Yesterday the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was indicted by a grand jury on charges of misappropriating funds to pay off "field sources"(informants) within white supremacist groups.
While the SPLC had operated a network of informants since the '80s, the illicit payments spanned from 2014 to 2023 and amounted to more than $3 million. It appears that many of the so-called informants were in fact leaders of said white supremacist groups, including at least one organizer of the Charlottesville rally.
In other words, it appears that some racists were effectively under the SPLC's payroll and promoted racism, especially highly public acts of racism, under the SPLC's directive, presumably with the goal of convincing lawmakers of the need to fund organizations like the SPLC.
The indictment can be read here:
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.almd.90265/gov.uscourts.almd.90265.1.0.pdf