QOTD: Open Season

 

Law professor and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance dissects the attempt by the Trump Justice Department to undermine one of the nation's foremost civil rights organizations, the Southern Poverty Law Center, with an indictment based on a series of lies and distortions. Here are excerpts from Vance's timely and excellent Substack article:

"The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was founded in 1971 in Montgomery, Alabama, by a lawyer named Morris Dees. His goal was to protect civil rights and combat hate groups. He went about it with precision, using a civil lawsuit to bankrupt and cripple the Ku Klux Klan in 1981, when other approaches, including criminal prosecution, failed to make headway.

So it makes sense that Kash Patel’s FBI would sever all ties with them, which happened last October. Until then, SPLC’s insightful intelligence product on domestic hate groups had been shared with the FBI and was widely viewed as being very helpful. They had access to information other groups, even law enforcement, didn’t have as they committed people and resources to programs like KlanWatch. [snip]

This administration has targeted people and institutions whose philosophies run contrary to its own, even as it has protected and rewarded its allies, disappearing convictions of people like Steve Bannon and January 6 defendants convicted on serious insurrection charges. Indicting the Southern Poverty Law Center sends a message—part of their work involves tracking white supremacists, like some of the people who overran the Capitol on January 6. The Justice Department is going after SPLC on a tenuous theory; at the same time, it’s making sure the kind of people the Center tracks are walking free. The message is: it’s open season, as long as you support the president."  (our emphasis)

Professor Vance's article goes through the Justice Department's punitive and dishonest indictment point by point. The SPLC will strongly oppose this attempt to silence them, and we hope other civil rights groups will join them in the fight. Stay tuned.