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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][twitter]https://x.com/hansmahncke/status/2046964374233870340?s=46&t=R0sFrGNc8GH_7llJGM-81g[/twitter]

It’s almost surreal how the media and Democrats are whitewashing the allegations against the SPLC, casting them as the good guys who just happened to pay informants. Here’s a quick sample of what’s actually in the indictment:

• “active promotion of racist groups”
• “made racist postings under the supervision of the SPLC”
• “coordinate transportation to the event for several attendees”
• “directly paying leaders” (because nothing says “informant” like paying the guy in charge)
• “high-level SPLC employee who had knowledge the documents had been stolen”
• “donated funds would be used in the commission of state and federal crimes”
• “SPLC opened bank accounts connected to a series of fictitious entities”

All of that will have to be proven in court, but these are nonetheless extremely serious allegations. The indictment describes a sprawling scheme involving money laundering through fictitious front companies, multi-million dollar fraud against donors, conspiracy, the commissioning of burglary and theft, as well as tax and 501(c)(3) violations tied to funding the activities which the SPLC publicly claims to oppose.

[/quote]

Yeah, like Letitia's "thousands of dollars" of mortgage fraud.

So what if a field agent working under cover made racist postings in conversations with the people they were spying on? It's not legal, you'd have to demonstrate that their activities directly caused the groups to become more dangerous or powerful or commit crimes.

Money laundering is only applicable to illicitly obtained funds. You have to prove actual deception. If the donors provided funds under specific conditions as to how they could be used, there could be deception if used in other ways but I think you need very tight evidence here.

Let's say you are an organization working in the area of reproductive health and you take money from a particular donor under the condition it can only be used to assist women to obtain non-emergency conception and non-emergency prenatal care. Then you use the money to pay for elective abortions and you hide the transactions. Maybe you even coerce some women, maybe you outright lie and falsify fetal age or pregnancy risks to induce them to get an abortion they might not want otherwise.That would be a problem. But if you take money for the general purpose of reproductive health and describe your mission to include family planning, abortion care, and reproductive rights, you should be fine. And the use of multiple deceptively-named accounts is intended to protect your clients from spies like anti-abortion activists who might have jobs in banking or elsewhere that would allow them access to account information.

There's plenty of room to engage in discussion about ethics in political activism, but that's not necessarily a legal discussion.

I'm waiting with bated breath for the Leagal Eagle youtube take.

[/quote]

I'm the former AUSA poster. That isn't exactly right.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "actual deception" but it sounds like you're under the impression that wire fraud requires proof that the defendant made a statement that was literally untrue. That's wrong. Omissions, half-truths, and statements that are technically true but intended to mislead can all support a wire fraud conviction. Here, the problem is that the SPLC specifically identified on its website certain groups that it was committed to fighting and then turned around and gave those same people/groups money. Under most circumstances, that would undeniably be fraud. I understand that the SPLC's position is that it made the payments to fight those groups, and therefore the representations on their website that they were committed to fighting those groups were not deceptive. At the end of the day, I hope the SPLC prevails, but the legal analysis is more complicated than you're suggesting. [/quote]

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