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The Biden administration’s Department of Justice and FBI were aware that the Southern Poverty Law Center was paying “informants” in the KKK — and according to former Obama official Norm Eisen, that apparently means donors have nothing to be upset about.

The SPLC (which has spent years demonizing conservatives, including The Federalist) was indicted by a federal grand jury last month for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering. The SPLC allegedly funneled millions of dollars it received via donations to pay “a covert network of informants” who were part of “violent extremist groups” such as groups like the KKK. The press release for the indictment alleges that SPLC did not disclose to its donors that “some of their donated money was being used to fund the leaders and organizers of racist groups at the same time that the SPLC was denouncing the same groups on its website.” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement that SPLC was “manufacturing racism to justify its existence.”

But during a virtual press conference Wednesday held by Democracy Defenders Fund, Eisen suggested the SPLC defrauding donors by funding the KKK could not have been wrong because Biden’s justice agencies were aware of it.

Associate Attorney General in the Biden administration Vanita Gupta noted that the indictment describes “the SPLC’s paid informant program inside extremist organizations” which “[as] acting AG Blanche has confirmed, regularly shared information with federal law enforcement, which I can attest to, having been the beneficiary and having our federal prosecutors been the beneficiary of this type of intel.”

(Gupta unironically said SPLC has been working to “keep communities safe from violence and racially motivated terror” despite themselves funding racially motivated terror.)

Eisen then chimed in to suggest that the “grand jury transcripts must be released” so that it can be determined whether the grand jury knew that “the Department of Justice and FBI knew that informants were being utilized and paid by, uh, the SPLC, the whole basis of this indictment” — as if collusion with the federal government makes the funding permissible.

“The claim that SPLC committed financial crimes, when what they’re accused of, using paid informants, is common practice across law enforcement agencies, uh, it does not hold water. That’s particularly true, because, as you’ve heard today, what SPLC was doing was known to the DOJ, and the FBI,” Eisen added.

But just because it was known to the DOJ and FBI doesn’t make the SPLC’s actions right. According to the DOJ’s press release, the SPLC obtained “money via donations through materially false representations and omissions about what the donated funds would be used for.” The SPLC allegedly “opened bank accounts connected to a series of fictitious entities” to “covertly” pay the individuals involved in the scheme. The DOJ alleges such covert accounts “allowed the SPLC to disguise the true nature, source, ownership, and control of the fraudulently obtained donated money the SPLC paid the individuals.”

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