00:00I've got another question for you. What is a black job?
00:03You'd have to ask Donald Trump.
00:05I'm not sure what that means. I'm referring to a statement that you made a year ago on your LinkedIn.
00:11I was so honored and proud to be a New York State delegate for our next president,
00:16with Vice President Kamala Harris ascending to her black job.
00:20I have to hear from the witness, but I appreciate it.
00:22Could Hillary Clinton have filled that black job?
00:25You'd have to ask Donald Trump.
00:28Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it.
00:30Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:31Thanks for holding this hearing, and thank you to the witnesses for taking the time to be here and testify
00:37before us.
00:38We certainly really appreciate that and appreciate your expertise.
00:43Ms. Wiley, I have a couple questions for you.
00:47Do you still believe in defunding the police?
00:50I believe in public safety, and that means driving dollars to where we're most likely to prevent crimes
00:56from happening and ensure that we have responsive law enforcement that doesn't violate people's rights and it prevents crime.
01:03Does that mean driving dollars away from law enforcement?
01:07It means making sure we're driving dollars to the things that support public safety, and that's a variety of things.
01:15So possibly away from law enforcement?
01:17Well, I think we have law enforcement.
01:20We have talked about the need for law enforcement, particularly when we're fighting hate and bias crimes,
01:26which we have more than doubled in this country since 2015.
01:29Law enforcement is very important.
01:31During your mayoral race a few years ago, you said, quote,
01:35I'm going to take a billion dollars from New York City Police Department.
01:38Do you still think that's a good idea?
01:40Well, I'm here to talk about hate crimes, not my run for city.
01:45I stand by my run for mayor and I appreciate the opportunity to try to drive dollars to public safety.
01:53You also stated you have to cut the police budget and change what we mean by policing.
01:56Do you still stand by that statement as well?
01:58I stand by the need to invest in community safety to ensure that we have a vibrant civil rights community
02:07that is able to participate in keeping our community safe from hate and bias.
02:15I am here to say that I'm really grateful we have the Southern Poverty Law Center because it is doing
02:21work, including with law enforcement, to prevent hate and bias crimes.
02:27Okay, I've got another question for you. What is a black job?
02:31You'd have to ask Donald Trump.
02:33I'm not sure what that means. I'm referring to a statement that you made a year ago on your LinkedIn.
02:39I was so honored and proud to be a New York State delegate for our next president with Vice President
02:44Kamala Harris ascending to her black job.
02:48Donald Trump made a comment that was very stereotypical about black people and it was a joke about his stereotypical
02:56statement about black people.
02:57What is a black job?
02:58You'll have to ask Donald Trump.
03:00You'll have to ask. Well, Donald Trump's not on the witness stand, so I'm asking you.
03:03Well, I'm here to talk about hate crime, which I hope you want to talk about as well.
03:06The gentleman will yield. I can clarify that.
03:09No, I'd like to hear from the witness, but I appreciate it.
03:12Could Hillary Clinton have filled that black job?
03:15What you call black job?
03:15You have to ask Donald Trump.
03:18Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it.
03:20Dr. Swain, I've got a couple questions for you, and thank you again for being here.
03:27In your book, The New White Nationalism, which is excellent, you wrote that in 2002 there were approximately 2,000
03:35KKK members in the entire nation.
03:39It sounds like you believe a large portion of them were paid informants.
03:43Do you think that the SPLC was involved back in 2002?
03:48If you can turn the mic on, please.
03:50There was a scholar named Lared Wilcox that I referenced, and he did research, and he was very critical of
03:59the Southern Poverty Law Center.
04:00And he said at one point that there were more paid informants than actually KKK members.
04:06And I would concede that the Southern Poverty Law Center was very successful as far as bankrupting the neo-Nazis
04:14and the KKK.
04:17So I would concede that, but I would also argue that as early as 2009, when I wrote the article
04:27that triggered the Southern Poverty Law Center,
04:30at that time the New Black Panther Party was patrolling the polls, I think in Philadelphia,
04:38and they were intimidating white people, and they had sticks in their hands, and the Southern Poverty Law Center had
04:44not labeled them as a hate group.
04:46And so in the blog, where I ended with, instead of monitoring hate groups, the Southern Poverty Law Center has
04:53become one.
04:54Instead of labeling or listing the New Black Panther Party, what they did, they went after Lou Dobbs,
05:02and they went after the Center for Immigration Studies, and anyone who questioned liberal immigration policies.
05:10And we've got about 15, 20 seconds left.
05:14Can you just, to sort of close us out, what are the dangers of paying for these informants and extremist
05:22groups like the KKK?
05:23You get biased information if you're paying people for information.
05:29And one of the dangers for our society is that the Southern Poverty Law Center has pretty much become an
05:34arm of the Democratic Party.
05:36They are very partisan. They should not have that 501 status if they're going to take a side in,
05:44if they're going to be biased in how they monitor groups and how they destroy individuals like me.
05:50Thank you, Dr. Swain.
05:52The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from New York is recognized.
05:54Oh, Mr. Chairman, can I just do one you see?
05:55That's what I'm doing.
05:56I think they both want. Okay, go ahead.
05:58Oh, so sorry. This is an indirect answer to the gentleman from Texas question.
06:02New York Times, what's a black job?
06:05Trump's anti-immigration remarks are met with derision.
06:08Trump accused immigrants of stealing black jobs during Thursday's debate, prompting criticism from Democrats and other social media users.
06:15So I'm glad to see that the gentleman's on our side. Thank you very much.
06:18The gentleman from New York is recognized.
06:19I have another unanimous consent motion to enter into the record an April 17th letter from the attorneys for the
06:27SPLC,
06:28four days before the indictment, where the organization reminded him of his obligation as a federal prosecutor
06:34to inform the grand jury of information that negates evidence of wrongdoing by SPLC, of which there is much.
06:43Without objection. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Washington.
06:54Well, thank you, Mr. Chair, and our distinguished panelists.
07:01You know, I don't know what happened to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
07:08I know growing up in the Inland Northwest in eastern Washington, I had some fond, at least favorable memories,
07:19towards the Southern Poverty Law Center when we had an Aryan Nations compound in the Coeur d'Alene area.
07:25And it resonated with me that the SPLC had played a role in getting those folks out of our communities,
07:34and it was generally viewed upon favorably.
07:36So I don't know how it went from that organization to what I think today could be accurately described as
07:43an almost militant,
07:45weaponized arm of a progressive Marxist political project here in the United States.
07:54So, I guess, you know, Mr. O'Neill, I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase,
08:02jump the shark, and happy days when Fonzie jumped over the shark, and certainly the show went downhill from there.
08:10Yeah.
08:11And you spoke about the quest to start to focus on raising money from SPLC,
08:16but how did this organization, again, go from doing some good work against real racists like the Aryan Nations
08:25to suddenly targeting people trying to exercise their First Amendment rights and care about kids like Moms for Liberty?
08:31Where is that process?
08:32Yeah.
08:33The answer to that question is long and complicated, and that's what my book was trying to do.
08:39But the main...
08:41So, first, there was Morris Dees, who was a consummate fundraiser,
08:47and he decided to take the SPLC in that suing the Klan direction,
08:51and the lawyers said it was like shooting fish in a barrel.
08:54But I think the real answer to your question, the substantive answer, is that we've seen on the left this
09:02ideological drift
09:03where it used to be that they would stand for your right to disagree and speak openly,
09:10and now it is as though if you disagree with anything that the left says, you must be a vile,
09:17racist hater.
09:18Like, this has always been a little bit of the rhetoric, but it got supercharged after 2020,
09:24and one of the reasons why Moms for Liberty is on the hate map is because they...
09:29Many people on the left seem to work themselves into a lather and think that America is still systemically racist,
09:37and critical race theory is so deeply...
09:41You know, their idea of critical race theory is that white supremacy is so deeply embedded in our institutions
09:46that you have to have a fundamental revolution on a systemic basis,
09:52otherwise you are supporting white supremacy.
09:56And that's the main reason, I think, why the SPLC justifies calling conservatives the infrastructure upholding white supremacy.
10:03Do you think the SPLC is interested in racism being solved?
10:10I don't have expertise on that particularly.
10:14I think...
10:16I wish I could say that I do believe that, but I don't know.
10:22You know, they...
10:23Our colleague from Florida, I think, spoke very passionately, Congressman Moskowitz,
10:28about really concerning rise on anti-Semitism.
10:31And, you know, when we see these issues of hate that can manifest themselves online in the social media sphere,
10:38often with foreign actors.
10:40You know, the area that I'm really concerned about is the conspiracy theory mindset
10:46and this kind of derangement in the fever swamps of the internet that can play upon these things.
10:51And that's one of the reasons why it's happened to SPLC is so concerning
10:55because not only does their own activities of funding these informants, so-called informants using donations to fund racism itself,
11:05but just this whole project certainly is laden with fervor for conspiracy theories.
11:11And we really do need some good think tank work, NGO work, and other work to focus on this issue
11:18across the board of fighting conspiracy theory.
11:22And so, you know, however it did happen, this jumping of the heart of the shark for SPLC really did
11:30some...
11:31Son Palerville Law Center, I think, really was a detriment to society as a whole.
11:35I'll just close by saying thank you to all the panelists, but for all the good work you do,
11:40Ms. Swain, Mr. Perkins, Mr. Neal, and Ms. Wiley.
11:43And with that, Mr. Chairman, I'll yield back.
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