Foreign Policy > NGOs

NGOs Cosplaying at Overlords and Power Brokers

A bad week for Iran, the SPLC, and the Left in general. 

Clarice Feldman | April 26, 2026

That description comes from Chamath Palihapitiya, a venture capitalist, and relates to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) which was just indicted by a federal grand jury in Alabama.

The SPLC formed years ago to seek damages for KKK victims. Over the years it amassed a fortune and used it and its connections with the media and the Democrats unfairly to tar and ruin the livelihoods and reputations of individuals and organizations with which it disagreed -- including groups like Moms for Liberty and Parents Defending Education. The switch proved immensely profitable. It has more than $800 million in assets, some hundreds of millions of which are held in offshore accounts like the Cayman Islands.

The indictment reveals payments of more than $3 million by the SPLC to individuals connected to extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, United Klans of America, Unite the Right, National Alliance, National Socialist Movement, the Aryan Nations-affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, National Socialist Party of America (American Nazi Party), and American Front. It includes six counts of wire fraud, four counts of false statements to a bank, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche alleged that the SPLC had used “paid operatives within extremist circles to incite and intensify racial tensions,” arguing the civil rights organization “fostered the very threats it claimed to fight.”

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche alleged that the SPLC had used “paid operatives within extremist circles to incite and intensify racial tensions,” arguing the civil rights organization “fostered the very threats it claimed to fight.”

Its key donors and benefactors include George Soros/Open Society and George Clooney/Clooney Foundation for Justice, Tim Cook/Apple, JP Morgan Chase, Open AI, MGM Resorts. None of which have defended their donations since the indictment.

In addition to big left-wing donors, investigators have traced over $27 million in federal money to the SPLC through USAID and another NGO, the Tides Foundation, 

SPLC’s legal jeopardy, per the indictment, arises because it

...opened bank accounts connected to a series of fictitious entities which allowed it to disguise the “true nature, source, ownership and control of the fraudulently obtained donated money the SPLC paid the individuals. In order to keep the scheme going, the SPLC made a series of false statements related to the operation of the accounts, A conviction will result in the forfeiture of financial gains from the alleged activity.

...opened bank accounts connected to a series of fictitious entities which allowed it to disguise the “true nature, source, ownership and control of the fraudulently obtained donated money the SPLC paid the individuals. In order to keep the scheme going, the SPLC made a series of false statements related to the operation of the accounts, A conviction will result in the forfeiture of financial gains from the alleged activity.

What financial gains, you might ask? Well, let’s take the SPLC role in Charlottesville, Virginia, because it’s the clearest (in my mind) example of how SPLC stoked racial discord to target Republicans while increasing their money haul. It is a wonderful example of entrepreneurial “genius.” 

The city of Charlottesville in 2017 decided to remove historic statues of Robert E. Lee and Thomas Stonewall Jackson. Local citizens rallied to oppose this. SPLC-funded Unite the Right crashed the demonstration with tiki torches, shouting “blood and soil” and a melee resulted in injuries and one death.

President Trump denounced the extremists but added that there were “many fine people” involved in protecting the Confederate statues. There were. There is nothing extreme about wanting to preserve history. The media selectively edited the clip which was recycled over and over in the media to manipulate people into believing that Trump and those who supported him or traditional values were racist Nazis. It was a big payoff for SPLC. They contributed $270 thousand to the Charlottesville takeover and received $81 million in additional donations for their scheme. 

As the SPLC's left-wing advocacy grew, so did its financial holdings, prompting criticism from former employees like Bob Moser, who described the group in 2019 as a "highly profitable scam" that was "ripping off donors." "Its balance sheet long ago revealed the SPLC had ceased to be a charity and become a venture capital firm," Scott Walter, the president of the Capital Research Center, a conservative watchdog group, told the Washington Free Beacon. "The indictment reinforces that fact by revealing the SPLC operates like a centimillionaire who simultaneously invests in a drug to treat diabetes and a firm producing high fructose corn syrup."

As the SPLC's left-wing advocacy grew, so did its financial holdings, prompting criticism from former employees like Bob Moser, who described the group in 2019 as a "highly profitable scam" that was "ripping off donors."

"Its balance sheet long ago revealed the SPLC had ceased to be a charity and become a venture capital firm," Scott Walter, the president of the Capital Research Center, a conservative watchdog group, told the Washington Free Beacon. "The indictment reinforces that fact by revealing the SPLC operates like a centimillionaire who simultaneously invests in a drug to treat diabetes and a firm producing high fructose corn syrup."

Except for the NY Post and CBS (now under Bari Weiss’s leadership) there’s been little coverage of this explosive indictment. I expect when they get around to reporting it, we’ll get defense contentions, so let me deal with them preemptively. 

The donors were fine with it. Then why did the SPLC create bank accounts in fake companies to channel the money to extremists?

They were only paying “informants” to find out what these groups were up to. 

The biggest question of all raised by this case is the use of the term, “informants,” which normally conjures images of people observing what the leaders of nefarious outfits are doing. But Justice says the payments were going to the “leaders” and the “organizers” of extremist groups in this case. If SPLC was funding influential leaders of such organizations, could they not have ordered them to steer the groups away from extremism? Were group leaders on the SPLC payroll ever instructed to try to persuade others to cancel events like the Charlottesville debacle?  The indictment describes money flows to various high-ranking people within various extremist outfits, and focuses on the various alleged falsehoods employed to conduct such financial transactions. There does appear to have been some intelligence collected by SPLC. But for all this money what exactly did the SPLC demand from the extremist leaders on its payroll in the way of combatting racism?

The biggest question of all raised by this case is the use of the term, “informants,” which normally conjures images of people observing what the leaders of nefarious outfits are doing. But Justice says the payments were going to the “leaders” and the “organizers” of extremist groups in this case. If SPLC was funding influential leaders of such organizations, could they not have ordered them to steer the groups away from extremism? Were group leaders on the SPLC payroll ever instructed to try to persuade others to cancel events like the Charlottesville debacle? 

The indictment describes money flows to various high-ranking people within various extremist outfits, and focuses on the various alleged falsehoods employed to conduct such financial transactions. There does appear to have been some intelligence collected by SPLC. But for all this money what exactly did the SPLC demand from the extremist leaders on its payroll in the way of combatting racism?

The criminal case is not the only matter SPLC should worry about. Donors who were misled can sue for refunds of their contributions. (Clooney, who didn’t notice Biden’s dementia until days after he urged his Hollywood friends to contribute to Biden’s reelection, has an established record of cluelessness, but I doubt he will sue for a refund.) Also, the many people and organizations slandered by SPLC whose livelihoods and lives were endangered as a result should line up to sue for damages. 

Much as I salute the SPLC’s mastering the art of venture capitalism, I think the art is best applied to products and services that improve lives rather than those that fracture society and endanger the innocent.

On another note, I want to bring to your attention the two best analyses I’ve found about the war in Iran.

Mark Dubowitz masterfully summarizes where we are now:

If you’d told me a few years ago this is where we’d be on Iran, I’d have said you were high: 1. Nuke program set back years. Enrichment and reprocessing gutted, weaponization sites destroyed, Fordow inoperable, Natanz in ruins, a generation of senior nuclear scientists eliminated. 2. Ballistic missile program crippled. Monthly production down from 100 to near zero. Roughly half the regime’s missiles and launchers destroyed. The IRGC Aerospace Force commander who ran the missile enterprise dead. 3. Air defenses devastated. American and Israeli airpower dominating Iranian skies, with strike aircraft operating over the country with near impunity. 4. Full economic warfare. Not just OFAC sanctions anymore, but military pressure layered on top: naval blockade, near-zero oil exports, choked imports, wrecked steel and petrochemical sectors, triple-digit inflation, and a currency that is effectively worthless. 5. Regime decapitation. Khamenei dead. Larijani dead. Hundreds of senior IRGC, intelligence, military, and Basij commanders dead including the IRGC commander-in-chief, the armed forces chief of staff, and the Aerospace Force commander. Mojtaba Khamenei inheriting a hollowed-out regime with no supreme authority and a gutted command structure. 6. The region turning on Tehran. Gulf states shutting down the sanctions-busting, money-laundering, and financial escape routes the regime has relied on for years. No Arab capital willing to throw Iran a lifeline. China and Russia providing limited support. 7. Proxy network shattered. Hezbollah and Hamas heavily degraded. Houthi political leadership taking direct Israeli strikes. The “Axis of Resistance” and “ring of fire” are now more slogans than real threats. 8. Syrian corridor severed. Assad is gone. The new government in Damascus is actively blocking Iranian arms transfers to Hezbollah: arresting smugglers and publicly declaring Syria will no longer serve as a transit corridor for Tehran’s terrorists. The land bridge to the Mediterranean that took decades to build is effectively closed. 9. Lebanon pivoting west. With Hezbollah battered and resupply choked, Israel and Lebanon have opened direct peace talks for the first time since 1983, aimed at a permanent agreement and Hezbollah’s disarmament. Beirut now asserting that the Lebanese armed forces alone are responsible for national defense. This is a direct repudiation of Hezbollah’s “resistance” claim. TBD. 10. Deterrence exposed as a bluff. Four direct attacks on Israel -- April 2024, October 2024, June 2025, March 2026 -- failed to impose strategic cost and instead triggered heavy retaliation. Iran couldn’t even use Syria as a launchpad. 11.Economy hollowed out from within. Power shortages, water crises, factory shutdowns, pension unrest, and mass protests. Nationwide demonstrations erupted in December 2025 after a year of economic freefall, with bazaaris, oil workers, and truckers, the regime’s traditional support base, joining strikes across all 31 provinces. Running out of oil storage space. Fuel shortages. The worst crisis since 1979. 12. Scientific and technical brain drain. Beyond the nuclear experts, Iran has lost a generation of irreplaceable expertise in missile design, centrifuge engineering, and weapons development. The survivors are harder to recruit and easier to deter. 13. Naval power decimated. The regular navy shattered, IRGC navy taking growing losses as CENTCOM moves to reopen Hormuz. And against all of this: the regime forced to play its Hormuz card at its weakest possible moment when the U.S. has options instead of when we didn’t: namely, Tehran with nuclear-armed ICBMs, 10,000 ballistic missiles, a Chinese- and Russian-built military, hundreds of thousands of attack drones, a fully operational terror network, and hundreds of billions of dollars to harden its economy. That’s the strategic picture. It’s extraordinary. Much more to do but I can’t comprehend how much has been achieved.

If you’d told me a few years ago this is where we’d be on Iran, I’d have said you were high: 1. Nuke program set back years. Enrichment and reprocessing gutted, weaponization sites destroyed, Fordow inoperable, Natanz in ruins, a generation of senior nuclear scientists eliminated. 2. Ballistic missile program crippled. Monthly production down from 100 to near zero. Roughly half the regime’s missiles and launchers destroyed. The IRGC Aerospace Force commander who ran the missile enterprise dead. 3. Air defenses devastated. American and Israeli airpower dominating Iranian skies, with strike aircraft operating over the country with near impunity. 4. Full economic warfare. Not just OFAC sanctions anymore, but military pressure layered on top: naval blockade, near-zero oil exports, choked imports, wrecked steel and petrochemical sectors, triple-digit inflation, and a currency that is effectively worthless. 5. Regime decapitation. Khamenei dead. Larijani dead. Hundreds of senior IRGC, intelligence, military, and Basij commanders dead including the IRGC commander-in-chief, the armed forces chief of staff, and the Aerospace Force commander. Mojtaba Khamenei inheriting a hollowed-out regime with no supreme authority and a gutted command structure. 6. The region turning on Tehran. Gulf states shutting down the sanctions-busting, money-laundering, and financial escape routes the regime has relied on for years. No Arab capital willing to throw Iran a lifeline. China and Russia providing limited support. 7. Proxy network shattered. Hezbollah and Hamas heavily degraded. Houthi political leadership taking direct Israeli strikes. The “Axis of Resistance” and “ring of fire” are now more slogans than real threats. 8. Syrian corridor severed. Assad is gone. The new government in Damascus is actively blocking Iranian arms transfers to Hezbollah: arresting smugglers and publicly declaring Syria will no longer serve as a transit corridor for Tehran’s terrorists. The land bridge to the Mediterranean that took decades to build is effectively closed. 9. Lebanon pivoting west. With Hezbollah battered and resupply choked, Israel and Lebanon have opened direct peace talks for the first time since 1983, aimed at a permanent agreement and Hezbollah’s disarmament. Beirut now asserting that the Lebanese armed forces alone are responsible for national defense. This is a direct repudiation of Hezbollah’s “resistance” claim. TBD. 10. Deterrence exposed as a bluff. Four direct attacks on Israel -- April 2024, October 2024, June 2025, March 2026 -- failed to impose strategic cost and instead triggered heavy retaliation. Iran couldn’t even use Syria as a launchpad. 11.Economy hollowed out from within. Power shortages, water crises, factory shutdowns, pension unrest, and mass protests. Nationwide demonstrations erupted in December 2025 after a year of economic freefall, with bazaaris, oil workers, and truckers, the regime’s traditional support base, joining strikes across all 31 provinces. Running out of oil storage space. Fuel shortages. The worst crisis since 1979. 12. Scientific and technical brain drain. Beyond the nuclear experts, Iran has lost a generation of irreplaceable expertise in missile design, centrifuge engineering, and weapons development. The survivors are harder to recruit and easier to deter. 13. Naval power decimated. The regular navy shattered, IRGC navy taking growing losses as CENTCOM moves to reopen Hormuz. And against all of this: the regime forced to play its Hormuz card at its weakest possible moment when the U.S. has options instead of when we didn’t: namely, Tehran with nuclear-armed ICBMs, 10,000 ballistic missiles, a Chinese- and Russian-built military, hundreds of thousands of attack drones, a fully operational terror network, and hundreds of billions of dollars to harden its economy. That’s the strategic picture. It’s extraordinary. Much more to do but I can’t comprehend how much has been achieved.

The Gatestone Institute shows how we got there:

Rather than adhering to the usual norms of the international system, Trump redefined them -- combining military force, economic coercion, serious deadlines and diplomatic "off-ramps" in rapid succession -- denying Iran the ability to settle into its familiar pattern of adaptation and delay. Trump met Iran's moves with countermoves that were even stronger, instead of with restraint. "Trump Time" has transformed warfare. In just two sets of days, in June 2025 then again in February 2026, Iran's core military infrastructure was almost totally obliterated, allowing the focus to shift to sustained economic pressure. Trump's "little excursion" has been one of the fastest, most effective, least costly military operations in modern history. "Trump Time" also brought negotiation techniques that departed from past practice. Historically, diplomatic engagements with Iran have been lengthy, baroque, often stretching over years to provide Iran with opportunities for delay and recalibration. Trump instituted shorter timelines sown with threats of escalation, evidently to prevent Tehran from using its favorite stalling tactic: forever-talks. A regime accustomed to orchestrating prolonged cycles of pressure and relief, now finds itself encountering a series of uncowardly, high-impact shocks.

Rather than adhering to the usual norms of the international system, Trump redefined them -- combining military force, economic coercion, serious deadlines and diplomatic "off-ramps" in rapid succession -- denying Iran the ability to settle into its familiar pattern of adaptation and delay.

Trump met Iran's moves with countermoves that were even stronger, instead of with restraint.

"Trump Time" has transformed warfare. In just two sets of days, in June 2025 then again in February 2026, Iran's core military infrastructure was almost totally obliterated, allowing the focus to shift to sustained economic pressure. Trump's "little excursion" has been one of the fastest, most effective, least costly military operations in modern history.

"Trump Time" also brought negotiation techniques that departed from past practice. Historically, diplomatic engagements with Iran have been lengthy, baroque, often stretching over years to provide Iran with opportunities for delay and recalibration. Trump instituted shorter timelines sown with threats of escalation, evidently to prevent Tehran from using its favorite stalling tactic: forever-talks.

A regime accustomed to orchestrating prolonged cycles of pressure and relief, now finds itself encountering a series of uncowardly, high-impact shocks.

The last week of April has been very promising indeed.

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