US President Donald Trump wants the 2020 US Presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden, completely struck from history. On Friday (Apr 24), the Republican leader called for the election results to be "permanently wiped from the books" if the civil rights organisation is found guilty of secretly funnelling millions of dollars to the white supremacist groups it publicly claims to oppose.
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A sore loser?
Calling the Southern Poverty Law Centre "one of the greatest political scams in American History", Trump wrote on Truth Social that the organisation "has been charged with FRAUD".
Calling it "another Democrat Hoax, along with Act Blue, and many others," he demanded, "If it is true, the 2020 Presidential Election should be permanently wiped from the books and be of no further force or effect!". However, Trump offered no basis for how a fraud conviction against a nonprofit organisation relates to a presidential election result.
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SPLC indictment and charges against the NGO
The SPLC was indicted Tuesday (Apr 21) on charges of wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Prosecutors allege that between 2014 and 2023, the organisation secretly paid approximately $3 million to individuals connected to or embedded within extremist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, the American Nazi Party, the National Socialist Movement, United Klans of America and the organisers of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The SPLC has long maintained a network of paid confidential informants inside violent extremist organisations, a practice it says is essential to tracking and exposing those groups. The indictment does not dispute that informants existed; it challenges how they were paid and what they were paid to do.
SPLC CEO Bryan Fair said the organisation was being targeted for its use of confidential informants, a standard law enforcement tool, and suggested the prosecution was politically motivated.

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