00:00Mr. O'Neill, they had an extremist file web page, didn't they?
00:04Yes.
00:04And they would, on this web page, they would pick out some crazy hate guy and they would,
00:09you know, some bad guy, and he was like the extremist of the month.
00:11They'd highlight him and they would say, send us money to stop so-and-so.
00:14Is that right?
00:15Exactly.
00:15And F42 was one of the field sources, number 42, chair of some crazy hate group.
00:20The Southern Probability Law Center highlighted him on their web page.
00:23He's bad, he's evil, send us money.
00:26Is that right?
00:27Yes.
00:28Did they tell their prospective donors they were paying this guy?
00:32No.
00:33They didn't tell him.
00:33Did they tell him they were paying him $140,000?
00:38No, not to my knowledge.
00:39So they said, let's stop the racist, even though we're paying him to be racist.
00:43That was their pitch.
00:44But they didn't tell him that, did they?
00:45No, they did not.
00:46Is that appropriate, Ms. Wiley?
00:50I'm sorry, which part?
00:52All of that.
00:52Is that appropriate to tell your donors, this is the extremist of the month.
00:56This hateful, racist guy is really bad.
00:59Send us money, but not tell those donors who you're taking their money from that we're paying this guy $140
01:05,000.
01:05Is that appropriate?
01:06Well, we have public reporting that over a dozen donors actually said that they spent the money as intended.
01:12If the source 42 got $140,000 from the Southern Poverty Law Center was featured on their webpage as extremist
01:20of the year or month or whatever they call these bad guys, and they were paying him, and they were
01:26getting money.
01:26Is that appropriate?
01:27Simple question.
01:28And donors have supported it, and they keep trying to send more money to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
01:33No, no, no, no.
01:33Is that technique appropriate?
01:35That's what I'm asking.
01:36That is not unlawful to say that people have done X, Y, or Z.
01:40I didn't ask if it was lawful or unlawful.
01:42As you said earlier in your testimony, the court's going to determine that when they go to trial.
01:46What I'm asking you, is it appropriate?
01:49As I said, the donors have spoken, and in fact, they're trying to send more money now, and there are
01:53financial institutions refusing to send the money.
01:56Is the Alliance Defending Freedom, is that a hate group?
01:59I don't know.
02:00I don't do designations.
02:02Well, they've argued 16 cases before the Supreme Court, won 16 cases before the Supreme Court.
02:08They stand for traditional values.
02:10Southern Poverty Law Center labeled them a hate group.
02:11Are they a hate group?
02:13I don't know them, and I don't work on the designations.
02:15Here's one thing.
02:16I'm here to talk about these high-dones.
02:17Is Jane's Revenge, is that a hate group?
02:20Because the ADF, they didn't firebomb anybody, but Jane's Revenge did.
02:24ADF is labeled a hate group.
02:25Jane's Revenge isn't.
02:26I want to know how you would label it.
02:30I'm not here as a person who designates groups.
02:32I'm here to talk about the impact on civil rights.
02:35Okay.
02:35Mr. O'Neill, do you think any of these field sources were double-dipping?
02:40I mean, during the Biden-Ray-Garland administration, the Justice Department paid a bunch of confidential human sources, a bunch
02:52of them.
02:53We know a bunch of them were at the Capitol on January 6th.
02:57Four went in the Capitol.
02:57And I'm just wondering if the same entity, the Justice Department under President Biden, paying these confidential human sources, who
03:07was working with the Southern Poverty Law Center, having quarterly meetings with them, consulting with them, giving them FBI data
03:12before anyone else could see it, having them train their prosecutors.
03:15I'm just wondering, do you think it was out of the realm of possibility that the Justice Department was paying
03:20the same sources the SPLC was paying?
03:23I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility.
03:25I have no information or knowledge that they were double-dipping.
03:28I would say that Stephen J. Ross, who is author of The Secret War Against Hate, which is about the
03:35history of informants that Jewish groups had placed in some of these violent groups back, you know, decades and decades
03:43before the SPLC ever existed.
03:45He said that neither the ADL nor the American Jewish Committee nor the Anti-Nazi League did anything like highlighting
03:52informants online as in extremist profiles while also funding them.
03:59Yeah.
03:59Last question.
04:00I'll come to you, Mr. Perkins.
04:01In your opening statement, you talked about how it was just worse than the SPLC because how they've put themselves
04:10out there or become the standard of help from the government, I think, in becoming the source of the standard
04:14on evaluating and determining what groups are hate groups or what groups aren't.
04:19But it's bigger and broader.
04:20It has things.
04:20But I think the real thing here is how closely, how closely they worked with the government to carry out
04:28what they were trying to do.
04:29And the reason the Biden administration embraced them, I think, so fully was politics, simple politics.
04:35You agree?
04:36Well, there are members of this committee that were endorsed by SPLC.
04:39They were they had a C4 was involved in elections.
04:42So they were they were not just an umpire.
04:45They were a player on the field as well.
04:48So how how can they be objective in determining who is a purveyor of hate and who is not?
04:55I mean, they had a they had a they had a stake in this.
04:59But to your point about their engagement with government, it goes much further than the federal government and the FBI
05:05and the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense, which their material was in briefing to the members of
05:12the military.
05:13But they also continue to have their learning for justice, which is about 500,000 educators across America and bulletins
05:20to local law enforcement.
05:22And I happen to know because the agency I was with, the sheriff called me and said, hey, we've got
05:27a bulletin says you're a part of a hate group.
05:29Yeah.
05:30And he was laughing.
05:31Yeah.
05:31And but that is the reach that they've had.
05:35This is the hub.
05:36They're the hub.
05:37But there's spokes that go out.
05:39And I think that's an appropriate metaphor.
05:41My time has expired with that.
05:43I recognize the gentleman from Georgia.
05:45Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
05:48Mr. O'Neill, have you ever heard the name Michael Donald?
05:53I have.
05:54Yes, I'm very familiar with the case.
05:57How about you, Mr. Perkins?
05:59You don't know?
06:01Never heard of him?
06:02How about you, Dr. Swain?
06:05You've never heard of Michael Donald before?
06:10You can cut your mic on.
06:14I'm not sure.
06:15But maybe if you give a little more information.
06:18He was the 19-year-old African-American black boy down in Mobile, Alabama.
06:27He's the son of Beulah May and David Donald, the youngest of six children.
06:36He was in community college at the time while working part-time for a local newspaper.
06:48And on March 21st of 1981, he was lynched.
06:56You've never heard of that before?
07:00No, I have not.
07:02I don't recall.
07:02Then you did not know then that the SPLC was responsible for filing a lawsuit against the United Clans of
07:13America,
07:14whose members were responsible for lynching Michael Donald.
07:19You did not know that the SPLC had sued along with Beulah May Donald and received or obtained a judgment
07:30that ran the United Clans of America out of business.
07:34You weren't aware of that?
07:35I was totally aware of it.
07:36Okay, well, let me ask you this then.
07:38Let me ask you this.
07:40If you were aware of that, you know that they have been effective since then in running a number of
07:47Ku Klux Klan organizations out of business through lawsuits, correct?
07:54You're aware of it, Mr. O'Neill, aren't you?
07:56Yes, I'm actually very aware of that case because the SPLC edged out Beulah May Donald and wanted to make
08:03a video about it.
08:06You said that Charlottesville was a catalytic moment or a fundraising moment, both of you all have said, for the
08:17Southern Poverty Law Center.
08:19You were aware of the fact that the Southern Poverty Law Center actually forwarded to the FBI information about Charlottesville
08:29before it even happened,
08:31before Donald Trump said that the Ku Klux Klan down there and anti-Jewish folks, anti-Semites were good people.
08:43You were aware of the fact that SPLC provided information to the FBI about that.
08:50Isn't that correct, Ms. Wiley?
08:51That is correct.
08:52And they have been very effective at suing organizations, anti-Semitism, anti-racism.
09:01They have been a thorn in the side of the racist who, I'm sure, sat up in their graves, Robert
09:12E. Lee, Nathan Bedford Forrest,
09:16the former Confederate general founder of the Ku Klux Klan, and others, Stonewall Jackson.
09:24I'm sure that they stood up in their graves and saluted when Trump was elected and when he took office,
09:32because on the first day, he eliminated all federal efforts to remedy the impact of slavery and racism in America.
09:43They call it DEI, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
09:47And Trump has tried to stop that, and the United States Supreme Court has gone along with him
09:56in ending enforcement of the, or the ability to enforce the Voting Rights Act,
10:03which is one of the ways that you, Ms. Dr. Swain, were able to get the right to vote.
10:08I don't understand it, Ms. Wiley.
10:09May I respond?
10:09Can you tell me why it is that folks today are claiming that we have no racism in America
10:22and the only extremism we have is through left-wing groups like the SPLC, and they're targeting the SPLC?
10:30Can you tell us why?
10:31We've just seen an outright attack on all the gains of the civil rights movement for the past 60 years,
10:38and I can only say that I will never be able to explain it,
10:42but at a time when hate crimes have doubled in this country, gone up 100% since 2015,
10:48where the rise in anti-Semitism, the rise in hate against transgender people,
10:54black people still remain the number one largest racial group subject to hate crimes,
11:00that we have to talk about racism, transphobia,
11:04all of the violence that too many of our communities are experiencing,
11:08and no one, including any of the groups here, should experience violence.
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