Like the Media Research Center, Newsmax cheered the Trump Department of Justice’s indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center. In addition to a main story by Jim Thomas and a summary of the charges, it had on a right-wing politician to lash out at the SPLC:
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., Tuesday on Newsmax called the federal indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center “pretty explosive,” saying it reinforces long-standing concerns from conservatives about the group’s activities.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center has been just a sham organization for a long time, going after conservative groups and mislabeling them and trying to generate a lot of hate against those groups,” Schmitt told “Rob Schmitt Tonight.”
[…]Schmitt said the allegations fit a broader pattern.
“And now we find out that they were actually funding actual groups in order to, I guess, to keep their racket going and the grift going,” he said. “So, I can’t say I’m surprised.”
The Missouri Republican added that he believes the case could lead to wider scrutiny of nonprofit and political funding networks.
This was followed by an article featuring a top DOJ official crowing about the indictment in another Newsmax TV appearance:
A federal indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center should “shock everybody in this country,” acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche told Newsmax.
Blanche, speaking Wednesday on Newsmax’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” said the grand jury indictment alleges the organization spent more than $3 million over a decade on payments to individuals tied to groups it publicly claimed to oppose.
“You have a situation where you have an organization actively raising money for years and years and years, promising that their sole purpose was to root out racism,” Blanche said.
There was also an article from the apparently unironically named Charlie McCarthy hyping how President Trump was “declaring that if the allegations prove true, the 2020 presidential election should be ‘permanently wiped from the books.'”
An April 29 column by Steve Levy complained that he was targeted b y the SPLC:
This writer speaks from personal experience as how deplorable the SPLC has become.
How?
I was victimized by the seemingly, highly-questionable tactics of this far left-wing organization when I was a county executive trying to fight illegal immigration spreading across Long Island, New York.
Radical groups and the illegal immigration lobby pushed the SPLC to conduct a so-called “investigation” of our administration’s efforts to crack down on our county’s illegal underground economy.
The report issued was filled with inaccuracies painting a false narrative of the people of Suffolk County and its leaders, in order for the group to solicit more campaign donations.
Levy made some alleged corrections to claims the SPLC made, but he didn’t correct the main claim it made about him:
County Executive Steve Levy (right) has taken his share of criticism for not only failing to protect the county’s Latino community but for fanning the flames of bigotry. An investigation by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2009 documented widespread violence against Latinos in the county and cited the indifference of local authorities. The U.S. Department of Justice soon thereafter launched an investigation into discriminatory policing in the county.
Now come explosive new allegations from the former commander of the police unit charged with solving hate crimes in the county.
In a Newsday column this past Sunday, Detective Sgt. Robert Reecks told the paper that Levy whitewashed bias crimes and hindered the Suffolk County Hate Crimes Unit’s work. Reecks’ 13-year tenure heading the unit ended abruptly two weeks ago; he is now its deputy commander.
[…]Reecks alleged further improprieties, including that Levy’s office altered press releases designed to aid hate crime investigations and that Levy failed to notify the public of solved hate crimes. Reecks also said that Levy’s administration tried to pressure him not to speak to DOJ officials investigating the alleged discriminatory policing against Latinos on Long Island without a representative of the county executive present (Reecks ultimately did testify alone).
Levy released a statement responding to Reecks’ allegations, which he called “replete with falsehoods and devoid of numerous crucial facts.”
Nevertheless, Levy concluded:
Whether or not feds succeed in this indictment, the bloom has been forever lost from the SPLC rose.
Their historic efforts to chill the speech of conservatives are hopefully buried forever.
Levy clearly wants to chill the speech of anyone who disagrees with him.