Alex GriffingMay 5th, 2026, 6:14 pm

The Trump Justice Department replied to a court filing from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on Tuesday and indirectly conceded that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche made an inaccurate statement on Laura Ingraham’s April 21st Fox News show.

In April, Todd announced an 11-count indictment against the SPLC related to allegations of wire fraud, making false statements to financial institutions, and money laundering. The thrust of the DOJ’s complaint against the SPLC revolves around allegations that the SPLC paid informants inside far-right hate groups for information. The SPLC has been a longtime watchdog monitoring and taking legal action against white supremacist organizations.

In late April, the SPLC filed two motions against the DOJ, demanding a transcript of grand jury proceedings that led to the indictment and that Blanche retract statements the SPLC argued were lies – including the statement on Ingraham’s program.

“There’s no information that we have that suggests that the money they were paying to these informants and these members of these organizations, they then turned around and shared what they learned with law enforcement,” the group quoted Blanche saying to Ingraham in their motion.

The DOJ responded by quoting a statement Blanche made to Fox News Sunday’s Shannon Bream on April 26th.

“On April 26, 2026, Acting Attorney General Blanche made the following statement on Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream, ‘It is true that over the years they have selectively shared information with law enforcement. That’s well-documented and there’s no dispute there. They aren’t charged with any of that conduct.’ To the extent that any clarification was needed, Acting Attorney General Blanche’s remarks on a major Sunday television program certainly suffice,” wrote the DOJ in its reply, suggesting that Blanche contradicting his previous statement was clarification enough.

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