The United States Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), one of the country's most prominent civil rights organisations, the group's chief executive announced on Tuesday. The probe, which is being handled by the US Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Alabama — the federal judicial district that includes Montgomery, the Alabama state capital where the SPLC is headquartered — appears to centre on the organisation's past practice of paying confidential informants to infiltrate extremist groups.

CEO Bryan Fair said the SPLC believes the Justice Department may be preparing legal action against the organisation or some of its employees, though he acknowledged that full details remain unclear. "The focus appears to be on the SPLC's prior use of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups," Fair said. He explained that the programme — now discontinued — was used to monitor threats of violence and that information gathered was often shared with local and federal law enforcement. The identities of informants were kept secret to protect their safety. Fair traced the origins of the practice to a period when political violence was widespread: "When we began working with informants, we were living in the shadow of the height of the Civil Rights Movement, which had seen bombings at churches, state-sponsored violence against demonstrators, and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system."

Founded in 1971, the SPLC built its reputation through civil litigation targeting white supremacist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan. Its offices were firebombed in 1983. Over time, the organisation expanded its work to publish a widely referenced "hate map" cataloguing alleged hate and anti-government groups across the United States. That database has become a flashpoint: conservative critics, including FBI Director Kash Patel, have accused the SPLC of using politically motivated labels to malign mainstream right-leaning organisations. Patel announced last year that the FBI was severing its longstanding relationship with the group, calling it a "partisan smear machine." House Republicans held a dedicated hearing on the SPLC in December, alleging it had coordinated with the Biden administration to suppress conservative speech.

The investigation arrives amid a broader pattern that has drawn scrutiny from legal observers and civil liberties advocates. The Trump administration has signalled its intent to pursue non-profit organisations it views as opposed to its priorities, and the SPLC probe adds to a list of Justice Department actions against perceived administration critics that have raised questions about the independence of federal law enforcement. Fair framed the investigation in explicitly political terms: "Today, the federal government has been weaponised to dismantle the rights of our nation's most vulnerable people and any organisation like ours that stands in the breach."

The Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment. The SPLC says it intends to mount a vigorous defence. The case will be closely watched as a test of the boundaries between legitimate law enforcement inquiry and politically motivated pressure on civil society organisations.