George Clooney’s $1M Donation To SPLC Now Tied To Funding The Hate He Meant To Fight

Political activist George Clooney and his wife, Amal, were major donors to the ultra-left nonprofit advocacy group, Southern Poverty Law Center, which was just indicted on suspicion of funding the same white nationalists it claimed to be fighting against. 

Clooney has not made a public statement in the wake of the bombshell allegations against SPLC. 

In an indictment made public on Tuesday, the SPLC stands accused of secretly using donated funds to pay leaders within racist groups. One of the SPLC’s informants was a member of the leadership team of a white supremacist group that planned the rally in Charlottesville, according to the Justice Department.

The informant was paid more than $270,000 by the SPLC between 2015 and 2023 and was part of a group chat created for those who were planning the “Unite the Right” rally in 2017 — which included neo-Nazis and Klansmen. 

That rally in Charlottesville has long been used as proof that white supremacy is still rampant in the United States — and was even cited by former President Joe Biden as the reason he felt compelled to run for president in 2020 — but the indictment spurs questions about how much of the “threat” was actually bought and paid for by the very people claiming to fight against it.

Clooney donated a whopping $1 million through his Clooney Foundation for Justice in an effort “to combat hate groups” in the wake of the Charlottesville incident, SPLC noted at the time.

“We are proud to support the Southern Poverty Law Center in its efforts to prevent violent extremism in the United States. What happened in Charlottesville, and what is happening in communities across our country, demands our collective engagement to stand up to hate,” the Clooneys said in a statement in 2017.

“Like George and Amal Clooney, we were shocked by the size, ugliness, and ferocity of the white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville,” SPLC President Richard Cohen echoed in a news release at the same time. “It was a reflection of just how much Trump’s incendiary campaign and presidency has energized the radical right. We are deeply grateful to the Clooney Foundation for standing with us at this critical moment in our country’s fight against hate.”

The SPLC is charged with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of making false statements to a federally insured bank, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.