And that's pretty bad pic.twitter.com/FKMzKHTxES
— Tina ✨ (@Tina22_2) April 25, 2026
A federal grand jury in Alabama last week handed up an 11 count fraud indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC is either famous or infamous, depending on your point of view, for what it describes as its fight against racism. I’ve seen two brilliant takes on the indictment, both by friends of mine. The first is from Mark Pulliam writing in the Spectator; the second from Hoover Institution Fellow (former UCLA law professor) Eugene Volokh, writing on his blog, The Volokh Conspiracy. I’m going to present both, then give my take, as a former federal prosecutor, on the bona fides of the prosecution.
This is going to be a long entry, but I think it’s worth it both because of the extremely important subject matter — the putative weaponization of law — and the unusual insight and honesty with which both Pulliam and Volokh approach the topic (although they reach different conclusions).