EXCLUSIVE: Judiciary Committee Threatens to Hold the SPLC in Contempt for Withholding Documents

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The House Judiciary Committee is threatening to hold the Southern Poverty Law Center in contempt of Congress for failing to hand over documents related to the SPLC’s use of “field sources” inside extremist groups and its work with the Justice Department under President Joe Biden.

“The committee has made several good-faith efforts to work with your counsel to obtain documents responsive to the subpoena,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, wrote in a letter to SPLC’s incoming president and CEO Ryan Haygood, first obtained by the Daily Signal. “To date, the committee has still not received any such documents. Therefore, the SPLC must promptly produce all materials responsive to the committee’s subpoena as soon as possible, but not later than 5:00 p.m. on July 9, 2026.”

“The committee is prepared to use available mechanisms to enforce its subpoena,” Jordan concluded.

While Haygood will formally start at the SPLC in late August, the committee told the Daily Signal that the SPLC’s legal team said it is already working with Haygood on this issue.

Jordan had initially demanded documents from the SPLC regarding its impact on civil rights enforcement at the Biden Justice Department.

On April 21, a federal grand jury indicted the SPLC for allegedly directing donor money to support the very white supremacist groups the SPLC raised money by claiming to oppose, and for allegedly lying to a bank about the nature of shell companies it launched in order to fund the “field sources” in the Ku Klux Klan and other groups.

The SPLC claims it was paying these “field sources” as informants to undermine the groups, but the indictment claims the SPLC paid for Klan robes, reimbursed a cross-burning, and paid to convince Klan members not to leave.

The Committee’s Demands of SPLC

On April 23, the committee requested information regarding the SPLC’s “field sources” and its communications with the Biden DOJ. On April 30, the SPLC’s interim CEO, Bryan Fair, responded to the committee, calling the request “quite unusual” and stating that he “needed time to address all the allegations.” On May 5, the SPLC’s Office of the General Counsel requested yet more time. On May 14, the committee reiterated its request.

On May 19, the committee issued a subpoena, demanding by June 3 documents and communications between the SPLC and “field sources,” documents related to “any fictitious entity the SPLC used to pay any ‘field sources,'” documents showing the SPLC’s revenue, and communications between the SPLC and the DOJ, FBI, and other federal agencies under Biden.

On June 1, the SPLC’s lawyers told the committee that the center had taken steps to gather documents but would fail to meet the June 3 deadline. The committee extended the deadline to June 9, when Fair had agreed to testify.

“During Mr. Fair’s testimony before the committee on June 9, 2026, he refused to answer at least 36 times in response to questions related to the committee’s oversight,” Jordan’s letter notes. “When asked about the SPLC’s compliance with the committee’s subpoena, Mr. Fair stated, ‘SPLC’s counsel is working with this committee’s counsel to respond.'”

Fair also “refused to answer numerous questions about the SPLC’s field source program, the shell companies that the SPLC created to pay field sources, and any crimes field sources allegedly committed while on the SPLC’s payroll.”

Critics also accuse the SPLC of comparing mainstream conservative and Christian organizations to the Ku Klux Klan by putting them on a “hate map” with Klan chapters. The FBI under President Donald Trump explicitly disavowed the SPLC last October for this reason.