2026-04-23T08:00:50.983Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
作者：汉娜·拉比诺维茨、德文·科尔
4小时前发布
发布时间：2026年4月23日，美国东部时间凌晨4:00
杰奎琳·马丁/美联社
2026年4月21日，美国司法部在一场新闻发布会上宣布对南方贫困法律中心提起诉讼，代理司法部长托德·布兰奇发言，联邦调查局局长卡什·帕特尔在旁旁听。
美国司法部周二对南方贫困法律中心提起诉讼，指控这家久负盛名的民权组织通过挪用捐款资助其声称正在打击的极端主义活动，从而欺诈捐赠者。
检察官指控，这场欺诈计划持续了近10年，南方贫困法律中心使用超过300万美元的捐赠资金，秘密向暴力极端组织的头目支付报酬，让他们担任线人，且未披露资金去向。
不过，这份长达14页的起诉书并未详细说明支付线人的捐赠资金是如何被用于推动这些团体的暴力活动的，也未提及捐赠者是否对资金用途感到意外——法律专家称这一明显疏漏可能会给检察官争取定罪带来麻烦。
此案发生数月前，在去年查理·柯克遇刺事件后，保守派对南方贫困法律中心的批评愈演愈烈，联邦调查局局长卡什·帕特尔随即切断了该局与该中心的联系。长期以来，南方贫困法律中心一直向政府提供关于仇恨犯罪和极端主义的研究数据，但帕特尔称其为“党派抹黑机器”，因其针对柯克创立的政治团体给予了过多关注。
南方贫困法律中心本周在一份声明中表示，将针对这些“虚假指控”“全力为自己、员工和我们的工作辩护”，并表示其线人计划多年来拯救了无数生命。
线人使用情况
起诉书显示，南方贫困法律中心自20世纪80年代起开始使用付费线人。该中心表示，其线人计划保密是为了保护线人，让他们能够渗透进三K党、雅利安民族及其他新纳粹团体等危险组织。
“我们开始与线人合作时，正值民权运动高潮过后的阴影期，当时发生了教堂爆炸、国家当局对示威者的暴力镇压，以及司法系统未能追究活动人士谋杀案责任的事件，”南方贫困法律中心临时总裁兼首席执行官布莱恩·费尔周三在一份声明中说道。
“毫无疑问，我们从线人那里获取的情报拯救了生命，”费尔说道，同时指出该做法现已停止。
代理司法部长托德·布兰奇在周二的新闻发布会上表示，司法部检察官最初是在拜登政府时期开始调查南方贫困法律中心使用付费线人的情况，但当时决定不起诉。布兰奇称，调查在特朗普第二任期内重新启动，但他拒绝透露重启调查的原因。
指控内容
起诉书指控该中心向一家银行作出虚假陈述，以便开设账户，通过这些账户秘密向线人发放捐赠资金。这些账户使用虚假的商业名称开设，例如“科技作家集团”和“稀有书籍仓库”。
布兰奇周二表示，“根据与非营利组织相关的法律，该中心必须——在向捐赠者说明资金用途、其使命宣言以及筹款用途时，保持一定的透明度和诚实性。”
检察官进一步指控，部分资金被极端分子用于实施其他犯罪，但起诉书中未提及此类行为的具体案例。
不过，起诉书详细描述了该中心通过空壳银行账户支付报酬的8名匿名线人。其中一名线人是名为“民族联盟”的新纳粹组织成员，据称在10年时间里获得了超过100万美元的报酬。
存在风险的诉讼
法律专家告诉CNN，此案可能会面临诸多重大障碍，因为其依据的理论与南方贫困法律中心多年来公开宣称的目标相悖。
退休联邦法官南希·格特纳表示，鉴于该组织长期以来公开其瓦解极端主义团体的使命，政府辩称任何向南方贫困法律中心捐款的人都不知道资金用途、也不支持资金被用于支付线人，这一说法“荒谬可笑”。
“每个人都清楚他们的运作方式、运作原因，以及这如何成为其使命的一部分，”格特纳说道，“因此这份起诉书令人费解。”
格特纳预测，如果此案进入审判阶段，检察官可能很难找到证人指证南方贫困法律中心。
“我认为此案终将失败，因为我认为没有证人能支持他们的说法，”她说道，还补充道，如果该组织能让主审法官相信自己受到了不公平起诉，此案在审判前也可能遭遇挫折。
此类以选择性起诉或报复性起诉为由要求驳回案件的申请很少获得批准，但自特朗普去年重返白宫以来，法官们对此类申请的接受度似乎有所提高。格特纳表示，南方贫困法律中心可能会以本届政府对该组织的敌视态度作为证据，证明自己因被单独追究刑事责任而受到打压。
乔治城大学法学院专攻刑事事务的教授阿贝·史密斯也表示，南方贫困法律中心可能会以该案侵犯其第一修正案权利为由，试图驳回指控。
“南方贫困法律中心所从事的活动本质上是言论和结社自由，”她说道。
此案在阿拉巴马州蒙哥马利提起，由特朗普任命的美国地区法官艾米丽·马克斯负责审理。初步庭审程序尚未安排日程。
与共和党人的紧张关系
一些观察人士也担忧，此案的背后是特朗普政府企图利用司法部压制批评者。
多年来，南方贫困法律中心一直面临共和党人的指控，称其不公平地将保守派组织和个人贴上极端主义分子的标签。
该中心公开批评特朗普政府在移民、投票限制、教育及其他社会议题上的政策，并支持多起针对本届政府和全国共和党议员的诉讼。
去年柯克去世后，有关南方贫困法律中心存在反保守派偏见的指控愈演愈烈，因为该中心在一份报告中将柯克创立的“转折点美国”组织描述为“2024年强硬右翼的案例研究”。
帕特尔于去年10月迅速切断了与南方贫困法律中心的联系，毫无根据地辩称其研究“被用于诋毁主流美国人，甚至煽动暴力”。
“这一可耻记录使其不再适合与联邦调查局开展任何合作，”帕特尔在X平台上发帖称。
周二诉讼消息公布后，多个知名民权团体纷纷为南方贫困法律中心辩护，称此案是司法部履行特朗普意图利用权力报复政治对手的最新例证。
“本届政府持续将司法部武器化，针对那些公开反对其议程的组织，这种反美行为让人回想起麦卡锡时代，”美国公民自由联盟执行主任安东尼·罗梅罗说道。
与此同时，全国有色人种协进会主席兼首席执行官德里克·约翰逊警告称，“每一个参与社会正义事业的组织和个人都应敲响警钟。”
但也有人表示，对南方贫困法律中心的联邦调查已持续数年，这表明此案并非检察官不当提起的。
“鉴于此案的复杂性，且显然是一项历时多年的调查，我认为我们不能断定此案是出于报复目的进入视野的，”弗吉尼亚州前联邦检察官吉恩·罗西说道，“指控非常严重。”
CNN的凯西·甘农对本文亦有贡献。
What to know about the Trump Justice Department’s case against the Southern Poverty Law Center
2026-04-23T08:00:50.983Z / CNN
By Hannah Rabinowitz, Devan Cole
4 hr ago
PUBLISHED Apr 23, 2026, 4:00 AM ET
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks as FBI Director Kash Patel listens during a news conference announcing charges against the Souther Poverty Law Center, at the Justice Department, on April 21, 2026.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
The Justice Department announced charges Tuesday against the Southern Poverty Law Center, alleging the storied civil rights organization defrauded its donors by funding the extremism it claimed to be fighting.
The fraudulent scheme played out over nearly 10 years, prosecutors allege, when the Southern Poverty Law Center used more than $3 million in donor funds to secretly pay leaders of violent extremist groups to act as confidential informants without disclosing where that money was going.
The 14-page indictment, however, offered few details of how donor money that paid the informants was used to further the groups’ violent interests, or if donors felt blindsided by what their money was spent on – a glaring omission that legal experts say could spell trouble for prosecutors as they seek to secure a conviction.
The case comes several months after FBI Director Kash Patel severed the bureau’s ties with the SPLC after conservative criticism of the group intensified in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination last year. SPLC had long provided its research on hate crimes and extremism to the government, but Patel labeled it a “partisan smear machine” for the attention it paid to a political group founded by Kirk.
SPLC this week said in a statement that it “will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work” against the “false allegations,” and said that their informant program saved lives over the years.
Use of informants
The Southern Poverty Law Center began its practice of using paid informants in the 1980s, the indictment says. The center says its program was kept a secret to protect the informants as they infiltrated dangerous organizations like the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation and other neo-Nazi groups.
“When we began working with informants, we were living in the shadow of the height of the Civil Rights Movement, which had seen bombings at churches, state-sponsored violence against demonstrators, and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system,” SPLC interim President and CEO Bryan Fair said in a statement Wednesday.
“There is no question that what we learned from informants saved lives,” Fair said, while noting the practice has since been discontinued.
Justice Department prosecutors first started probing the center’s use of paid informants under the Biden administration, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a press conference Tuesday, but decided not to bring charges. The investigation was reopened during Trump’s second term, Blanche said, though he declined to share any reasoning as to why.
The allegations
The indictment accuses the center of making false statements to a bank so that it could create accounts through which it secretly sent donated money to informants. The accounts were created under fake business names, such as “Tech Writers Group” and “Rare Books Warehouse.”
Blanche said Tuesday that the center is “required to – under the laws associated with a nonprofit – to have certain transparency and honesty in what they’re telling donors they’re going to spend money on and what their mission statement is and what they’re raising money doing.”
Prosecutors further allege that some of the money was used by extremists to commit other crimes, but the indictment does not include any specific instances of that occurring.
It does, however, give details about eight unnamed informants whom the center paid through the shell bank accounts. One informant, a member of a neo-Nazi group called the National Alliance, was allegedly paid more than $1 million over 10 years.
A risky case
Legal experts told CNN the case is likely to face a number of major hurdles given that the theory under which it’s premised runs counter to the reality of the SPLC’s stated objectives over the years.
Because the organization has long made public its mission of dismantling extremist groups, it’s “preposterous” for the government to argue that any donor who’s given money to SPLC didn’t know what those funds were being used for and didn’t support their money being used to pay informants, said retired federal Judge Nancy Gertner.
“Everyone understood the way they function and why they function and how that was part of the mission,” Gertner said. “So it is a curious indictment.”
Gertner predicted that should the case get to trial, prosecutors may struggle to find witnesses to testify against the SPLC.
“I think it’s going to fall apart because I think there will be no witnesses to support what they’re saying,” she said, adding that the case could also suffer setbacks before trial if the group can convince the judge overseeing it that the organization is being unfairly prosecuted.
Such requests to dismiss a case based on claims of a selective or vindictive prosecution are rarely granted, but judges have appeared more receptive to them since Trump returned to the White House last year. Gertner said SPLC may point to the administration’s antagonization of the group as evidence that it’s being singled out for criminal punishment.
Abbe Smith, a professor at Georgetown Law who specializes in criminal matters, also said that SPLC may try to get the charges tossed out based on an argument that the case runs up against the group’s First Amendment rights.
“The activities that Southern Poverty Law Center are engaging in are basically speech and association,” she said.
The case, which was brought in Montgomery, Alabama, is being overseen by US District Judge Emily Marks, who was appointed to the bench by Trump. Initial proceedings have not yet been scheduled.
Contentious relationship with Republicans
Some observers have also raised concerns that the case was borne out of the Trump administration’s desire to use the Justice Department to silence its critics.
For years, the Southern Poverty Law Center has faced accusations from Republicans who say it has unfairly maligned conservative organizations and individuals as extremists.
The center has been outwardly critical of the Trump administration’s policies on immigration, voting restrictions, education and other social issues. It has supported several lawsuits against the administration and GOP lawmakers across the country.
Allegations of anti-conservative bias intensified in the wake of Kirk’s death last year, as the SPLC had described Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA, in a report as “A Case Study of the Hard Right in 2024.”
Patel quickly broke ties with the SPLC in October, arguing, without evidence, that its research “has been used to defame mainstream Americans and even inspired violence.”
“That disgraceful record makes them unfit for any FBI partnership,” Patel said in a post on X.
After the charges were unveiled Tuesday, several prominent civil rights group rushed to SPLC’s defense, saying the case is the latest example of the Justice Department fulfilling Trump’s desire to use its powers to exact revenge on political adversaries.
“This administration’s continued weaponization of the Justice Department to target organizations speaking out against its agenda is anti-American behavior harkening back to the McCarthy era,” said American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony Romero.
NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson, meanwhile, warned that “every organization and individual engaged in social justice should be alarmed.”
But others said the fact that the federal probe into SPLC dated back several years showed that it wasn’t improperly brought by prosecutors.
“Given the complexity of this case and that it appears to be a multi-year investigation, I don’t think we can conclude that this case is on the radar screen of retribution” said Gene Rossi, a former federal prosecutor in Virginia. “The allegations are very serious.”
CNN’s Casey Gannon contributed to this report.