Washington, D.C. — The Trump Justice Department filed criminal charges against a civil rights organization — for the same informant work it once shared directly with the FBI. The Treasury Department moved to strangle the infrastructure nonprofits depend on to launch. And one of the administration’s favorite targets responded to months of threats by announcing a nine-figure commitment to the very work it was threatened over. The administration is escalating, and so are its targets.
DOJ RETALIATES AGAINST SPLC’S HATE GROUP INVESTIGATIONS
The SPLC was indicted in April on fraud and money laundering charges for allegedly misleading donors by paying informants inside extremist organizations. This week the group filed a motion to dismiss, arguing the charges are the “latest manifestation of a top-down, retributive campaign” in which Trump directed the Justice Department to target his political enemies. The evidence for that case keeps mounting. The DOJ pursued the indictment without interviewing a single current SPLC employee and rushed the process over whistleblower objections.
At the press conference announcing charges, Trump’s former personal lawyer and current Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche stood before cameras and falsely claimed the DOJ had “no information” about the SPLC sharing intel with law enforcement. The SPLC had provided informant tips to the DOJ in at least two cases before charges were filed.
The same informant work that once made the SPLC a valued FBI partner – helping dismantle Klan chapters and map neo-Nazi networks across the country – is now the basis for a criminal indictment. The Justice Department didn’t find new evidence. It found a new boss. The SPLC is drawing a direct parallel to the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case, which a federal judge threw out on vindictive prosecution grounds after finding DOJ charged him solely because he successfully sued for his return from El Salvador. That parallel is going to be hard for the DOJ to argue away in court.
TREASURY TAKES AIM AT NONPROFIT INFRASTRUCTURE
Last month the Treasury Department announced plans to redesign Form 990 to target fiscal sponsors, the organizations that provide administrative and financial oversight for roughly 12,000 charitable projects that don’t yet have formal charity status. Treasury Secretary Bessent framed the move as ending “fraud, abuse, and extremist activity” by “rogue organizations.” Bessent is a hedge fund manager whose clients benefit directly from the tax structures nonprofits use – not exactly an unbiased watchdog.
What Bessent is describing as a loophole is actually the infrastructure through which new civil society organizations enter the philanthropic system: community groups, advocacy projects, grassroots coalitions that don’t yet have the staff or resources to incorporate independently.
Fiscal sponsorship channels approximately $2.6 billion in philanthropic funds and $575 million in government funding annually to projects that would otherwise have no way to accept donations or grants. The new reporting requirements would make that model unworkable for the groups that depend on it most, which is exactly their goal. The administration doesn’t need to shut down every organization it dislikes. It just needs to cut off the pathways through which new ones form – at exactly the moment it is also defunding and investigating the ones that already exist. What Bessent calls transparency is actually a kill switch.
FACING ADMINISTRATION THREATS, ONE MAJOR FUNDER BETS $330 MILLION ON DEMOCRACY
Trump identified George Soros by name when he ordered the FBI to crack down on “left-wing terrorism,” and federal prosecutors were directed to weigh charges against Open Society Foundations including racketeering, wire fraud, and material support for terrorism. The message was explicit: fund the opposition and face the government.
In response, OSF announced a $330 million commitment to defend democratic rights and advance economic security over the next five years, with $20 million already deployed in 2026 to groups including Democracy Defenders Action, Democracy Forward, and the Interfaith Alliance. The foundation also announced a separate $30 million initiative to counter antisemitism and anti-Muslim hate.
The strategy is deliberate. By pairing civil rights protections with economic well-being, OSF challenges an administration that frames protecting democratic norms as an elite concern, not a kitchen-table issue. The administration bet that threats would produce retreat. They didn’t.
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