The SPLC’s Top Hate-Hunter Just Got Arrested for Illegally Funding Actual Nazis

The Southern Poverty Law Center spent decades telling America which organizations were dangerous hate groups. On Wednesday, the DOJ arrested the woman who ran that operation — Heidi Beirich, former Director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project — and charged her with wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to submit false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to conceal money laundering.

The irony is not subtle. Beirich is accused of secretly funneling over $4 million in donor money to members of the very extremist groups she was supposedly tracking — including, allegedly, sharing a bank account with a neo-Nazi who served as her live-in partner and received $1.2 million of that money.

AG Todd Blanche confirmed the arrest at Wednesday’s news conference: “I believe she was part of the effort to open bank accounts in completely fictitious companies’ names and make payments to individuals for reasons that were not accurate as described. This is exactly what we said would happen in a case like this — our investigators and the U.S. attorneys and the agents working the case will keep on working it even after the initial indictment.”

Let’s take a moment to appreciate what’s being alleged here. The SPLC became one of the most powerful institutions in American political life by maintaining a “hate map” that designated conservative, mainstream, and religious organizations as dangerous extremists — costing them donors, partners, and reputations. The organization that built its entire brand and fundraising model on calling other people Nazis was allegedly paying actual Nazis.