In a 390-page Tuesday filing, lawyers for the Southern Poverty Law Center have asked a federal judge to throw out felony charges of wire fraud, making false statements to a bank, and money laundering. You can read the indictment here, and the defense memorandum arguing for dismissal here (without the hundreds of pages of exhibits that accompanied the motion).
Now represented by nine lawyers at three law firms, including Hunter Biden lawyer and D.C. fixer Abbe Lowell, the SPLC argues that it’s the victim of vindictive prosecution. They charge that “this Administration’s animus over the past year culminated in the criminal charges against the SPLC — an indictment premised on conclusory accusations but devoid of provable facts or a proper statement of the law.”
In fact, as The Federalist has reported, experts in money laundering investigations have described the allegations as straightforward descriptions of wire fraud and an organization making false statements to banks, concluding that the indictment alleges obvious crimes if the fact claims in the document can be proved in court.
Among other allegations, federal prosecutors allege that the SPLC opened bank accounts in the names of companies that have never existed or conducted legitimate business. The indictment also alleged that SPLC officials responded to a bank investigation by acknowledging to the bank, in writing and over the signature of SPLC leaders, that the accounts for fake businesses had been opened by the SPLC. The SPLC has due process rights and is entitled to a presumption of innocence, but if the indictment correctly describes that letter, a legal expert has previously described the letter to The Federalist as “an admission of fraud against the bank.”
The memorandum filed on Tuesday by the SPLC doesn’t mention any of that, ignoring the substance of the charges to focus on Donald Trump’s personal tendency toward meanness. Sample argument, from pg. 9 of the PDF file linked above (which is pg. 4 of the memorandum): “After the indictment, the Administration’s assault on the SPLC’s free speech rights continued. President Trump, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Deputy Associate Attorney General Aakash Singh, and FBI Director Kash Patel spoke at press conferences and televised interviews.”
That’s the heart of the argument: The SPLC can’t be prosecuted because federal officials held press conferences, which supposedly proves unlawful and vindictive targeting.
