Trump DOJ INSTANTLY BACKPEDALS as Case FALLS APART?!?!

Added: 2026-05-08

[00:00:00]Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch is backpedaling on his allegations against the Southern Poverty Law Center.

[00:00:08]You may remember that when the SPLC was indicted, Blanch went to a press conference and he told reporters that the SPLC informants program was manufacturing the racism that they were supposed to fight. According to the charges in the indictment, the SPLC is a nonprofit 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. As the indictment describes, the SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose.

[00:00:52]>> But Blanch went even further on national television where he told Laura Ingram this.

[00:00:58]>> There's no allegation or information in the indictment that suggests they shared that information with law enforcement.

[00:01:05]They have communicated.

[00:01:06]>> They said they did.

[00:01:07]>> Well, they have communicated when they so chose with law enforcement over the years. There is no information that we have that suggests that the money that they were paying to these informants and these members of these organizations, they then turned around and shared what they learned with law enforcement. To the contrary, or else we would have known from their own words that they had given this money to uh to these guys and we didn't know it. Let's unpack that a little. Blanch is saying that he had no information suggesting that SPLC informants gathered information that the civil rights group passed on to federal law enforcement. Because if they did that, if they helped dismantle hate groups by gathering information through informants to combat them, that he would have known about it. But he didn't.

[00:01:52]Blanch was forced to admit recently that that's not true. and he was forced to admit it after the SPLC provided evidence to a federal judge that they informed prosecutors about this weeks before their indictment and that they had been cooperating with federal law enforcement and helping federal law enforcement take down extremists for decades. Weeks before the indictment, under signed counsel provided information to the government, demonstrating unequivocally that the SPLC had shared information from its informants with law enforcement. End quote.

[00:02:30]So the SPLC's attorneys are saying, "Hey, we sat down with federal prosecutors in Alabama weeks before the indictment. We were aware of this investigation and we shared the fruits of the SPLC's informance program with the federal government, so they should have known about it before Blanch went on national TV claiming it didn't happen. The motion continues, quote, "The government's false statement is highly material to the charges. The indictment alleges that the SPLC was paying informants not to dismantle racist groups, but instead paid informants who were engaged in the act of promotion of racist groups. In fact, the prosecutors in this case knew of specific instances when the SPLC provided information to law enforcement to thwart, stop, and otherwise help dismantle the activities of those racist groups. End quote. And the SPLC shared highly detailed, highly specific information about when they shared information with federal law enforcement before Cash Patel dismantled that program in October of last year. And one of the ways that the SPLC informance program helped tip off federal law enforcement about extremist activity was the 2017 Charlottesville hate rally, also known as Unite the Right. That was the hate rally where neo-Nazis, clansmen, and other white supremacists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, and paraded with tiki torches around a statue of Robert E. ly chanting, "Jews will not replace us." intimidating people around them, assaulting a black bystander, and of course, murdering peaceful protester Heather Hire. It led to several criminal prosecutions and convictions, a civil lawsuit against the organizers and participants, resulting in a multi-million dollar verdict.

[00:04:37]There's an intense public record on this. It is not a hoax like Trump and Caroline Levit have claimed.

[00:04:48]So, how did the SPLC informant, what was the informant's role in it? Well, if you listen to Trump and his surrogates, this was a hoax manufactured by the informant. You mentioned the Charlottesville hoax, John. It's a brilliant point because that is one of the most vicious and egregious smears that has been used against President Trump over the course of the past 11 years since he got himself into politics. Uh, and this group funded uh some of the funders of that hoax. Now, here's the reality. The indictment doesn't allege anything close to that.

[00:05:26]It doesn't even allege that this informant did anything to organize the rally. At most, he was part of a chat group that included organizers and helped arrange transportation for several people. There were hundreds of attendees, perhaps more than a thousand.

[00:05:47]And he helped several people attend and attend himself. So, what did the informant do? How did he help the SPLC?

[00:05:58]Apparently, according to the SPLC, information gathered from this informant resulted in a 45page event alert that the SPLC handed to the FBI. This dossier included the names of some of the people who are expected to attend, their pictures, their associations, their criminal histories, and their weapons of choice. That is to say, information gathered by this informant helped alert law enforcement about who was going to be at the rally, their criminal histories, and if they were carrying weapons, what kind of weapons would they have carried?

[00:06:42]Who knows how much that information stopped the 2017 Charlottesville rally from spiraling even more out of control, being even more deadly than it could have been if not for that information shared from the informance program.

[00:07:00]What else did the SPLC informance program accomplish? According to court filings, the SPLC says that it thwarted a terrorist attack in Las Vegas where a white supremacist named Connor Climo was planning to attack a synagogue and an LGBTQ bar. Here was the coverage of that thwarted attack at the time.

[00:07:22]>> Who admitted to planning attacks on a local synagogue and the Las Vegas LGBTQ community has been sentenced to two years in prison. When he gets out, Connor Kleimo will also spend three years on probation. The 24year-old pleaded guilty to possessing parts for a destructive device. The FBI says he held online discussions with white supremacist groups about using explosives and Molotov cocktails on a s synagogue and LGBTQ bar. Because in part of the SPLC informance program, Connor Climo was forced to serve a 2year sentence. There was a long term of supervised release. A terrorist attack was thwarted and the synagogue and gay bar in Las Vegas were protected. The SPLC says their information also led to the arrest of a white supremacist who was seeking a security clearance in the Philadelphia Navy Yard. And this really must be emphasized. The Trump Justice Department doesn't dispute any of this. The SPLC disclosed all of this information in court filings. The government replied to those court filings. They didn't dispute anything that the SPLC said about the fruits of their informance program. And this might be the tip of the iceberg.

[00:08:46]There's a long legal process ahead of us. This is just what the SPLC is in is disclosing about its informance program at the beginning saying that we shared this information with federal prosecutors before they indicted us.

[00:09:02]And so they didn't dispute that the SPLC helped prepare federal law enforcement for Charlottesville, that they helped thwart a terrorist attack, and they helped lead to arrests. And as a matter of fact, Blanch implicitly acknowledged this on national television about 5 days after he spoke to Laura Ingram.

[00:09:23]>> And it is true that over the years they have selectively shared information with law enforcement. That's that's well documented and and there's no dispute there. They aren't charged with any of that conduct.

[00:09:33]>> Notice what Blanch is saying here. He's saying that the SPLC shared information with federal law enforcement, a thing that he denied 5 days earlier. But he's not just saying shared information. He's saying selectively shared information.

[00:09:50]What does that even mean? Of course, the SPLC selected the information that they would share with federal law enforcement. the information that would be of interest to federal law enforcement. It It seems like a backhanded way to admit he was wrong and take another swipe at an indicted defendant long before a trial.

[00:10:15]But the Trump Justice Department says this is enough. There's no need for a federal judge to order the government to detract the false statement and order them to honor the pre-trial rights of the accused because Blanch went on TV again and he he fixed his error. No harm, no foul. Here's what the Trump DOJ wrote in a recent court filing. To the extent that any clarification was needed, Attorney General Blanch's remarks on a major Sunday television program certainly suffice. Regarding the SPLC's second relief request, the United States of America has no intention of making any false or misleading statements in this case or any other case. It is well aware of its obligations under the law and applicable rules and will act accordingly." End quote. There's no apology, no retraction.

[00:11:11]And Blanch gave his amended statement to a smaller audience. No offense to Shannon Bream, who is a host of a highly rated Sunday morning program, but it's a much smaller audience than that of Laura Ingram, where Todd Blanch gave the false, disparaging statement that Blanch now admits was a smear, that he said something about the SPLC that wasn't true long before a trial, and in correcting himself, attacked the SPLC again. And prosecutors claim that's enough to satisfy their obligations to honor and and respect a defendant's right to a fair trial. We'll see what a federal judge has to say about that. This segment was made possible because I am constantly pouring over the public record, looking at what officials are saying, and putting it into deep context. If you want to help support that work and make sure that I'm on the ground in Alabama when this case goes to trial, take a moment right now and visit www.allisenews.com or Allrise News on Substack. If you become a free or paid subscriber, you help me complete that mission and be on the ground throughout the country about the cases that matter. Also consider uh making sure that you don't miss any other videos like this by becoming a subscriber to Legal AF. Can't get your fill of legal AF? Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF Substack. Every time we mention something in a hottake, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the Substack.

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