Defend The Vote Executive Director Brian Lemek released the following statement on Donald Trump’s weaponization of the Department of Justice to indict the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit legal advocacy organization dedicated to fighting white supremacy and other forms of injustice.
“The Trump regime is attempting to reverse the very definition of civil rights and eliminate the organizations doing actual civil rights work. This is part of a broader, coordinated effort to intimidate and undermine anyone who dares to hold this Administration accountable for the harm it is inflicting on communities across the country.
“At the very moment the Trump Administration is extending clemency and legitimacy to actual extremists, it is attempting to invert reality by targeting organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center—a group that has spent decades exposing and dismantling hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.
“If the stakes were not so serious, the allegations against the SPLC would be absurd. The fact is that this is a dangerous attempt to discredit one of the nation’s most prominent civil rights organizations and to chill the work of those fighting for justice and equality.
“They will not succeed. We are united, we will not back down, and we stand with the Southern Poverty Law Center.”