Lawmakers accuse Justice Department of rushing SPLC indictment, citing whistleblower reports

By Tierney Sneed, CNN

(CNN) — Lawmakers have received whistle blower reports accusing a top Justice Department official of pressuring prosecutors to work quickly to indict the Southern Poverty Law Center despite misgivings about the case, House Democrats said in a new letter to the official, Associate Deputy Attorney General Aakash Singh.

Reps. Jamie Raskin and Mary Gay Scanlon are demanding that Singh provide information about the investigation, while arguing that the indictment amounted to a “shocking abuse of prosecutorial power to attack civil society.”

The Justice Department alleges in the criminal case brought last month that the Southern Poverty Law Center — which has drawn the ire of President Donald Trump and other Republicans for labeling right-wing organizations as hate groups — defrauded donors by not informing them of secret payments to hate group members to act as informants.

The SPLC has denied the allegations, and the Democrats described the indictment in the letter as “makeshift and nonsensical.”

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to comment for this story.

“DOJ’s exercise in gaslighting-by-indictment also requires America to bury its head in the sand and pretend SPLC’s payments to infiltrate white nationalist groups were meant to support them, despite evidence to the contrary presented in its charging document,” the House Democrats said.

The Democrats also sent a letter to Acting US Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama Kevin P. Davidson, whose office brought the case, seeking information about the investigation.

The new letters preview what Democrats will prioritize if they retake the House this year and get subpoena power.

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