{"id":2693947,"date":"2026-10-30T08:19:01","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T12:19:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaigndefense-lawyers-for-the-splc-appear-to-bizarrely-undermine-the-splc-in-court\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T08:19:01","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T12:19:01","slug":"utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaigndefense-lawyers-for-the-splc-appear-to-bizarrely-undermine-the-splc-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/utm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaigndefense-lawyers-for-the-splc-appear-to-bizarrely-undermine-the-splc-in-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawyers For The SPLC Appear To Undermine The SPLC In Court"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Futm_sourcerssutm_mediumrssutm_campaigndefense-lawyers-for-the-splc-appear-to-bizarrely-undermine-the-splc-in-court%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2693947&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>It\u2019s cannibalism. <\/p>\n<p>The Southern Poverty Law Center is defending itself against criminal charges in federal court by admitting a bunch of things, but that\u2019s not even the strangest development. Attacking the government\u2019s case this week, the SPLC is attacking itself. They don\u2019t appear to have noticed, but neither have the media.<\/p>\n<p>The New York Times just <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/10\/28\/us\/politics\/justice-dept-splc-informant.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">covered this story straight<\/a>, with no apparent ability to perceive irony, and see if you can guess where this is going from just the headline:<\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>\n<div>\n<p>         <span>Image Credit<\/span>Screenshot       <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The SPLC\u2019s lawyers, defending an organization that famously used paid informants for years to infiltrate targeted groups, are outraged that the government is using the SPLC\u2019s informant as an informant, because informants are self-interested and deceitful, so using an informant is dirty. It\u2019s like watching a snake eat its own tail. In a statement to the Times (that they <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/southern-poverty-law-center-doj-witness-f-9\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">repeated<\/a> to CBS News), lawyers Abbe Lowell and Addy Schmitt said that the informant had \u201cevery incentive to tell the government what it wants to hear,\u201d because he benefitted from his relationship with federal law enforcement. The use of informants is sleazy, say the lawyers defending the SPLC over its longtime use of informants.<\/p>\n<p>Take a moment to really savor this: In a case that centers on the SPLC\u2019s longtime use of paid informants, including the well-paid informant discussed in this defense brief, the SPLC\u2019s lawyers just said that <em>informants can\u2019t be trusted<\/em>. They specifically, explicitly, and repeatedly attack the credibility of a longtime SPLC informant, whose intelligence-gathering work inside a neo-Nazi organization sat at the center of the SPLC\u2019s claims about American hate groups. If the government\u2019s informant isn\u2019t trustworthy, the SPLC itself can\u2019t be trusted, because the government\u2019s deceitful informant was the SPLC\u2019s own major informant. You can\u2019t attack one without hitting the other.<\/p>\n<p>So lawyers hired to defend the SPLC are arguing in a public forum that SPLC informants are shifty and devious liars, and you shouldn\u2019t believe a word they say. What an interesting moment. <\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The Federalist sent a series of questions to the SPLC\u2019s defense team by email, and this is how that email message ended: \u201cIf his requests for payment discredit him, doesn\u2019t that discredit the SPLC\u2019s entire informant program? Did you mean to discredit your client?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They haven\u2019t responded, which has been the pattern as we\u2019ve sent them questions throughout the life of the case.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>But buckle in, because we\u2019re just getting started. This is <em>strange<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>You can read the SPLC\u2019s entire Oct. 28 brief <a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.almd.90264\/gov.uscourts.almd.90264.184.0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a>. As the writer and longtime <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0FTF5P1HK?plpRedirect=mhFallback&#038;ref=clp_hp_h_pc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">SPLC observer<\/a> Tyler O\u2019Neil <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Tyler2ONeil\/status\/2115845123774750838\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">has noted<\/a> about the defense filing, \u201cThe Southern Poverty Law Center just corroborated the basic claims in the fraud indictments against it,\u201d starting with the fact that they\u2019ve publicly corroborated that the government has the insider cooperation of a real SPLC informant. The very first paragraph of the defense brief tells you that the case against the SPLC is based on information from someone who had a long and deep relationship with the SPLC, and it tells you that his relationship with the organization also included a <em>personal<\/em> relationship that ran alongside the professional one and ended at the same time:<\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>\n<div>\n<p>         <span>Image Credit<\/span>Screenshot       <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As the story in the New York Times notes, \u201chis personal relationship\u201d is an apparent reference to the informant\u2019s \u201crelationship he had maintained with the woman who ran the program, Heidi Beirich,\u201d who is now a co-defendant in the criminal case. The government alleges that the SPLC paid an informant while the informant shared a bed and a bank account with the SPLC official who was paying him, and the defense argument appears to be \u2026 the same argument, phrased more vaguely.<\/p>\n<p>The second paragraph gets even stranger.<\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>\n<div>\n<p>         <span>Image Credit<\/span>Screenshot       <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The claim is that the informant, identified in court as F-9, helpfully assisted the SPLC in its mission, which was very important and extremely virtuous. Also, the very same informant is described as someone whose work at providing information is colored by his \u201cextreme biases, self-serving motives, and personal and professional misconduct,\u201d including the fact that he took information and documents from inside the SPLC, which is wrong. <\/p>\n<p>But this is <em>exactly what he did for the SPLC<\/em>. Here\u2019s a sentence from the new CBS News report on this defense brief: \u201cIn the indictment, the government alleged that Beirich had a romantic relationship with F-9. Prosecutors described F-9 as an SPLC informant who infiltrated the Neo-Nazi group National Alliance and even once broke into its headquarters to steal documents.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So the claim is that the informant\u2019s behavior as an SPLC informant who stole documents on behalf of the SPLC is outrageously improper, because he took documents for the people who paid him to take documents. Do you have a headache yet? The guy who stole documents stole documents. The defense allegation is that the government\u2019s witness from the SPLC\u2019s informant program can\u2019t be trusted because he\u2019s engaged in the misconduct of providing information from inside an organization, and you can\u2019t trust people who act like that.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s like the SPLC hired a team of lawyers to attack the SPLC: Our informant did wonderful work as an informant, but you can\u2019t trust a word he says, because he\u2019s an informant, and informants are very bad people who should never be believed. If F-9 exhibits \u201cextreme biases, self-serving motives, and personal and professional misconduct,\u201d then the SPLC uses liars and crooks as informants, and you can\u2019t trust a word they\u2019ve ever said. In soccer, this would be an own-goal.<\/p>\n<p>Note also that the defense brief, saying explicitly that the government\u2019s informant was \u201ctaking SPLC records and privileged information,\u201d is again corroborating government claims. They just said in court that documents obtained by prosecutors through the informant are real, and that they actually came from the SPLC. This closes the door to challenging the authenticity of evidence that <em>they\u2019ve now described in a defense brief<\/em> as \u201cSPLC records.\u201d That\u2019s a confession dressed up as an attack.<\/p>\n<p>Then we get to the first sentence of the third paragraph: \u201cStarting in March 2022, F-9 began speaking to the team investigating the SPLC.\u201d Led by the former Hunter Biden lawyer and Democrat fixer Abbe Lowell, the SPLC\u2019s defense team has repeatedly framed the prosecution as a <a href=\"https:\/\/news.bloomberglaw.com\/us-law-week\/southern-poverty-law-center-moves-to-toss-vindictive-charges\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">dirty Trump vendetta<\/a> and a political hit. Then <em>their own brief<\/em> says that the investigation started during the Biden administration.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, the SPLC\u2019s defense team alleges that the informant appears to have an enormous cache of records about the organization that he hasn\u2019t turned over to the government yet, so they demand he be subpoenaed for all of his records on their client.<\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>\n<div>\n<p>         <span>Image Credit<\/span>Screenshot       <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>They argue that the informant might be withholding exculpatory evidence, and that\u2019s a fair argument. But <em>if<\/em> the informant has an enormous cache of insider material on the SPLC that he hasn\u2019t disclosed yet, the other possibility is that the wholesale disclosure of those materials includes information that\u2019s damaging to the SPLC, both in court and in the public sphere. <\/p>\n<p>Think about being a lawyer for an organization that\u2019s in legal trouble, and then learning that a longtime insider who has turned against the organization is privately hoarding a bunch of insider material, and then <em>demanding that he stop holding it back<\/em>. <\/p>\n<p>The defense of the SPLC in court is becoming a threat to the reputation of the SPLC. <\/p>\n<p>This story will be updated if we ever get a response from the SPLC\u2019s defense team. Federal prosecutors have not yet responded in court to the SPLC\u2019s new claims, and they have declined in the past to comment on an ongoing prosecution. <\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>   Chris Bray is a senior correspondent at The Federalist and a former infantry sergeant in the U.S. Army. He has a history PhD from the University of California Los Angeles, not that it did him any good. He also posts on Substack, at &#8220;Tell Me How This Ends,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/chrisbray.substack.com\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s cannibalism. The Southern Poverty Law Center is defending itself against criminal charges in federal court by admitting a bunch of things, but that\u2019s not even the strangest development. Attacking the government\u2019s case this week, the SPLC is attacking itself. They don\u2019t appear to have noticed, but neither have the media. The New York Times<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2086,"featured_media":2693948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/beirich-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2693947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/beirich-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2693947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2086"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2693947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2693947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2693948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2693947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2693947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2693947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}