment bankrupt the United Klans of America. This verdict greatly weakened the Klan and sent them scurrying underground, though, of course, we’re seeing many of them today, but it didn’t stamp out the last rotten remnants of the Klan throughout the south. And those remnants have been planting seeds that have been cultivated by this president. That’s why the continued work of the Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies is so essential.” 
   
• Rep. Jasmine Crockett asked two simple questions to the witnesses: are the Proud Boys a white supremacist organization and are neo-Nazis white supremacists? Republican witness, Ms. Swain, struggled to answer and stated that it “depends” on the Neo-Nazi. Mr. O’Neil answered that the Proud Boys, whose leader has derided Jews and Muslims alike, were not a white supremacist group.
   

The meritless and rushed indictment against the SPLC is a pretextual hack job. The charges are nonsensical on their face and would never have been brought by principled prosecutors. They will not stand up in court.  

• Ranking Member Raskin asked Ms. Wiley: “Have you heard any of these witnesses today cite any evidence that anybody was deceived or defrauded by the Southern Poverty Law center, which is the whole heart of this attack on them? Did you hear one iota of evidence being offered that anybody was deceived or defrauded?” Ms. Wiley confirmed: “I have not.” 
   
• Rep. Pramila Jayapal said: “Stephen Miller, angry that SPLC called him out back in 2016 for promoting white nationalism and right-wing extremist ideas, has decided to take revenge with an outrageous indictment that is replete with mistakes of fact and law. It is a complete fabrication that any crime has been committed at all. In the words of one former prosecutor, ’DOJ falls egregiously short on alleging a crime.’” 
   
• Rep. Dan Goldman said: “In order to have fraud by omission, you must prove that the omission was material to the victims, such that they would have acted differently if they had known about it. But there isn’t a single allegation in the indictment that any donor would not have donated if they knew about the payments to informants. In fact, everything we know is the opposite.” Goldman continued: “There isn’t a single allegation in the indictment that any donor would not have donated if they knew about the payments to informants. In fact, everything we know is the opposite. Ms. Wiley has pointed out repeatedly about how donors are trying to continue to give, and The Intercept article that Ranking Member Raskin entered into the record cites 20 donors who now say that they either knew about the paid informants or they would have made their donations anyway. And so what is this really about?” 
   

Republican attacks on SPLC are part of a broader attempt to intimidate and silence progressive institutions and the critics and opponents of this Administration, all in service of condoning and encouraging white supremacy and right-wing extremism. 

• Rep. Zoe Lofgren asked: “Ms. Wiley, you’ve described the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers as the foot soldiers of January 6th. In your opinion, is documenting and naming these groups part of the reason why SPLC is now being punished by the Trump Administration?” Ms. Wiley explained: “Sadly, because of the pattern of behavior and weaponization that we have seen, it’s hard not to conclude that particularly because of exactly the point you just raised that we’re seeing pardoning of violence and violent insurrection from January 6th. 
   
• Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon said: “What has changed is not the Southern Poverty Law Center, but the way that this administration, with its embrace of white nationalist rhetoric and groups, has decided to rewrite facts and history. […] This White House has engaged in a concerted attack on the pillars of civil society that would ordinarily hold it accountable.”  
   
• Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove said: “I cannot find a single instance where SPLC’s cooperation with law enforcement made Americans last less safe. Maybe the real issue is simply SPLC has been effective at exposing white supremacists and extremist organizations for decades—organizations that Republicans either condone or deny exist at all. SPLC was founded during the Civil Rights Movement to fight racial terror and organized hate in the south, and for over 50 years, it has sued violent white supremacist organizations, monitored extremist groups, protected voting rights, and defended vulnerable communities.”
   
• Rep. Becca Balint asked Ms. Wiley: “How do these attacks on SPLC, the Department of Justice, and the civil rights of Black Americans, and civil rights enforcement, affect the civil rights of Black Americans significantly?” Ms. Wiley responded: “I just want to share one story we haven’t talked about, because the reality is, Charles Morrell III a Black man in Boston in 2022, was just walking down the street. The Patriot Front attacked him. The Patriot Front is listed on SPLC’s hate map as a hate and extremist group. The importance of calling it out is so that Charles Morrell III can walk down the street and be safe.”  
   

As the recent Callais decision and the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act demonstrate, the latest attacks on the SPLC are part of a longstanding effort and strategy, first adopted in the Jim Crow era, to delegitimize and disenfranchise Black and Brown Americans and prevent their participation in public life.  

• Rep. Lucy McBath said: “The Republican party has launched an all-out assault against civil rights organizations founded to ensure the end of Jim Crow. But that’s just one part of this strategy. Three weeks ago, the Supreme Court gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana vs. Callais saying ‘that it could employ race neutral considerations’ in redistricting. And within days, southern legislatures rushed to wipe out Black representation in congress. Tennessee called an emergency session to repeal its own law against mid-decade redistricting. It then splintered Memphis, a city that is 60% Black, into three districts, to dilute the voices of the Black voters there. The state’s Black legislators protested, and in response, the speaker stripped every single one of them of their committee assignments. Tennessee is not alone in silencing Black voices. Alabama moved to reinstate maps a court previously struck down for intentional racial discrimination. Florida passed new racially gerrymandered maps.”

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