President Donald Trump called for the 2020 presidential election to “be permanently wiped from books and be of no further force or effect” if new fraud charges brought by the Justice Department against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) prove “true.”

The president unloaded on the prominent civil rights group in the early hours of Friday morning and described the organization as “one of the greatest political scams in American History”:

The Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the greatest political scams in American History, has been charged with FRAUD. This is another Democrat Hoax, along with Act Blue, and many others. If it is true, the 2020 Presidential Election should be permanently wiped from the books and be of no further force or effect! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT

The president then shared two memes and screengrabs of posts from Elon Musk about the SPLC allegations:

The remarks come days after Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced an indictment accusing the Alabama-based non-profit of financial misconduct linked to its use of informants embedded within extremist groups.

Prosecutors allege the organization funneled millions of dollars to individuals connected to groups including the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi networks, arguing that it misled donors about how funds would be used.

The indictment includes multiple counts of wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

In one instance, the indictment alleges the SPLC sent more than $270,000 to an individual who helped plan and attended the deadly white nationalist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, though it does not detail the purpose of the payments or the nature of the work carried out for the organization.

At a press conference earlier this week, Blanche said: “The SPLC is a non-profit entity that purports to fight white supremacy and racial hatred by reporting on extremist groups and conducting research to inform law enforcement groups with the goal of dismantling these groups.”

“The SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred,” he added

In a video statement, the SPLC’s interim leader Bryan Fair touted the organization’s record of “fighting white supremacy and various forms of injustice” for 55 years, adding that he was “unsurprised to be the latest organization targeted by this administration.”

He added that the SPLC no longer uses paid informants, but had previously shared intelligence gathered through them with law enforcement, including police and the FBI.

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