Hate Crime

DAVID MARCUS: Liberals' get-Trump 'fine people' hoax was way worse than we thought

DOJ indictment alleges the civil rights group paid an informant who helped organize the Unite the Right rally

By David Marcus Fox News

Published April 25, 2026 11:26am EDT

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The Left violates nearly every principle it puts forward: Horace Cooper

Project 21 chairman Horace Cooper breaks down the allegations surrounding the Southern Poverty Law Center on ‘The Ingraham Angle.’

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In Scooby-Doo episodes, there is a classic moment where the gang unmasks the criminal they have caught, only to discover it is the least likely person it could be. As if, say, one tore the white hood off of a Klan member, only to find the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) lurking underneath.

In this case, cartoon art really does imitate real life. 

For nearly a decade now, conservatives have been fuming over the 2017 "Charlottesville hoax," in which the news media took President Donald Trump’s rather bland statement that there were "fine people on both sides" of the Confederate statue debate, and, by lying, morphed it into support for White supremacy.

Trump, it turns out, was never praising the racists behind the specifically odious Unite the Right rally. However, the SPLC was allegedly paying thousands to the organization to supposedly investigate it.

SPLC interim President and CEO Bryan Fair speaks during a wreath-laying ceremony at the Southern Poverty Law Center Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Ala., on March 5, 2026. (Jake Crandall/Advertiser / USA........

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