A new Department of Justice indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center includes the stunning notation that the leftist organization allegedly was funding extremists organizationally and financially – groups that have disrupted American life, rioted, even killed, while falsely being categorized as being on “the right.”
Including, for instance, a riot at the so-called “Unite the Right” events in August 2017 in Charlottesville, Va., an event that turned tragic when a vehicle was used to ram a crowd and one attendee was killed, a case that sent the criminal to prison for life.
It was portrayed at the time, and even today at legacy and leftist “news” locations, as a “white supremacist” event held over the proposed removal of a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee. This came at a time when leftists in America were in a frenzy to eliminate any reference to anything related to the South or the Confederacy from the Civil War era.
Immediately after the Charlottesville event, WorldNetDaily started reporting, analyzing and revealing the outrageous lies of the “official” media narrative about the rally. From author Jack Cashill to commentator-filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza, WND exposed the “Charlottesville lie” for what it was immediately.
But perhaps the most complete breakdown of what the infamous event – and particularly that the events and violence were coming from leftists just as the DOJ now is charging, was written for WorldNetDaily in 2023, by columnist Steve Baldwin. See Part 1 and Part 2.
Because of the anti-Trump agenda demanded by Democrats, who at that time were pushing the now-disgraced “Russiagate” conspiracy theory on the American public on a daily basis, early legacy media reports wildly linked President Donald Trump to the riot by suggesting he implied “a moral equivalence between far-right protesters and counter-protesters.” Specifically, the lie that was created and used repeatedly by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris against Trump – even though it was documented even by leftist groups like Snopes as a total lie – was that Trump called some of the extremists who participated in the riot “very fine people.”
Documentation shows that Trump, discussing the violence perpetrated in Charlottesville, was asked: “The neo-Nazis started this thing. They showed up in Charlottesville.”
Trump’s response, which makes clear he was not calling Nazis “very fine people,” was:
Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. You had people in that group – excuse me, excuse me, I saw the same pictures as you did – you had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name. George Washington was a slave owner. Was George Washington a slave owner? So will George Washington now lose his status, are we gonna take down – excuse me – are we gonna take down statues of George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? You like him? Okay good. Are we gonna take down the statue? Cause he was a major slaveowner. Now are we gonna take down his statue? So you know what? It’s fine. You’re changing history, you’re changing culture, and you had people – and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people, but you also had troublemakers, and you see them come with the black outfits, and with the helmets, and the baseball bats, you got a lot of bad people in the other group too.”
Now it turns out that the SPLC is accused of funding “Unite the Right.”
WND readers, however, were warned about the corruption in those events years ago, when Baldwin documented that those events were essentially “created by the left.”
“The left’s narrative is that this fight was started by the right, but actually the left created the conditions for this event. Virginia state law prohibits cities from removing statues, and yet Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer and Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy, both radical leftists, repeatedly attacked the Robert E. Lee statue. Incidentally, Bellamy was forced to step down from the Virginia Board of Education for some racist tweets. Moreover, the city had initially proposed to change the name of the park in question – Lee Park – even though a poll showed the majority of Charlottesville residents were in support of keeping the name Lee Park. Then, contrary to state law, the city then voted 3-2 to remove the statue altogether. It is clear that the City of Charlotteville instigated this fight.”
Baldwin noted back then, “The Unite the Right leaders are not conservatives, nor are they on the right. They certainly used the label ‘right’ and ‘alt-right’ to attract local conservatives to the protest, which they successfully did.”
BREAKING: Acting AG Blanche reveals the Southern Poverty Law Center PAID to help STAGE the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, VA in 2017, which leftist media used against President Trump for YEARS
And they’ve now been INDICTED for it
ANOTHER MASSIVE LEFTIST HOAX! pic.twitter.com/NACTajopbh
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) April 21, 2026
The reporting by Baldwin cited an out-of-state group “Unite the Right,” which now apparently is thought to have been funded by the leftists at the SPLC, which got a permit to hold a rally, prompting a response from “the left,” which “brought weapons and even a fully armed militia associated with Antifa called Redneck Revolt, which openly calls for communist revolution.”
Baldwin’s research allowed him to confirm that Trump was right in assigning blame “on both sides.” “The hardcore communist Workers World Party was also active at Charlottesville, and its website even boasted of ‘throwing back … projectiles. Powerline Blog also documented the left’s violence in Charlottesville. Even a New York Times reporter wrote about Antifa’s violence: ‘I saw club-wielding Antifa beating white nationalists being led out of the park.’ Nevertheless, most of the media lied and took photos and video that covered up the left’s violence.”
Trump’s comments about Charlottesville continued after a reporter asked him: “I’m sorry sir, I didn’t understand what you were saying, you were saying the press has treated white nationalists unfairly? I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
Trump: “No, no. There were people in that rally – and I looked the night before – if you look, there were people protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. I’m sure in that group there was some bad ones. The following day it looked like they had some rough, bad people. Neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you wanna call them. But you had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest – and very legally protest – because I don’t know if you know, they had a permit. The other group didn’t have a permit. So I only tell you this, there are two sides to a story. I thought what took place was a horrible moment for our country. A horrible moment. But there are two sides to the country.”
7 years ago today, Trump called white supremacists “very fine people” after Charlottesville.
Right? Wrong. That was a hoax.
Here’s what he actually said: pic.twitter.com/BILhEP7WSI
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) August 15, 2024
The Media Research Center pointed out that the lie generated by leftists following Charlottesville quickly was adopted by Biden, who used it many, many times, despite its being universally documented as a flat-out lie.
“There’s the old saying that if you repeat a lie often enough people will believe it. Is that phrase still accurate even if there’s direct evidence to the contrary?” MRC reported. “As the 2024 CNN Presidential Debate continued Thursday evening, President Joe Biden repeated a verified lie and even rubber stamped it when called out on it. Here’s what Biden said initially.”
What American president would ever say Nazis coming out of fields, carrying torches, singing the same anti-Semitic bile, carrying swastikas, were fine people? This is a guy who says [German dictator Adolf] Hitler’s done some good things. I’d like to know what they are. Good things Hitler’s done. That’s what he said. This guy has no sense of American democracy.
Trump responded, accurately, during the debate that Biden’s contention had been universally documented as a lie. And there’s no evidence to support Biden’s claim about Trump commenting about Hitler.
Yet Biden repeated the lie.
Now, reports confirm that the leftist SPLC “allegedly paid more than $270,000 to an informant who was a member of the leadership group that planned the 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ event in Charlottesville, Va.”
Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the indictment against the group Tuesday, charges contending it defrauded donors by using their money to secretly pay informants inside extremist organizations.
Noted National Review, “The group spent more than $3 million between 2014 and 2023 to informants involved with groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the National Socialist Party of America.”
Further, it confirmed, “One ‘field source’ for the SPLC ‘was a member of the online leadership chat group that planned the 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ event in Charlottesville, Virginia, and attended the event at the direction of the SPLC.”
WorldNetDaily followed up when Biden repeatedly went to voters with the long-debunked lie.
Kamala Harris falsely accusing Trump of coddling the Charlottesville white supremacist rally exactly one month after she was endorsed by the SPLC—the group that planned, organized, & paid for the Charlottesville white supremacist rally. pic.twitter.com/Gw6jDaWe6y
— Tony Kinnett (@TheTonus) April 22, 2026
“Biden – for no apparent reason – chose to repeat the Trump-is-like-Hitler claim that he has repeated more often than any other throughout his presidency: namely, ‘the Charlottesville lie,’ the false claim that Trump expressed admiration for Nazis after a rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017,” the report said.
The claim has been continually debunked by both left and right for the past seven years – most recently by left-wing fact-check site Snopes, which declared definitively, “No, Trump Did Not Call Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists ‘Very Fine People.’”
It took them 7 years to admit it but better late than never pic.twitter.com/jTER45CcU0
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) June 23, 2024
The report by WND’s David Kupelian explained, “As WND recently documented comprehensively, Biden, Democrats, leftwing activists and most of the national news media have continually, since 2016, likened Donald Trump, his policies, beliefs and ideology to Adolf Hitler, the Nazi Party and the Third Reich.”
As WND’s election-season analysis noted, “Biden even claimed – falsely, of course – that ‘Charlottesville’ was his very reason for running for president. He repeated this lie, which has been continually debunked by both right and left for the last seven years, in his inauguration speech. In fact, he has probably repeated this particular lie – that Donald Trump loves Nazis – more often than any other single accusation against the 45th president.”
So if you’re keeping track at home, not only was President Trump‘s “Some very fine people on both sides” a hoax, but the entire Charlottesville rally was a hoax perpetrated by The Southern Poverty Law Center https://t.co/uAz6VBkCmG
— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) April 22, 2026
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