In the days following the 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia, rally, the Southern Poverty Law Center raged against PayPal for “essentially” becoming “the banking system for white nationalism.”
At the same time, the leftist group was secretly transferring donor cash into the pocket of a white supremacist leader who helped plan the racist event, according to an indictment revealed by the Justice Department on Tuesday.
In the days after the August 11, 2017, rally, which turned into a deadly affair, the SPLC urged PayPal to crack down on accounts linked to so-called hate groups. PayPal, which already had policies in place on preventing racist groups from using its platform to transfer money, took more action after the “Unite the Right” rally and agreed to cut off payments to 34 more accounts linked to the event.
“PayPal, one of the world’s largest online payment processors, was integral in raising money to orchestrate the event,” the SPLC stated on its website in August 2017. “Organizers, speakers, and individual attendees relied on the platform to move funds in the run up to the ultimately deadly event.”
Keegan Hankes, analyst for the Southern Poverty Law Center, told The Washington Post at the time, “For the longest time, PayPal has essentially been the banking system for white nationalism. It’s a shame it took Charlottesville for them to take it seriously.”
On Tuesday, the SPLC was accused of paying multiple people affiliated with extremist groups more than $3 million between 2014 and 2023 and hiding its activity behind bank accounts that were opened for “a series of fictitious entities.” One informant was paid more than $270,000 by the SPLC between 2015 and 2023 and had a major role in planning the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, according to the indictment.
The informant “made racist postings under the supervision of the SPLC and helped coordinate transportation to the event for several attendees,” the indictment states, adding that the informant attended the rally “at the direction of the SPLC.”
A 32-year-old woman was killed near the rally, and 35 others were injured when a man drove his car through a crowd of counter-protesters. The “Unite the Right” event became a main talking point for Democrats as they sought to pin blame on President Donald Trump, who had just begun his first term as president seven months before. In 2019, Joe Biden announced the launch of his campaign for president, citing the racist Charlottesville rally as a leading factor behind his decision.
The indictment also states that over the past 12 years, the SPLC has paid members of white supremacist groups, including paying one person who fundraised for a neo-Nazi group around $1 million over a 20-year period.
“They use their donor network to raise money to purportedly dismantle violent extremist groups,” FBI Director Kash Patel said on Tuesday. “However, the Southern Poverty Law Center, used the money they raised from their donor network to actually pay the leadership of these very groups.”
