LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The Department of Justice has charged a former employee of the Southern Poverty Law Center with defrauding donors and improperly paying informants. Her lawyer says she's being targeted for decades of work to dismantle hate groups. Prosecutors filed charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center itself earlier this year. Troy Public Radio's Kyle Gassiott reports.
KYLE GASSIOTT, BYLINE: Todd Blanche used his first press conference as newly sworn-in attorney general to announce the charges against Heidi Beirich, a former writer and director of research at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Alabama.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TODD BLANCHE: I believe she was part of the effort to open bank accounts in completely fictitious companies names and make payments that - to individuals for reasons that were not - that they were not accurate as described.
GASSIOTT: The court filing says that Beirich took money given by donors and funneled it through shell companies. The DOJ says she then paid informants who had infiltrated neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. The government charges that the money was used to fund extremist activities. They also maintain that a field source Beirich was romantically linked to received more than $1 million. Beirich's lawyer, Michael Proctor, said in a statement that his client has dedicated her life to fighting hate groups and extremist movements like the KKK, neo-Nazis, and other white supremacists. Beirich recently did an interview on NPR where she identified white nationalist language in communication coming directly out of government agencies.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
HEIDI BEIRICH: The government - the federal government - is spreading white supremacist propaganda to millions of people, normalizing it and exposing people to things that are just simply heinous.
GASSIOTT: The original indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center was announced by Blanche and FBI director Kash Patel earlier this year. SPLC is fighting back in court, claiming it was singled out because of its criticism of the Trump administration. Now, Beirich's indictment signals the government is willing to go after individuals in its prosecution of the group. Beirich will be back in court later this month.
For NPR News, I'm Kyle Gassiott in Montgomery, Alabama.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
