SPLC’s Despicable Grift, Plus Weaponized DOJ, and Secrets of the Dobbs Decision, w/ Mollie Hemingway

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[00:00:15]Welcome to another edition of Afterparty, everyone. It is great to be here with you. We are joined tonight by Molly Hemingway, the one and only, the lesser Hemingway. Of course, if you watch the show, Mark Hemingway has made many appearances by popular demand. But tonight, we are stuck with Molly, unfortunately. It'll be great, though.

[00:00:32]Molly has a new book out. She is blowing the lid off of a major scandal at the Supreme Court and much more. First, please do subscribe. Support our independent journalism here. Help us subscribe. Hit that smash that subscribe button. Don't hit it. Smash that subscribe button. Whether you get your podcast on Apple, Spotify, or on YouTube, it helps us a lot. Thank you.

[00:00:53]Like I said, tonight Molly's blowing the lid off a big scandal at the Supreme Court. We also have breaking news about that wild Virginia redistricting situation, the election that Democrats won last night in Virginia. We already have some news that it might be on the rocks. Big news. Might it might be on the rocks. We have fascinating new records uh from the quote bigger than Watergate Arctic Frost scandal. Glad to have Molly here to get into some of that. And I'm going to do a big deep dive into the history of the Southern Poverty Law Center towards the end of the show and uh bring you some information from the DOJ's shocking new indictment. It really is shocking. So, please stay tuned for that. We have a lot of our own research to break down for you this evening. So, we're excited to have Molly on the show. We're going to bring her in in just one moment. But first, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. Well, for years, legacy media, government, and big data companies coaxed us into surrendering our digital freedom. We talk about this on the show all the time, giving lip service the whole way to privacy while leaving their digital back doors wide open for their own purposes. Well, Unplugged set out to do something about it. The Upphone by Unplugged is the smartphone designed to restore your rights. When it comes to blocking thirdparty trackers from shadowy data brokers, the Upphone by Unplugged outshines every device on the market.

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[00:03:05]Welcome back to Afterparty everyone. We are joined now by the love of my life, Molly Hemingway. She's author of the new book Alto, the justice who reshaped the Supreme Court and restored the Constitution. It's out now. Molly's, of course, editor-inchief of the Federalist, where I worked for about six years. And Molly, you know, just helped whip me from a young lost reporter in the wilderness to the giant of the industry that I am now. So, thank you, Molly. I like to just think of myself as a charter member, if not founder, of the Emily Jashinsky fan club.

[00:03:43]>> Yeah. Well, you you've done a great job.

[00:03:45]Uh the meetings are great. You always bring lemonade, so that's a huge plus.

[00:03:49]Uh Molly, congratulations, Alita, which I have in my hands right here. It is out now, and it's making waves. Before we get to some of the really big news, I want to start by just backing up. You wrote an article in the Federalist. We can put this up on the screen. F2. uh about the the courage of Samuel Alo. Sam Alto is the most courageous Scottish justice you've never read about until now was the headline. By the way, you also got the Trump seal of approval just hours ago today. We can put the president's post up on the screen. It's still surreal to say that the president's post he called you quote an extraordinarily talented writer, highly respected commentator and a truly good person. That was my favorite part. Total stamp of approval. He says it's going that everyone would do well to read this book and to learn from Alito's example.

[00:04:38]So tell us Molly, who is Samuel Alo for the casual observer of the court. Who is this man that you dedicated a full book to?

[00:04:47]>> Well, for me it kind of goes back to writing with Carrie Severino the Kavanaaugh confirmation book. And we did that immediately after Kavanaaugh was was appointed to the Supreme Court. We talked to a hundred or nearly a hundred people. So many of those people said, "Why does nobody ever talk about Sam Alto? He's a giant on this court." And I just it kind of stuck with me like we know so much about Justice Scalia and and I'm glad we know so much about him.

[00:05:17]We know so much about Justice Thomas.

[00:05:18]Again, I'm very glad to know so much about these great men. You have this other guy who's just been quietly bebering away, getting the work done, and all of a sudden he's behind some of the most important consequential decisions in Supreme Court history. But because he's reserved, he's not seeking any celebrity status at all, a lot of people don't know anything about him. So I was like, we got to it's just it has to get done. So I am so glad that I was able to do it. and once again interviewed close to 100 people, talked to many justices on the court, um tons of clerks, deans of law school, you know, really a lot of people to get a picture of this man and his import. And also was able to collect quite a few fun stories about going on at the court as well. Well, and for people who don't know, and I don't know because I've never done Supreme Court reporting like you have, Molly, this is perhaps the most difficult institution for a journalist to penetrate, period. And what you just laid out in terms of sourcing is really remarkable. And maybe you could just speak to a little bit about what it's like trying to report on this in institution that does not really want to be reported on historically.

[00:06:31]>> Well, it's not supposed to be held to political pressure. You know, we have other institutions that are political.

[00:06:40]Article one branch, you elect these people. The executive branch, you elect the president. The court has some distance from that. These people are given lifetime appointments. They're protected from salary cuts. They're supposed to work as judges on the court, not as politicians. And so, some of what they do is quite transparent. They announce publicly which arguments they're going to hear. They hold oral arguments where you can hear what everybody has to say and they're held in public. They write their reasoning. You know, they they have a vote and they release that vote and they write out their reasoning in quite detailed fashion. So, some of it's really public, but then like the rest of it is completely behind closed doors. And it's a very small group of people who it's a it's a small number of people who work at the court. Each justice has four clerks per year, maybe three other staff in their chambers. So these are small offices. None of these people are political. None of them do PR. None of them are into communications. And then there are some permanent staff at the court as well. You know, police officers and uh you know, people who are shredding documents and and things like that. But we're talking about a couple hundred people working in this really important branch of government.

[00:07:54]Which brings us to who might have leaked the dos decision to Politico. One of the questions, Molly, that you've uh tried, I mean, one of the mysteries that you've tried to solve since it happened, but the book gives us some insight into how this might have happened, how the court handled it. Could you share with us a little bit from your reporting of of when what went down behind the scenes?

[00:08:17]Obviously, Samuel Alo was the author of that decision, and we're going to get to the uh seemingly despicable despicable behav be behavior of uh his Democrat-appointed peers on the court in just one moment, but first, what do we know? I mean, you've looked into this.

[00:08:32]What do we know about what might have happened? So just personally for me being able to dig deep into how do came to the court, how that case got brought to the court, who was involved with that, how they handled it, how the court decided whether and when to grant cert which is when they say, "Okay, we're going to hear this case, how that was announced, what the oral arguments were like." I love going deep into stories behind that. And I think that the that the advocate from Mississippi who ended up getting Roie Wade overturned is another one of these very quiet figures who does not seek a claim. But it's a fascinating story. Um but when the leak well first before we talk about the leak, it's worth noting that the oral arguments were on December 1st. Now, shortly after the oral arguments, the justices go into a conference and they they say how they're going to vote. And there were five votes at that time to overturn Roie Wade as part of the DOPS decision. And December, you know, shortly after December 1st when they make the decision, the senior justice in the majority opinion gets to assign the opinion and that was Clarence Thomas.

[00:09:44]and he had already had a really big gun rights case for the term that was going to be a lot of work. And also he, you know, he wanted someone who was just going to be perfect to write this. Many times before the court has tried to overturn Roie Wade. It's one of these decisions that even people who love abortion admit that it was just a joke of a decision, a joke of a ruling from the from the court. It didn't even try to be constitutional law in any sense, but they tried to overturn it before.

[00:10:14]And always the political pressure would get so intense that there would be people pulling away or, you know, figuring out a way to somehow not do what needed to be done. And, you know, Thomas knew Alo was this guy who was going to be strong enough to get it over the finish line and keep everybody together. That can be tricky. I mean, even for Thomas has very particular views on the 14th amendment that basically the other justices don't share. How do you write it in a way that doesn't anger him while keeping everybody else online in in line? Or it could just be things like different justices had things they really cared about. You know, you heard this in Kavanaaugh's oral arguments, but pointing out all the times the court has overruled bad precedent that was important to Kavanaaugh. And Alto is the kind of guy who can be generous when he writes an opinion to make sure everybody feels included. He doesn't care if they even if they're putting in something clunky that he wouldn't put in, he just doesn't worry about it. And that >> it was a long opinion, right? I mean, it was relative.

[00:11:13]>> It was devastating. That's another thing I learned. The liberal justices were shocked by how thorough it was. They already knew when it was granted cert what was going to happen. They'd had a long time to work on their descent. When that draft gets disseminated in early February, they were they were like, "Oh, wow. This is a lot." I mean, he goes through the history, he goes through every argument, and that's vintage Alto, too. He either, as one person put it, he either just cuts the jugular and writes a very short thing, or he absolutely destroys everything about the opponent's argument, including the footnotes. And this was one of those type of things. It was 100 pages long. it, but it was very efficiently written and it goes through the history and the you know what the law 14th amendment was at the time that this was passed and and it was it was devastating for for the liberals.

[00:12:06]So, this is uh was written in the Federalist from the book, writing up some of the scoops from the book about Elena Kagan. And Molly, I'd rather just have you tell the story, and I have some questions about it. And people should buy the book, 100% go buy the book to get the uh full rendering, the full picture of what was happening behind the scenes. But uh as the conservative justices are obviously under threat, their safety is under threat. What did Elena Kagan do after the leak? So the majority gets their opinion out in pretty early February. It leaks at the beginning of May and it's nothing like that had ever happened before.

[00:12:48]Immediately the justices who had signed on to dos had their lives um threatened.

[00:12:54]There were people, they had to wear bulletproof vests. They had to go to secure locations. There were actual attempts on their lives. Um, you know, we know about the situation with Justice Kavanaaugh and he he and his family were targeted by an attempted assassin at their home. Liberal groups were posting the home addresses of these justices and they don't live in like usually don't live in fancy communities. They don't actually make that much money and they live kind of a typical suburban life.

[00:13:22]and here they were having to deal with these really serious threats. So the next time they meet in conference after the leak, uh what happens is the chief justice kind of announces which opinions are ready to go. Those are graded an A.

[00:13:36]Which ones are just needing the final touches, those are B and which ones are nowhere near completion, and those are C.

[00:13:43]>> They find out it's a C.

[00:13:46]>> The tops is a C. These people have had literally 50 years to work on it, but at the very least they had the arguments in December. They had, you know, the full opinion by February and they were nowhere near done. And so Alo actually asked them to uh wrap it up, help them out. And they declined. And Gorsuch was like, "Can you give us a date?" And they couldn't. And what I learned from my sources was that Brier, one of the three who wrote the disscent in the Dobs decision, you know, solid progressive liberal, but someone who was very well respected on the court and was a gentleman toward his colleagues and according to my sources, Kagan understood that he wanted to be accommodating to his colleagues, went to his chambers and and uh said, "Don't, you know, don't accommodate these people." And we know that they did delay because they said that they couldn't possibly get the decision done till June 1st and then they would have to get everything else done by June 15th. And when they file it, the June 1st uh descent, they include a completely gratuitous and unnecessary footnote to a decision that they, you know, that wasn't coming in until after June 15th that still needed work. And it didn't even need to be mentioned in there. and they knew therefore they were keeping it to the very end of the term and I think it came out like June was it June 24th or you know somewhere late in June and I was listening to you talk about this with Megan earlier in the week a question was playing over and over again in my mind which is you would assume that Elena Kagan does not want her colleagues I mean again historically there's a collegiality at the Supreme Court which you've you've mentioned that Clarence Thomas recently commented on just in recent years and said he's he's worried about maintaining that. So obviously there's some uh friction internally maybe historically more than usual but she doesn't want her colleagues killed I would assume or hurt I would assume. So why why would she ask that? So I think partly the liberal justices really have no idea what it's like to be a conservative justice. The liberal justices get to go perform on Broadway or go to the Grammys or have the red carpet rolled out for them at Yale Law School. And the conservative justices can't go to dinner with their families because they might get killed. But they don't, >> you know, if they don't really understand that and they don't they don't empathize with this or you know there's some problem there. I don't think they were trying to get their colleagues killed even though that was the almost result of their decision. I do think we have reporting that um Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brier were really trying to get Kavanaaugh to peel away from the Dob's majority and maybe they felt that if they had more time and if they could show Kavanaaugh that the left was willing to resort to violence because of their love for um a claimed abortion right in the Constitution that maybe that would pressure him to do what happened in 1992. 2 when Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Okconor and David Sudter peeled off and formed a Troy Troa to kind of preserve row even though they admitted that it was completely flawed law.

[00:17:13]>> So, and it's it's your reporting that Alo is a character who manages when he needs to this coalition. Um he's he's a sort of I I don't know how you would characterize it, but he's he's somebody who's able to keep people together under immense pressure.

[00:17:35]>> He's able to keep majority, you know, coalitions together in part through the generosity of how he writes. In this case, I actually one of the things I also found interesting and partly from inter interview interviewing um Scott Stewart who was the the solicitor general in Mississippi. He read through every single decision, descent, concurrence in any abortion related case. And he picked up something very different than most DC people do. The DC people said you can't ask for Roie Wade to be overturned. And then once they took the cases, you really have to give them an option to not overturn Roie Waiter. You're going to lose everything.

[00:18:13]But he when he was reading all these things, he thought, I actually think they're really sick of dealing with this bad law polluting every or this bad opinion and decision polluting everything they do. They're just done with it. It's like ludicrous how it has these emanations of ridiculosity coming from this one decision that everyone knows is wrong. and they just wanted to be kind of like they wanted to stop pretending. And that wasn't just Alo and Thomas, that was the other justices as well. And you know, you had five who were willing to do the tough thing. And they each had, you know, there's no comparison to what like Thomas and Alto have had to go through.

[00:18:52]Kavanagh's also obviously gone through a lot, but they all had to be courageous in taking this step and doing what was right even though they knew that there would be major left-wing activism and even possibly threats on their life. And that did end up happening.

[00:19:07]>> And then Samuel Alo's wife fell under the microscope as well. Uh you write about this in the book. What can you tell us, Molly?

[00:19:15]>> You know, I was thinking when I started writing this because it was a long project. I'm like, how am I going to introduce Martha Anne Alito to the people? Because she's a really fascinating figure. Justice Alto is extremely reserved, very dry wit. He won't, you know, he'll tell jokes or funny things, but he doesn't really like laugh at them. Um, he's so, you know, he's got that justice type presence. His wife is like life of the party. Really fun. really willing to say whatever she wants to say. And then ProPublica and New York Times went after the Alos and everybody learned about her, you know, for instance, her love of flag flying with, you know, and she does. She loves she loves flying flags at um at their properties. And then she got caught on a hot mic by being surreptitiously recorded by a left-wing activist who wanted to catch her saying something that would have matched the the media narrative. Okay. So, the issue was she'd flown an appeal to heaven flag, which is >> revolutionary era flag that is not actually a coded right-wing symbol. At the time she flew it, San Francisco had flown it for 50 plus years in their city park. But the New York Times decided it was a flag of an insurrectionist. So they made a big deal and they were trying to get Alo to to resign from the court or to be impeached or you know these types of things. And so we we you know we we got to go through all that. this left-wing activist records her and she she wants to record her confirming some of the leftist reporting and instead Martha Anne was like they think that he can tell me what to do. I do what I want to do. She's just exactly what he had said when he responded. He's like I don't like flags. My wife likes flags. She does have the right you know this is her property and she has the right to express herself. and I asked her to take it down and she didn't. And you know, if you know her, it totally makes sense.

[00:21:27]But the New York Times was like, "He's throwing his wife under the bus. It's a horrible thing." Well, no, he wasn't. He was being honest. And I think they're not used to dealing with people who are just honest and who also respect that their wives have different lives than they do.

[00:21:42]>> Huge lesson they could learn from Mark Hemingway. Uh, but let's You mentioned the New York Times. Let's stick with the New York Times because another leak hit the New York Times just in the last several days and I think we have the Slate article. Uh the left is very upset with Justice Roberts uh over this case with Barack Obama's climate agenda. If you were following the news closely at the time, you probably do remember this as being a really big deal. I think these are memos from 2016. And this late headline is a new Supreme Court leak shows John Roberts at his worst. But Molly, in the context of what you wrote about Justice Alo, this is a pretty shocking leak from the New York Times as all leaks from the court are. But I wonder if you are we starting to get numb to leaks from the Supreme Court. I mean, what's going on with this? I just want to say that had the court done a better job of investigating the Dobs leak and I tell the story of what in in the book Alto I tell the story of how meager that investigation was and how insufficient it was and they waited weeks to really get going. They didn't understand court procedures or who had access to information where they had access like they didn't really understand that people have access to these things in their homes. And then they just ask them questions like, "Did you leak?" Which is not a good way to find out if someone's the leaker. Uh, and I think I think Chief Justice John Roberts, who officially ran that investigation, is paying the price for doing a not better job with it because now you're seeing continued leaks. Now, in this case, I actually don't think it's like that big of a leak. It's a 2016 memo. It's clearly part of a campaign by the left. The left has used nationwide injunctions to thwart >> democratic elections from having any effect. It's it's like their main and most successful strategy. Have a low-level federal judge issue a nationwide injunction and then um you know stop slow things down and >> it's been unprecedented at an unprecedented rate in Trump 2 >> like more than all other presidents combined for Trump one and Trump two I believe and it's just increasing. Now, before Trump, you would have Elena Kagan saying, "I don't think the use of the emergency docket is good," or, "I don't think people should be circuit shopping," which is where you like go looking for a judge who's going to give you the answer that you want. But once it became the primary strategy of the left, everybody's tone changed and it's become a real headache for the court. So clearly this leak is designed to put pressure in favor of the liberal lower court judges and the larger liberal legal movement. But I don't know if we know who it comes from. I mean the paperwork shows that Soayor's name is diff is not on there in a way that is suspicious. But you also have a retired justice uh Brier and probably people going through his papers as well. you have a deceased justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was on the court at that time. Papers are in control of someone else. So maybe it's just, you know, a liberal activist in one of those worlds who's who's leaking for gain. But it's not great. And it really does make it more difficult for the court to do its business when you can't trust that what's happening is happening between.

[00:25:07]And speaking of pressures, I mean, we've been talking, you've been documenting for years pressures that come from the left, but you also know Donald Trump, interviewed Donald Trump many times. In fact, he tweeted about your book just today. A truth about your book just today. I want to put F-13 up on the screen. Another post that he went with today was saying that the court is already packed. He said, "The Democrat justices stick together like glue, never failing to wander from the warped and perverse policies, ideas, and cases put before them. They always vote as a group or block even that new low IQ person that somehow found her way to the bench.

[00:25:40]Sleepy Joe. The Republican justices don't stick together. They give the Democrats win after win like $159 billion pile of cash on a completely ridiculous tariff decision. It goes on and on. It's probably like a 200word post. So Molly, can I just get your reaction to this lashing out from President Trump? I don't in any way understand what provoked this particularly at this time when he has a case before the court in the birthright or birthplace citizenship issue which I think it you know I he probably I was at that I was at the court that day for to hear uh oral arguments. He also was there at the court that day. It was really long even by normal Supreme Court oral argument standards. They gave they gave the sides more time. I was like, this must be very painful for President Trump here to be sitting here like this.

[00:26:34]But um I don't know why he >> you can't have your phone, right?

[00:26:38]>> You can you can have nothing. You have nothing. Um I was there with my mom. She was visiting. She couldn't hear anything. So it was a very boring three hours for her, too. But she did get to see President Trump. So that's, you know, she got that. In any case, um it's a misunderstanding of what the court does. It doesn't vote Republican or vote Democrat. And it can be hard to see that when you do have some partisans on the court like Katanji Brown Jackson has not shown much independent thinking. Neither has stoodor. Elena Kagan, by contrast, does think about how she can >> work with colleagues if even if only to get it a decision to be slightly more narrow than it otherwise would be if she weren't part of the majority. And as far as the Republican appointed justices and the tariff case is a great example. I thought that was a really great read from all parties. Now both Thomas and Alito were on the side that Kavanaaugh was on that these uh tariffs were not uh were not a problem and then Gorsuch had his very you know dramatically written opinion that they were not allowed but it was good legal argument in both cases and even today you had Justice Thomas siding with the left and and Justice Alito siding with the right those two guys are usually usually together, but not always because they're they're doing their best to interpret the law. And that is what you want. Far and away the healthiest branch of government we have is is the judiciary is the judicial branch and the Supreme Court is the best it's ever been. I totally get that people have complaints about it. You know, you hear lots of complaints from the right about the quality of the new justices. And I've just written a book that shows that I think you know what Alto provides is something that those newer justices could learn from Alito. And yet it's it still is, I think, the best court we've had in history. It is these people are really trying hard for the most part.

[00:28:45]Now, I will say that I definitely picked up uh court frustration with Katanji Brown Jackson. It does seem as someone highly play said she makes Sonia Sotomayor look like a philosopher king.

[00:29:00]So, um and you've even had like even cabin be frustrated with her and he's the nicest guy. You had Elena Kagan being like, does this woman even know what the law is? Katanji has that rare combination of Justice Jackson has that rare combination of not really knowing, not really being at the same level as her colleagues, but having just an amazing amount of confidence. And >> it's it's the arrogance to ignorance ratio. It's out of whack.

[00:29:31]>> There I don't know why, but there's always been something I kind of liked about this. Like I have a friend who's horrible at driving, but she believes she's a good driver and she's very insistent about where she's going. She's always like making the wrong turn. It's so absurd that it it becomes funny and and you'll hear this in Katani Brown Jackson's oral argument. She is by far the most loquacious person on the court and she'll read the questions that she's prepared, but then she'll get an idea for another question and it like always goes badly. She's like, "What if I stole a wallet in Japan? That makes me a Japanese citizen." And then she like and she's like, "I'm so smart." And everyone's like, >> "Yeah, we're going to have more with Molly Hemingway uh in just one moment." Author of Al. Go get it. It's out now. You can get it wherever books are so sold. Well worth your time. Quick break. Back with Molly Hemingway in just one moment.

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[00:31:44]We love Pre-born. All right, we're back now with Molly Hemingway. She's the author of the new book Alto and of course editor-inchief over at The Federalist. Molly, I wanted to ask uh about this breaking news out of Virginia, a state you're very familiar with. Obviously, voters just barely uh voted in the hilarious redistricting, the hilarious gerrymandering map. Um there's been so many great memes about the absurd gerrymandered districts that Democrats pushed in Virginia yesterday.

[00:32:16]It was close. Uh but actually unexpectedly today, I'm going to read from Fox News here. Quote, "Republicans are cheering a circuit court victory in Virginia that showed Democrats redistricting efforts are not quite over yet despite a referendum. Virginia Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley ruled Wednesday, this was just hours ago, uh that all votes for or against the proposed redistricting amendment were unconstitutional, citing rules that impose certain requirements that the referendum did not make meet. There are a handful of cases making their way through the Virginia court system challenging various aspects of the referendum, including the one Hurley ruled on Wednesday. M Molly, the referendum was part of this big push by Virginia Democrats, led by Governor Abigail Spanberger, who has proven to be much further to the left than she campaigned on governing as to take over the state. I mean, it's it's pretty clearly a blue state at this point with purple inclinations. I mean, Glenn Yncan had a great year in 2020. What the heck is going on? I mean, nobody really saw this court thing coming as far as recently as yesterday. It was just I I saw in mainstream media reports, quote unquote, mainstream media reports, that there was a slim chance that this might have problems in Virginia courts.

[00:33:28]>> Well, I think there are four total constitutional challenges to the radical gerrymander. And I don't think anyone expected this to happen as quickly as it did, but the fact that the vote was as close as it was was a surprise for me. I live in Virginia. All of the mail I got was about voting to do the radical gerrymander. All of the ads in the area never even talked to a sing, you know, nobody said vote no. Uh it seemed like the Republicans or people who just oppose gerrymandering didn't really put money or effort into it. The fact that it's still only passed by, you know, a very small margin is interesting to me and I think it says something about how much Virginiaians are not happy with this this, you know, extreme thing.

[00:34:20]You're right that Virginia is a is a blue state for the most part. It's also true that >> too many of you people live in Northern Virginia. Few months ago, there was a Republican governor, a Republican lieutenant governor, a Republican attorney general. That attorney general was replaced by someone who thinks that killing people and having their kids watch it is a totally legitimate and and good political strategy. After it came out that he said that and he admitted he said that, all of my neighbors were like, "Let's vote for that guy for attorney general." So the state is getting increasingly radical in the north in particular, but this effort to kind of just wipe out the Republican presence totally is just it's just shocking. But also, they've been very honest about this being what they want to do. Mark Elias who ran the Russia collusion hoax and who ran the effort to change all of the voting laws and processes in 2020. He said >> I think he makes one or two appearances and rigged just a he's just in there a couple times.

[00:35:24]>> Unfortunately, none in the latest book, but um he said he'd been working on this project of radical gerrymandering for 10 years. Okay. So, if you don't like that, you got to put up the money. And they had tons of billionaire support and activism and the other side needs to too. It's uh can't sit this out totally.

[00:35:44]>> It looked almost like Republicans kind of gave up on Virginia after Spanberger came in and bulldozed with all of her new executive actions and the like.

[00:35:52]>> We do have some reporting on this coming out tomorrow about how it was only late in the game when they realized they even had a shot of winning and so money only came in late. But Virginia is one of those states that has early voting, like massive early voting. and coming in late doesn't make sense when so many people are voting early or voting by mail.

[00:36:12]>> I've got to ask you about these updates in the Arctic Frost case. Jordan Boyd wrote about this at the Federalist uh quote as new records released by US Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley on Tuesday reveal it was not quote an isolated incident that could be swept under the rug forever.

[00:36:29]Arctic Frost was the culmination of years of political weaponization against President Donald Trump, his allies and his voters. Breen the over at the Federalist wrote that the text messages released by Senate Judiciary just yesterday. Uh you can see quote despite admitting that the video evidence contradicted claims that Lauren Boowbert led a reconnaissance tour through the capital before January 6 because she was not even within the group in question.

[00:36:54]Cooney and Gaston, these are FBI agents, appeared to be persistently disappointed and frustrated by the lack of evidence to justify an investigation while persisting in the belief that quote, "The information is out there." Molly, the Federalists, you have covered Arctic frost since the very beginning and have been really at the cutting edge of the lawfare reporting for many, many years now. help us contextualize this new evidence that you have FBI folks going back and forth looking to get from point Bowart is guilty to point A. And I think Paul Gosar uh was wrapped into this as well.

[00:37:31]We see this plain as day in the messages that were released. It's it's really I mean this is not shocking. This is exactly what at this point I think you and I expect was happening. But it's it's shocking to see the utter disinterest that the rest of the media has in these stories and that Democrats, frankly, who love to now wax uh poetic about the weaponization of government, nobody cares except for Chuck Grassley and the Federalist and all of your readers.

[00:37:57]I was thinking about this how I remember a time when something really scandalous would happen and the media would turn their attention to it and they would really like get at it like a dog with a bone. And now we have like day after day the most dramatic insane stories about literally the FBI spying on members of Congress and having entire shops set up to like protect the Biden family. And obviously the corporate media aren't going to cover it because it goes against their preferred narrative which is that while all of this was happening, the DOJ was in and while the Russia collusion hoax was happening, that was an era of nonpartisanship at the DOJ.

[00:38:39]And now that any effort might be made to hold people accountable or to go after left-wing terrorism or anything, well, that's when you're politicizing the DOJ.

[00:38:48]And it's maddening and it's, you know, it's also frustrating like you'll write something or you'll know something that's going on and then seven years later you'll be vindicated and it's like I'm kind of sick of always being right about everything but also you know years later you like been screaming about the SPLC for 15 years and I'm glad that we're knowing more about how crazy their behavior is but especially anyway. So with the Arctic frost thing, it's been challenging because the DOJ is still largely a body controlled like the people who work high up are still mainly partisans. And there were some firings when Trump took over for his second term, but nowhere near enough to clean out the rot that's happening there. and they did a really good job of not opening like formal investigations, but just having these inquiries that don't require the same level of paperwork. And so as people are trying to figure out exactly what's going on, you don't even find it through the normal systems, the normal cataloging of information, but you do find again there were massive efforts. For instance, there were numerous whistleblowers about the Biden family, and there was a project to just take out each one. Like each one got ruled a bad witness, even though they've been used in many cases for years prior, but it wasn't like an official, you know, investigation was set up. They just took care of it on their own. And with all of the situation that's happening with what Grassly has revealed, these were different aspects of different investigations. They did a pretty good job of just like fishing, fishing, fishing, and when they found nothing, you know, just not admitting the problem with their entire theory of the case, but just coming up with like another way to go after Trump or anybody who had supported him. But it is >> shocking. We'll be on it. I do think, you know, there's some rumor that there might I I've given up hope. I don't mean to black pill here, but it's been so long and there's so many people who should frankly be in jail and you hear that there might be this grand conspiracy thing um happening that will that will fold all of this in but till it happens until it happens successfully, >> I'm just content to get the information out sadly.

[00:41:10]>> Well, yeah. I want to put this Paul Sperry post up on the screen. He said, "Just released DOJ text messages. I said FBI. It looks like they were uh broader DOJ revealed that after video evidence confirmed Republicans weren't helping J6 riers do reconnaissance at the capital.

[00:41:23]Former DC prosecutor Mali Gastone expressed disappointment. Sigh dot dot dot. Okay, well that's too bad. Paul says after I exposed Gaston's pro Democrat anti-Trump bias in 2020, her former boss AG Eric Holder told me to quote shut the hell up. U I mean you really see them in real time. reacting to their evidence drying up or slipping through their fingers and they're so sad about it, but they keep going.

[00:41:51]>> And one of the things I've learned in my reporting on this is anybody who was worth their salt at DOJ or at the FBI who raised any concerns about the weaponization that they were being asked to participate in, they would just be moved out of those illustrious units into um into another place. They did not want anybody who questioned what they were doing. And we saw this also when we reported about this at the CIA and other three-letter agencies that people who were saying, "I think this Russia occlusion hoax thing is insane." They would be demoted. They would not get promotions. They would be told, "You don't have this Gnostic knowledge that I have. You can't, you know, you can't say anything." But it's kind of heartening to know that there were at least some people trying to do their jobs well at these agencies.

[00:42:41]And just as a reminder, big picture context, which I sort of started with here, Chuck Grassley, Senate Judiciary, released records earlier this year showing how vast the surveillance apparatus of Arctic Frost was, wrapping in many mainstream conservative groups, things like Turning Point USA. Even records of conversations with journalists, no just crickets again from the legacy media on this question over and over again. Um, and that brings us to the SPLC story, Molly. Now, the Federalist itself came under attack from the Southern Poverty Law Center back in 2017. So, they have been a thorn in your side and in the broader conservative movement side for years and years and years. As you just mentioned, you've been screaming from the rooftops about this for a long time, but I want to focus particularly on the media and tech aspect of the story. I'm going to get into kind of the bigger picture stuff later in the show, but we can toss this article up on the screen if we have it.

[00:43:36]It says uh the Federalist has also found itself in the SPLC's crosshairs. In the summer of 2017, the SPLC posted an article under its hate watch category attacking the Federalist as a quote rapidly partisan purveyor of anti-LGBT and specifically anti-trans writings. L Pernell wrote today in the Federalist are rapidly partisan offense was obtaining and publishing an exclusive story from then AG Jeff Sessions, the attorney general. A few days prior, Sessions had given a private speech at an event put on by Alliance Defending Freedom, ADF, normal conservative group, great group. Uh, quote, "One of the most hard-hitting civil liberties nonprofits in the country. ADF lits is a legal powerhouse with a record of success defending religious and free speech rights as well as the right to life. But since the 2016, since 2016, the SPLC has smeared it as a hate group for its defense of Christian clients religious convictions about sex and marriage."

[00:44:29]Molly, you tweeted, you posted on X, "The SPLC is evil." Yes, the media who perpetuated their false claims are evil, but please do not forget evil big tech groups who relied on their obvious on the obvious lies of the SPLC and their media handmaidaidens who censored the Federalist and other other brave people and groups who spoke against them. What you see in this story is multiple layers. First, you have ADF, then you have Jeff Sessions daring to speak to ADF, then you have the Federalists daring to publish a Jeff Sessions speech at ADF. This is enough to get the Federalist on a hate watch, which is then used to censor, suppress. It's used by corporations. There was a time when SPLC was used in the Guidear uh ratings for charities. I mean, it's just maddening. And I'm very excited to hear unload.

[00:45:16]>> I I bad.

[00:45:17]>> I was the one who got the Jeff Sessions speech, which I think >> Oh, you're the hatemonger.

[00:45:26]>> Good. It's just a journal. Grand Dragon Hemingway >> when the attorney general of the United States speaks to a private audience and has interesting things to say and I think that's something that everybody should benefit from and just letting them see what was said and we also, you know, had stories about what was said as well. Um, the punishment for doing journalism or what they call wrong think because we weren't pushing their narrative. It was severe. The censorship has been unbelievable and very difficult and big tech companies, they would say, "If this group, the SPLC, says that this other group that they don't like is actually, you know, hateful, we aren't going to allow people to visit their site." And it just kept working over and over again. It's an unfair advantage that they were given. And their budget, Emily, oh my goodness. I mean, they have like I'm not joking. It's like hundreds of millions of dollars.

[00:46:20]>> I looked it up. Do you want to know what their revenue was as of 2024 on their 990? $132 million. Their total assets $822 million. Almost a billion dollars.

[00:46:30]>> And they keep some of that in offshore accounts. It has been reported, which is also >> No.

[00:46:35]>> Yes. No. That's been I mean that's already been reported, but you find out that this group that was Okay. And I just want to say when they put you on a hate map, it sometimes ends in violence.

[00:46:46]They said that the Family Research Council was a hate group. A follower of the SPLC used their map to go to FRC and try to commit a mass shooting and was only stopped by a brave guard who got shot. They put Charlie Kirk on a hate list which was at the time people said you're targeting him for assassination.

[00:47:05]Within a few months he was assassinated and he was they were getting tens of millions >> for hate. Allegedly, by the way, that's what the alleged assassin has said that some hate can't be argued with. He followed the SPLC's desires, right? It's and this group is getting so much money from big names and big corporations and then they use it to finance or to fund racism because they weren't finding enough on their own. And so they then pay people to be racist and to plan racist things. They, you know, they were involved in the planning of the Charlottesville rally, which got a woman killed and other people run over and then they were, you know, setting up fake fake accounts to hide this from the donors and from the government. And then all the media today and all the Democrats today were like protecting SPLC because they understand this is a group that means a great deal to them politically. when they helped orchestrate the Charlottesville situation, that was a gift to that party and to that movement and to efforts to oppose Republicans. And they're of course going to defend these people because they're a very important cog in the machine.

[00:48:18]>> Oh, I mean, what they've done to marginalize and diminish the power of conservative groups can't possibly be quantified. Like we can talk about it, but there's no way that we could measure it because it's been over decades in very uh in ways that you could I mean they're just so powerful you couldn't possibly measure what it meant to have, you know, the case study of the Federalist. We forgot to mention BuzzFeed wrote a story. BuzzFeed at the height of its power wrote a story uh just credibly laundering the SPLC's ridiculous conflation of of hatred with the Federalist.

[00:48:46]>> They they would to this day they will repeat SPLC claims about a group being hateful. ADF, Alliance Defending Freedom, is one of the most successful civil civil liberties law firms in the country. They win. They win over and over again at the Supreme Court to mar to try to marginalize them as this group that can't be dealt with. I mean, I'm sure that's easy way to handle it for the left, but it's completely ridiculous.

[00:49:14]>> Yeah. And again, like this, the media should have known better for many, many years. Ken Silverstein back in 2000 wrote about this for Harpers. He wrote about it again several years later. Liberal journalist Ken Silverstein wrote about all of this about how griy their fundraising was, how shady it was. And the Washington Post had a long piece. It wasn't until like 2018 or 2019 they assigned to this piece, but about how uh questionable some of the practices of the labeling was and it persisted until uh maybe it'll stop now, but I don't know, Molly.

[00:49:45]It might keep going.

[00:49:46]>> I don't know. I mean, I saw some some ridiculous stuff today, but again, to to finance to fund the leaders of these groups and then also to fund raise by claiming you were going to stop these groups is I mean that's just that's got to be a violation of many laws. Or it's like John Roberts at Fox earlier today said it's like a firefighter department or firefighting department paying an arsonist to go set fires and then saying you need a bigger budget to go fight those fires that you've yourself paid for. It is such unethical behavior and it should be I mean they should take all that money and distribute it to all the conservative groups that they defamed over the years.

[00:50:33]>> Yeah. Good luck finding a conservative group group with a billion dollars in assets that was treated credibly by the media over the course of decades that was also paying people to like go into Antifa and burn cities to the ground in 2020. It's not something that exists.

[00:50:48]Molly Hemingway, editor-inchief of the Federalist, author of the new book Alo.

[00:50:53]This is a landmark historical book.

[00:50:55]Truly, it was a pleasure and an honor to have you here, Molly. Thank you for staying up late. Thanks so much, Emily.

[00:51:03]>> I appreciate it. All right, we're gonna be back in just one moment. But first, I've told you this before, it's hard for me to relax after the show. We finish late at night and I'm all wired up, but one of my favorite ways to relax actually is with Cozy Earth. If you haven't tried their robes or slippers yet, you're missing out. Their robes are super, super soft. They're perfect for those slow mornings. Great for after the shower or even just relaxing at night like I'm going to do right after this.

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[00:52:30]I want to dive deep into the scandal swallowing the Southern Poverty Law Center right now because the SPLC is something that going back to I think 2017 is the first time that I covered the SPLC. All the way back when I was at the Washington Examiner and was new in journalism, CNN replicated their hate watch map and just put it out on the site like this was a perfectly credible source of information. And that was not a unique situation at all. It's almost impossible to describe how often the media would take the SPLC's hate designations over many decades and then put them up on the screen or in their copy and act as though this was not a controversial, not an ideologically charged, not a partisan source. It was really, really despicable for many years. And so, multiple layers here. Uh there there are two things we're going to talk about. The first has two layers in and of itself. So follow along with me here. Allegations from conservatives against the Southern Poverty Law Center for years, uh, including myself, were that they were engaged in a really despicable conflation of traditional values with bigotry. And not even traditional values. We're talking about, as we just discussed on the show, opposition to radical trans policies.

[00:53:50]We're talking about Ayan Herciel's criticism of her own former religion, Islam. All of this, immigration hawks, all of this was enough to get people slapped with a hate designation that would then, and this is the second part here, be laundered by the media because all of these journalists were inclined to agree with the SPLC, that the Toothless Rubes in America's Heartland were actually racist and hateful. Who could forget the Taylor Swift You Need to Calm Down music video where she pans over to the protesters against I guess the LGBT community and they're all depicted as like toothless hillbillies uh with overalls on at the time. This another story I wrote for the Federalists, it was actually the black community that the had the highest level of opposition to gay marriage. But again, this is the point that coastal elites in their bubbles are in their bubbles of affluence in superzips as Charles Murray documented in coming apart. Uh they are just inclined to believe because they don't spend enough time with people outside of their bubbles whether that is in uh the their own cities uh people of less affluence or in quote unquote flyover country.

[00:55:06]They were inclined to believe that the SPLC was absolutely telling the truth that uh people who are uh you know opposing the full slate of cultural progressivism are necessarily bigoted and hateful. So you would often see the SPLC cited as a credible source. And when I say often, I mean it was like a reflex and to some extent still is like a reflex. Whenever you're covering uh one group or the other, it's just boom, SPLC is says this is a this is a hate group. even if it's a a mainstream conservative organization. So, we're going to get into all of it. Obviously, what the Department of Justice unveiled yesterday was an indictment. I have it here in my hand. Uh this is the indictment itself. My copy is all highlighted, but you've seen a lot online in regard to what's actually going on.

[00:55:58]And that's where I just want to say again, there are these allegations conservatives have made and even some on the left have made as early as 2000.

[00:56:05]Liberal journalist Ken Silverstein was writing for Harper's about this, wrote about it again in 2010. Uh, this has been the SPLC has been controversial for a long time. You just wouldn't know it from the media coverage, and you wouldn't know it from all of the corporations that showered them with cash. Their 202490 form shows they had $123 million in revenue, about $822 million in total assets. That is a staggering amount for a nonprofit in the United States.

[00:56:33]Staggering. blows uh most other nonprofits totally out of the water. And so what the DOJ unveiled is pretty shocking because this is what people weren't talking about about the SPLC, right? The bias was one part of it. The laundering in the media was another part of it, but nobody really had evidence or had an inkling. I mean, people were suspicious, but nobody really knew how serious the case was that the Southern Poverty Law Center while it was fundraising on fighting hatred and extremism was allegedly, according to the Department of Justice's indictment, funding members of the hate groups and their activities on behalf of those hate groups. This does include allegedly that famous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville that Joe Biden cited as one of the reasons he ran for president in 20120. Now, this indictment, it's actually a pretty easy read if you want to read it yourself, but uh I'm just going to read from the introduction. The SPLC's paid informants listed as field sources engaged in the active promotion of racist groups at the same time that the SPLC was denouncing the same groups on its website. The SPLC also had a field source who was a member of the online leadership chat group that planned the 2017 Unite the Right event in Charlottesville. That field source made racist postings under the supervision of the SPLC. And I just want to underline that. I literally underlined it in my document, but they're saying under the supervision those postings were made. And then they helped coordinate transportation to the event for several attendees. So, in order to covertly pay its field sources, the SPLC, according to the government, opened bank accounts connected to a series of fictitious entities. That is also critical. I was going to say key and critical at the same time. Uh, but that's really key to understanding this indictment because that's what the charges are. They're basically about fraud that the SPLC defrauded its donors and supporters by creating these fake groups and transferring money from bank accounts in those names to people who were actively boosting the hate groups that it was fundraising to fight. So there's 11 counts here um if I'm counting this correctly.

[00:58:50]Um and there is conspiracy to commit money laundering, wire fraud, and the like. And that stems from this allegation that because they were funding quote field sources that was an act of fraud. Now again the DOJ has bank sources here. They clearly have bank records. You can see it. They have charts in the indictment of uh records that they procured including wire transactions from their operating accounts straight to accounts controlled by the field sources. And they list them out here. That level of evidence is obviously significant. The grand jury returned this indictment yesterday when the announcement was made. So, let's go a little bit deeper into what happened.

[00:59:34]Um, they have, per my count, there are nine field sources, nine separate field sources. The DOJ says that they were secretly paid by the SPLC, but it is not limited. the these are examples of field sources who were secretly paid by the SPLC, but these are not uh they are not the only ones. So they say include but are not limited to the following and then they list out all of these different field sources. Again, I counted nine of them uh in groups like uh and events like Unite the Right, National Alliance. Um, there was a someone at the National Alliance who according to DOJ between 2014 and 2023, that's a neo-Nazi organization by the way, the SPLC secretly paid this person F9 more than $1 million. So over a decade, this person was given $1 million of donor money from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Crazy, crazy story. They were paying uh an imperial wizard of the United Clans of America.

[01:00:37]An imperial wizard.

[01:00:40]The United Clans of America as the justice department points department points out uh is was responsible for the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham all the way back in 1963.

[01:00:53]Okay, that's F unknown listed in this indictment, but also people involved with the Aryan Nations, the KKK.

[01:01:02]The breadth of this indictment um which is based on bank records is stunning and it shows a very significant amount of money going into I think it totals like $3 million. Uh this they say that this is a practice the SPLC started all the way back in the 1980s. A lot of the evidence here is from uh roughly the last 10 12 years. I think we're starting here in like 2014. I think one of them goes back to 2013, but you get the Yeah, 2013. So, you get the gist. Um you know, roughly the last 15 years, most most of it in the last 10 years. Uh and so what the Justice Department is going to have to prove here is that these quote racist postings were actually made under the supervision, that's the quote, of the SPLC. What I expect the SPLC to counter this with is by just saying, and they're denying everything to be glare. Um, but again, this is based on bank records and it was returned by a grand jury. They're going to say, uh, basically, I'm expecting they're going to say these people were going rogue every time. They were, you know, as F9 reportedly did.

[01:02:10]This is one of the guys at the National Alliance, uh, who was a field informant for the SPLC for more than 20 years, according to the DOJ. They entered the headquarters of a violent extremist group in 2014, and stole 25 boxes of their documents. So, the SPLC is probably going to say that was the actions of a rogue field source. They had nothing to do with it. They didn't ask for it, etc. Um, now I would assume there's going to be uh ample evidence that's not the case. This is a lot of smoke. Um, it's it's actually more than smoke. It's pretty hard evidence. Again, we have bank records. We have a pattern of behavior allegedly here. So, uh, we'll see the SPLC's full response to this. But what we know is that the Department of Justice has clear evidence that money was going from bank accounts controlled by the Southern Poverty Law Center to people who were involved in violent extremist groups, actual racist, hateful, hateful groups. So, well worth noting that. Now, why is this coming out in 2026?

[01:03:19]I just want to roll V1. If you're listening to this, you should head over to the YouTube channel and just watch it. This is a compilation compilation that producer Kelly put together of an example, a sample of all of the times that the corporate press, this is an example from CNN, would launder the SPLC's hate group research. I mean, the Jeff Sess example right here, uh, credibly, you know, by the numbers, seven charts that explain hate groups in the United States. That's from CNN, and it's literally just the SPLC's research, but it's presented like that in the headlines.

[01:03:58]Conservative groups were fighting this for years and years and years because as as Molly Hemingway pointed out earlier in the show, this sometimes did lead to violence and also it is just so profoundly incorrect. It is so profoundly wrong. It is factually incorrect, but it is also entirely immoral to lump your fellow countrymen in with actual Nazis. racists. We're talking about the clan. We're talking about neo-Nazi groups. And to take the goodwill that you earned, the reputation you burnished uh after the Jim Crow era, this is where the SPLC comes into play, going after really legitimate hate groups, like we're talking clan, clan affiliates, neo-Nazi groups, actual violent groups, racist motorcycle clubs, and the like. uh and and fighting the vestigages of real bigotry in this country to then take that reputation and turn your fire on people like Ayan Hersy Ali who survived female female genital mutilation and should have the right to say whatever she damn well wants to within reasonable boundaries about Islam which she has done and has done very bravely at great risk to her own life every single day to then put her in this category of hatred and extremism that should include uh the remaining hateful extremists in this country. Well, you were the one providing funding to some of the people that were infiltrating this group and not just spying but actively participating in the hate and extremism, actively making racist postings, for example, as the allegations are coordinating travel to hate events. uh infiltrating other hate groups and stealing their documents. the audacity of the Southern Poverty Law Center to do that and the laziness of our corporate media because journalists in Washington DC and New York City, as Charles Murray documented, are increasingly isolated from people who are less affluent and are therefore more likely to share traditional beliefs that disagree with them, who are more likely to have totally different lifestyles.

[01:06:22]All of that led journalists to rest on their laurels and allow the Southern Poverty Law Center to get away with this despicable grift that divided the country that pitted people against each other as I'm putting this up on the screen. Uh, we were making enormous progress and I would argue world historical species scale progress towards eliminating racism and bigotry over the last 100 years in the United States of America. What we have in the United States of America, we should not take for granted because we have so many people from different racial backgrounds, religious backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds living very closely together here in this country. And yes, there are many times we feel divided.

[01:07:09]There are times when there is tension, but over the years that has improved significantly. What's up on my screen right now is a 538 article that shows how attitudes towards racism and inequality have shifted in the United States over time. So, for example, here uh this one is the question in surveys, would you vote for a black person for president? uh southern respondents who said yes, assuming the candidate was qualified and nominated by the respondents party. Among white respondents, that went from just under 75% uh around the 1970s all the way up to almost 100% by 2010. Um we have the question posed to Southerners, what explains inequality between blacks and whites? Uh, Southerners who answered that it was inborn inability went from around 30% of white respondents all the way down to almost 0% of white respondents from the 80s to the mid2010s.

[01:08:07]Uh, is it okay to discriminate in home sales? This is actually of all US adults who say a homeowner should be allowed to refuse to sell a potential buyer based on race. That went from, get this, 75% of white respondents in the mid70s all the way down to just a quarter of white respondents in the mid2010s.

[01:08:27]Still too high, of course. Still too high, but enormous progress. And this is right when the Southern Poverty Law Center is going pedal to the metal, turning the screws on conservative groups and telling everyone that people who disagreed with them on trans issues, gay marriage, Islamism, uh, immigration, like hawkish immigration groups, that they were racist, hateful extremists, and giving the mainstream media basically permission to publish that over many years. Now, here's another this is a good proxy that social scientists have used for many years to gauge racist attitudes. Uh, this is 2021 from Gallup.

[01:09:09]US approval of interracial marriage at new high of 94%. And now look at the progress that has been made since 1958 to 2021. US approval of marriage between black people and white people. This is in the lifespans of many Americans. It went from around 4% of approval to 94% of approval. And just as we're hitting 94%, you go to 2009, it's at 79%.

[01:09:42]Just as we're hitting these historic high levels, you have the Southern Poverty Law Center and the corporate media amplifying these claims that the problems of extremism and hatred and racism are much more significant than they actually are. And it of course adds up to the picture of a group that risk losing its fundraising, putting itself out of business by helping to stamp out uh the remaining racism bigotry in the country that then finds a new grift and says or finds a grift uh as a new model of fundraising. We've seen feminist group do this. For example, um I had a formative experience when I was an intern for Christina Hoff summers at the American Enterprise Institute going through pay gap studies. I think this one was from uh the American Association of University Women that would put one out every August and say the pay gap is 33 cents or whatever. And then you'd get to like the last page of the report and I was looking I remember looking at this as an intern in college and I was uh you know just making sure that Christina's research was correct, double double-checking it. And sure enough, I get to the last page and they say, "Well, when you control for these factors, it's more like 90%." But it's like the fine print that they don't put out to the press. Uh because you can't fund raise off a 10-cent pay gap when you control for all of the mitigating factors in the same way that you can if it's a 33 cent pay gap. And this is something that we see happen all of the time, but the media is never covering it critically.

[01:11:19]So, as I said, there are two real buckets to keep in mind when it comes to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The first uh is this conflation of disagreement with hatred, extremism, and bigotry that it's hard to even quantify. It's hard to actually even wrap your mind around the scale because the SPLC was cited as the preeminent source for so many years by every legacy media outlet with n a uh inkling of credibility or of any of of doubt let's say of skepticism of criticism it was so rare uh that they were ever framed as a partisan source ideological source dubious source like the conservative groups were being portrayed because of the SPLC information uh their BS studies. Uh all of that contributed vastly to this elite cultural understanding of middle America as a place teeming with legitimate bigotry and hatred and of the conservative movement uh teeming with conser with legitimate bigotry and hatred. When in fact it was people who you might disagree with bitterly but do not have hate in their hearts for people based on immutable characteristics or differences. but who you could argue against and you could make the case that they are wrong, but to marginalize them as hateful and bigoted pushed this country to the brink where we are right now. And the Southern Poverty Law Center was one of the biggest players in bringing us to this point. They validated the suspicions of elite media and academics and uh kind of center institutions uh in the political world that actually people who weren't getting behind transgenderism or uh really lenient immigration policies were actually bigots rather than people who had substantive serious disagreements with them because it just makes it so much easier to win an argument when you call people, at least it used to, racist and bigoted instead of saying, "Well, here's why we think a more lenient immigration policy is better than the better for the country." Right? It's a much easier argument to win. It's a it's a shortcut.

[01:13:49]It's a cheat code. At least it used to be. I think that's changing to some extent. The second part of this is now apparently the Southern Poverty Law Center is facing serious allegations that they were the ones, not the conservative groups. The conservative groups weren't funding the clan and unite the right.

[01:14:08]They were accused of it. They were accused of helping to mainstream this bigotry and hatred. But it was actually at the Southern Poverty Law Center allegedly that was making payments to boost the efforts of these people involved in legitimately racist, bigoted, hateful, violent endeavors.

[01:14:27]They got money from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

[01:14:32]Now, we'll determine the scale of the funding. Uh the allegation right now is it's about $3 million. It's not insignificant. Um and there may be more to come.

[01:14:44]But $3 million is again it's not an insignificant figure. Uh it's enough obviously to make a difference and the SPLC made a bigger difference than $3 million could ever buy as it mainstreamed the idea that regular conservatives and and liberals by the way who disagreed with him on trans issues or immigration or Islamism, political radical Islamism were hateful.

[01:15:10]That you couldn't put a price figure on that. You couldn't put a price tag on that. $3 million $3 million. That's pales in comparison to what the SPLC did for the left by convincing elites and folks in the media to take them seriously and credibly launder these allegations of hatred. But now it turns out the SPLC uh was probably funding actual Nazis and racists.

[01:15:43]Like I mentioned earlier, the first time I reported on this was all the way back in 2017, and conservatives have been sounding the alarm about this longer than that. I came in like probably midway into all of this. Uh people like Molly Emmingway have been on top of this for much longer.

[01:16:02]So, we'll see what happens to the $822 million in assets the Southern Poverty Law Center allegedly has. We'll see what happens in this case. But just once and for all, let us dispense with the notion that the Southern Poverty Law Center is a good actor, that they are a credible source on hat, hatred, and extremism.

[01:16:23]What they did to this country is despicable. what they did to individuals like Ayan Hers Ali was despicable and they never deserve to be taken seriously again. And frankly, I hope that there's a flurry of stories from legacy media outlets, although I'm skeptical, looking credibly at their own coverage or looking critically back on their own coverage and the roles that they played in helping to marginalize and anger so many people on the right, myself included, who saw people getting smeared as as hate mongers alongside the KKK and and neo-Nazis for holding mainstream conservative beliefs.

[01:17:05]All the while, conservatives in the entire country were becoming much more tolerant. I mean, again, world historical levels of tolerance for people from different backgrounds here in the United States of America. What the Southern Poverty Law Center did was just despicable and I look forward to this case playing out further. Thank you for indulging me on the Southern Poverty Law Center story. I could keep going. I literally could keep going for like another two hours, but we'll cut it off there tonight. Emily devilmakeria.com is where you can email me questions for happy hour, which I'll be recording Thursday afternoon. So, get your questions in.

[01:17:44]It'll drop on Friday on podcast feeds only. So, if you don't subscribe to the podcast feed, Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast, head on over there to get happy hour. That's where I go through all of your questions. Trust me, there are a lot of tough questions you send in and nothing is off limits. I read just about all of them live on the show. So, get them in. We'll be back with an episode of Happy Hour on Friday.

[01:18:05]Until then, have a great evening, everyone.