My friend Charlie Kirk saw the danger of the SPLC long before its indictment
Last week, the Department of Justice unsealed 11 indictments against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), charging the organization with wire fraud, conspiracy and making false statements to a federally insured bank. At the heart of the alleged scheme was a shocking operation in which the SPLC paid "informants" embedded inside the very extremist groups it claimed to oppose, including the Nazi Party of America, the KKK and Aryan Nations. The indictments reveal these characters to be more than just moles, but rather the leaders, organizers and key influencers that make these groups work.
As a conservative, I’ve watched these revelations with a sense of righteous vindication. For years, those of us on the right have viewed the SPLC as a caricature of left-wing overreach and moral panic, but we also shouldn’t dismiss its poisonous influence in progressive circles. Saturday’s failed assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner only underscores the seriousness with which we must approach the radicalizing propaganda network of the far left, especially groups like the SPLC, which wield outsize influence. As history tells us, that influence can come with deadly consequences.
In 2010, the SPLC added the Family Research Council to its widely circulated "Hate Map." Less than 22 months later, an armed gunman entered the organization’s Washington, D.C., headquarters intending to carry out a mass shooting. He was heroically stopped by a security guard and later admitted he had used the SPLC’s map to select his target.
To understand how the Hate Map came to play such a role, it’s worth revisiting how the SPLC rose to prominence. Founded in 1971, the organization built its reputation through litigation aimed at advancing desegregation, expanding minority voter representation in the South and dismantling organized Klan activities. Fortunately for the country, but unfortunately for the SPLC, by the 1990s, its preferred targets had largely receded from public life. Klan hoods, swastikas and burning crosses were relics of a bygone era.
This should have been celebrated by the SPLC, but instead, it represented an existential threat. Business was drying up. New targets were needed to satiate the worst fears of its generous donors still eager to cosplay as feted activists from the civil rights heyday.
So in 2000, the SPLC created the Hate Map, an interactive tool that allowed prospective donors to click through and see just how much "hate" was lurking in every corner of the country, probably in a neighborhood near you.
The map proved to be brilliant marketing. Filled with red — the color of hate and the Republican Party — the Hate Map was visual confirmation bias for the NPR donor class that wanted to believe the only true evil remaining in the world was White supremacy.
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But the SPLC soon discovered it could raise even more money by broadening the definition of "hate." According to the SPLC, these extremists existed only because a broader network of mainstream conservative and Christian organizations provided the requisite permission structure for them. Groups opposing abortion or defending traditional marriage were added to the list. Over time, the map included organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom, Moms for Liberty, PragerU and yes, Turning Point USA (TPUSA). The line between violent extremism and ordinary ideological disagreement was deliberately blurred.
But the SPLC still had a problem. There just weren’t enough real, outward signs of White supremacy to sustain the business model. So it decided to manufacture some. Beginning around 2014, the organization reportedly funneled millions of dollars through shell companies to pay extremist leaders, organizers and recruiters to subsidize the very stereotypes of 1960s-style White supremacy that had originally made the group famous.
The return on investment was extraordinary. In 2017, immediately after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville — an event we now know was organized with the help of an SPLC informant paid roughly $270,000 — the organization’s revenues nearly tripled, jumping from $51 million to over $133 million in one year. Major corporations like JPMorgan and MGM, along with high-profile donors such as Tim Cook of Apple and George and Amal Clooney, poured millions into its coffers. As of 2024, the organization reportedly maintains an endowment of well over $700 million.
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I remember when my friend and colleague Charlie Kirk first learned that TPUSA had been added to the Hate Map in the spring of 2025. His initial reaction was characteristically defiant: "Of course. What took them so long?" We laughed at the absurdity. But later, when we were alone, he admitted he was worried about our students. He was used to the smears; they were not. Charlie knew it only took one lunatic to change everything.
On Sept. 10, 2025, his worst fears were tragically realized.
Exactly three months and 19 days after the SPLC fraudulently included Turning Point USA in its so-called Hate Map, a left-wing assassin killed Charlie, saying, "I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can't be negotiated out."
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I cannot prove the SPLC’s targeting of TPUSA directly caused Charlie’s assassination. But indirectly? Without question. The organization’s decades-long campaign helped turn "hate" into the ultimate catch-all slur wielded by powerful institutions to dismiss, dehumanize and ultimately justify violence against conservatives.
Real violent extremism exists in America, but the data increasingly shows it is far more common on the political left. Just days after Charlie’s assassination, a YouGov/The Economist poll found that nearly 30% of self-described progressives ages 18–39 believe violence is justified to achieve political goals, compared with only about 5% of conservatives in the same age group. The SPLC and its allies were so successful at selling the myth of pervasive right-wing "hate" that far too many on the left became convinced that conservatives deserved whatever violence came their way.
So what needs to happen now?
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The entire SPLC edifice must be dismantled, all the way down to the studs. Its financial networks should be exposed and severed. Donors should consider revenues from the SPLC’s fraudulent scheme to be blood money and demand refunds. Responsible institutions must immediately disavow any association with the group. Those involved in the alleged fraud should face full prosecution.
In his final text message to White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, Charlie wrote about the urgent need to dismantle the networks and financial infrastructure that enable left-wing violence.
The DOJ indictments are the first real step toward achieving his vision.
Let’s hope they are just the first of many more steps, including criminal indictments of the leaders responsible. They must pay for what they’ve done if America stands any chance of overcoming the rise of left-wing political violence.