Following a federal grand jury’s 11-count indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), legal experts and conservative leaders are confirming that the left-wing organization was little more than a front to legitimize the targeting of Christian and conservative organizations and movements. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall (R) confirmed on “Washington Watch” Thursday night that the investigation that resulted in the indictment “goes back several years.”

“This is a reflection of work that’s been done for a while,” Marshall shared. “Yet it took the Trump administration to allow the unique resources and laws of the federal government because, you know, it gets lost. And this is a corporate criminal indictment,” he continued. “We were bringing these issues to the attention of the Department of Justice” under former President Joe Biden, the attorney general said. “We found silence. With Trump’s administration, we found action.”

The indictment, handed down by the Middle District of Alabama on Tuesday, charged the SPLC with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and one count of money laundering. According to the indictment, the SPLC fraudulently delivered more than $3 million of donated funds to the most extreme of the “hate” organizations that it purportedly aims to combat, such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and Aryan Nations.

Marshall explained that most states aren’t equipped with the laws necessary to investigate and prosecute interstate or international wire fraud and bank fraud, necessitating a partnership with the federal government. The indictment, Marshall noted, cites funds managed by the SPLC between 2014 and 2023, within the statute of limitations for federal prosecution, although the indictment also charges that the SPLC had been funneling donor money to extremist organizations and “informants” within those organizations since the 1980s. “Between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC paid their [informants] in a clandestine manner,” the grand jury averred. “Doing so hid the fact that while the SPLC received donation money under the auspices that the funds would be used to ‘dismantle’ violent extremist groups, this donation money was, instead, being used, in part, by the SPLC to pay leaders and others within these same violent extremist groups.”

“This myriad of bank accounts that were created and referenced in that indictment go back many years, in fact, many of them more than 10 years ago, seemingly part of the fraud that’s referenced within the body of the indictment itself,” Marshall observed. “But when you continue to be able to see activity up until 2023 and possibly beyond, that’s going to be the vehicle in which the local prosecutors here in the middle district are going to be able to use to argue that this is not conduct that’s outside the statute of limitations, but in fact that they can proceed.”

Referring to allegations that the SPLC has long been involved in fraudulent activities, Marshall commented, “This is not new news.” He observed that by funding otherwise-failing extremist groups like the KKK, the SPLC could claim that “hate” is alive and well in the U.S. and must be stopped, and could further lump Christian and conservative organizations — such as Family Research Council, Alliance Defending Freedom, the Center for Immigration Studies, Focus on the Family, and others — in with extremist groups and “legitimize” the targeting of Christian and conservative organizations.

“There’s no doubt this was a way of being able to minimize the influence of conservative groups across our country. You create that designation, it causes entities to de-platform conservative groups that have somehow or another been labeled by the SPLC, seemingly with credibility,” Marshall observed. “This is a targeted effort of the Left to be able to go after their conservative opponents and use it as a way of minimizing the ability of those organizations to do good work,” he continued, “whether it’s FRC, whether it’s my friends at ADF, or others that likewise are pursuing conservative causes and being successful in pushing back — definitely during the Biden administration — on what was coming from Washington.”

The SPLC is not the only Democrat-aligned organization being accused of fraud. The Democratic Party-affiliated political donation organization ActBlue was sued on Monday by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), who accused the organization of systemic donor fraud, including accepting foreign donations and allowing foreign entities to influence American elections. “The radical left has relied on ActBlue as a way to funnel foreign donations and dark money into their political campaigns to subvert our laws and compromise the integrity of our elections,” Paxton said in a statement. “ActBlue lied to Congress and to the American people, and I will ensure justice is served. It has blatantly ignored state law that prohibits deceptive practices, and it must pay for its illegal conduct. Fair elections are the foundation of our democracy, and I will work to ensure no illegal campaign donation flies under the radar.”

The U.S. House of Representatives has also taken aim at ActBlue. In a letter Thursday, House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) formally requested that ActBlue CEO Regina Wallace-Jones testify before Congress on the allegations against her organization. In particular, ActBlue has been accused of failing to verify the identity or even the existence of donors and has reportedly not enforced fraud prevention. “The committee is considering potential legislative reforms to address fraudulent and illegal political donations made using online fundraising platforms such as ActBlue,” Steil wrote in his letter, warning that ActBlue had seemingly “deliberately” refused to comply with a congressional subpoena last year. “As chief executive officer of ActBlue, the committee believes you may have information pertinent to its investigation.”

In a Truth Social post late Thursday night, President Donald Trump suggested that the apparently rampant fraud committed by Democrat-aligned organizations has likely impacted prior elections on a significant scale. “The Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the greatest political scams in American History, has been charged with FRAUD. This is another Democrat Hoax, along with Act Blue, and many others,” he wrote. If the allegations against the SPLC and ActBlue are proven true, he continued, then “the 2020 Presidential Election should be permanently wiped from the books and be of no further force or effect!”