The left-wing hate machine known as the Southern Poverty Law Center has more than a half-billion dollars in the bank.
In other words, the latest financial data reported in the Washington Free Beacon show, the group doesn’t have much to do with poverty.
But it has a lot to do with smearing people it doesn’t like, which is how it raised the half-billion it has in the bank, about $121 million of which, the Free Beacon reported, is parked in offshore accounts.
Fighting “hate” is a lucrative endeavor.
Details on the $$$
Though SPLC “has not publicly posted its most recent financial statements on its website,” the Free Beacon reported, documents filed with California’s attorney general for 2018 show “reported total assets of $518 million from November 2017 to … Oct. 31, 2018, an increase of $41 million from the $477 million in total assets it reported on its previous year’s tax forms.”
The SPLC’s assets increased despite its total revenue falling by $15 million last year. The SPLC hauled in $136 million in total revenue throughout 2017. This number fell to $121 million in 2018. Its contributions and grants also fell by more than $20 million from 2017 to 2018, from $132 million to $111 million.
Despite the fall in revenue, the SPLC’s vast investment portfolio expanded in 2018, which included a drastic increase in the amount of money it has parked overseas. By the end of 2018, its non-U.S. equity funds rose to $121 million, an uptick of nearly $30 million from the $92 million it had parked in offshore investments throughout 2017.
The Free Beacon “discovered foreign forms from the group that showed a small fraction of its previous transactions to a number of entities located in the Cayman Islands.” The smear group also has “interests in Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands.”
SPLC also “reported $91 million in U.S. public equity funds. Its U.S. and non-U.S. equities include publicly traded stocks of domestic and international corporations. The $92 million the group had tied up in U.S. public equity funds last year was $16 million more than it had the year before.”
Added to that massive portfolio is another “$60 million in private equity funds, or investments in buyouts, venture capital, and distressed companies while another $24 million was in real asset funds, which include investments in real estate and natural resources such as oil, gas, and commodities, according to its forms.”
RICO and Defamation Lawsuits
And it might just come to pass that SPLC needs every penny in that big pile of coins.
The group that lays the “hate” or “racist” label on anyone with whom it disagrees, a label that led to a terror attack at the headquarters of the Family Research Council, faces at least three lawsuits alleging mail fraud, defamation, tortious interference, and violations of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
The plaintiffs are all victims of the SPLC’s capricious labeling of those with whom it disagrees.
The latest plaintiff to file suit against the hard-left smear group is Gavin McInnes, founder of the Proud Boys, a drinking club that SPLC labeled a hate group. McInnes alleges defamation and tortious interference not only because he isn’t a racist, he says, but also because the SPLC’s smear was so thorough that he lost his job, can’t find another, and was “deplatformed” from social media, which prevents him from defending himself effectively. Neighbors have even harassed him and tried to drive McInnes and his family out of their home.
The Center for Immigration Studies sued SPLC in January. CIS accuses SPLC’s top two officials of an “ongoing conspiracy” to defame CIS with the “hate” label. That lawsuit alleges mail fraud and a violation of the RICO Act. By SPLC’s own criteria, the lawsuit argues, CIS is not a hate group.
Another SPLC victim is Glenn K. Allen, a lawyer who worked for Baltimore City until SPLC called him a “neo-Nazi” who had “infiltrated” the city’s legal department. Of course, the city fired him after SPLC leveled the false and defamatory claim. Like McInnes, Allen accuses SPLC of defamation and tortious interference. Like CIS, he alleges mail fraud and RICO violations. The lawsuit also attacks SPLC’s tax-exempt status.
To defend that one, SPLC hired a top defamation attorney.
SPLC recently paid more than $3 million to Maajid Nawaz’s Quilliam Foundation after SPLC included them in its “Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists.” That settlement included a humiliating video apology.
