1. United States
2. Iowa
3. Letter

I am writing because I am angry, and I believe you should be too. The Trump Department of Justice has indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center, the organization that has spent 55 years tracking and dismantling white supremacist groups in America. The charge is that the SPLC ran a confidential informant program inside hate groups and did not publish the details of that program to donors. That is the entire case. There is no allegation in the charging documents that any SPLC informant organized violence, planned an attack, or caused harm to anyone. What the SPLC did is exactly what the FBI does every single day. The FBI embeds paid informants inside the KKK, the Proud Boys, and the Oath Keepers. Federal courts have ruled this practice lawful and essential to law enforcement. Nobody is indicting the FBI. So why is the SPLC being charged for doing the same thing? Here is the fact I need you to sit with. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche admitted at his own press conference that this investigation had already been shut down during the Biden administration. The Biden Justice Department reviewed the same evidence and decided it did not warrant prosecution. No new evidence has emerged. Nothing changed except who is now in charge of the Justice Department. I need you to answer one question publicly: what legitimate law enforcement reason justified reopening a case that the previous administration already closed? Before accepting the government's framing, consider what the SPLC actually did. In 1987 it won a seven million dollar verdict that bankrupted the United Klans of America after the lynching of Michael Donald in Alabama. In 1990 it secured a twelve million dollar verdict against White Aryan Resistance for the murder of an Ethiopian student in Portland. In 2000 a six million dollar verdict forced the Aryan Nations to surrender their compound and dissolve as a national organization. The SPLC did not just monitor hate groups. It destroyed them in court. And now the administration wants to destroy the SPLC. I also need to raise something that I believe requires your direct attention. There are documented, verified ties between senior Trump administration officials and white nationalist ideology. These are not rumors. They have been reported by PBS NewsHour, NBC News, and Capital and Main among others. Stephen Miller, the most powerful policy architect in this administration, had emails leaked showing he promoted white nationalist websites and the concept of white genocide. More than a hundred members of Congress called for his resignation. The President kept him and gave him more authority over immigration and civil rights policy. Sebastian Gorka, who served as Deputy Assistant to the President, was a sworn member of a Hungarian organization that the U.S. State Department has linked to Nazi-era Germany. Paul Ingrassia, who was appointed Deputy Director of the Office of Special Counsel, admitted in a group chat to having what he called a Nazi streak and called for eliminating the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday. Tom Homan, the administration's border czar, collaborated on his immigration project with a group the SPLC classifies as an anti-Muslim hate group. In January 2026 NBC News reported that official administration social media accounts were posting content that extremism researchers at George Washington University described as clear references to white supremacist messaging. One researcher said these are no longer dog whistles. They are bullhorns. The SPLC documented all of this. And now it is being indicted. I am asking you to do four things. I need you to demand a public accounting of why this investigation was closed under Biden and reopened under Trump. That answer should come under oath, before Congress, on the record. I need you to call for hearings on the officials I have named. Miller, Gorka, Ingrassia, and Homan all have documented connections to white nationalist organizations or ideology. The American public deserves to know what role those connections have played in shaping the policies they have been entrusted to make. I need you to press the Judiciary Committee to examine whether the Department of Justice is operating as an independent law enforcement agency or as a political instrument being used to silence organizations that document this administration's conduct. And I need you to say something publicly. Civil rights organizations should be able to use lawful investigative methods to monitor domestic extremists. That should not be a controversial position. If you believe it, say it out loud. The Southern Poverty Law Center bankrupted the Klan. It destroyed the Aryan Nations. It spent 55 years documenting the people who are now running the federal government. And now those people are using the Justice Department to destroy it. I am a constituent and a voter. The question in front of you is not a partisan one. It is a constitutional one. Will you use the oversight authority you were elected to exercise, or will you stay silent while the machinery of justice is turned against the people who hold power accountable? I expect to hear from you.     Respectfully,   A Concerned American Constituent