The April 21 indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) comes after the late Charlie Kirk spent years saying the organization’s hate-group designations targeted conservatives, Christians, parental-rights activists, and Turning Point USA. 

The Department of Justice announced on Tuesday that the SPLC has been charged in Alabama with 11 counts including wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank, and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering. Prosecutors allege the organization used donor money to secretly fund figures connected to extremist groups while publicly denouncing them.

During December 2025 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Turning Point USA Executive Vice President Andrew Sypher stated that Kirk had warned three months before his assassination that the SPLC’s designation of Turning Point USA on its “hate map” would place the organization “in the crosshairs.” Sypher told lawmakers that the warning “proved prophetic” after Kirk was assassinated at Utah Valley University in September 2025.

Andrew Sypher speaking with mourners at the candlelight vigil in honor of Charlie Kirk at Desert Financial Arena at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, on September 15, 2025. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

The SPLC’s role also came into focus in October 2025 when FBI Director Kash Patel announced that the bureau had formally severed all ties with the organization. Patel described the SPLC as a “partisan smear machine” and said its “hate map” had been used to defame mainstream Americans and had “even inspired violence.” 

House Republicans cited Kirk’s concerns in September 2025, when a group of 23 lawmakers led by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) called for a congressional probe into the SPLC and other organizations after Kirk’s assassination. 

Kirk discussed the designation during a May 2025 interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham after the SPLC placed Turning Point USA on its “hate map.”

Kirk said:

They’re literally putting High School chapters of ours on a hate group next to the KKK and next to neo Nazi groups. And, I mean, we can laugh this off. There’s an element to this. Remember that there was a shooter that went to the Family Research Council years ago, inspired by the SPLC list. This is them trying to make us basically surrender at Turning Point USA. We’re gonna do the opposite. And our students are only going to lean in even more but they can’t debate us on our ideas. They cannot have dialogue. They cannot actually go on to the merits of why they are right or why we might be wrong. Instead, they must smear us with the age old one liner that you are a racist or that you are a hater. And they’re finally realizing the power of Turning Point USA which is why they put us on this list.

Ingraham replied, “Well, when you’re effective, you’re a threat, right? They call me the ‘High Priestess of Hate.’”

Kirk was speaking about the SPLC as early as 2023, including posts in which he linked the organization’s rhetoric to federal law enforcement actions.

The following day, Kirk delivered a more direct condemnation of the organization.

Weeks later, Kirk referenced arrests tied to protests in Atlanta, drawing a contrast with law enforcement focus elsewhere.

In the summer of 2023, Kirk linked the SPLC’s treatment of Moms for Liberty to the same concerns he had earlier raised about the FBI and Catholics.

Kirk continued to criticize the SPLC in subsequent posts over the following years.

Turning Point USA, the organization Kirk founded and led as CEO, took aim at the SPLC.