Trump Administration Is ‘Looking Beyond the SPLC’ to Broader ‘Marxist’ Network: Chip Roy

Rep. Chip Roy told The Daily Signal that the Justice Department’s indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center, while a welcome move, represents just one step in a broader effort the administration has undertaken against leftist groups.

“The indictments are an enormously important step forward and an indication that the administration is taking this seriously,” the Texas Republican member told The Daily Signal in a phone interview Wednesday. Roy said the administration recognizes “the need to not just expose” the Left’s activities but “to actually have consequences” for them.

“We know that there are significant efforts underway across agencies to continue to root out not just SPLC but the vast array of Marxists and leftists that are actively engaging in this activity to undermine our society,” he added. “I think it’s important that the indictments are indicative of what we know of the SPLC but we also know that it’s a much bigger network and the administration does, too.”

“We know that the administration is looking beyond SPLC and are actively engaged in investigations in pursuing the overall network,” Roy concluded.

Roy responded to the DOJ’s indictment, handed down Tuesday, which alleges the SPLC had paid $3 million to a set of “informants” in white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups, including the Ku Klux Klan. The indictment charges the SPLC with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of false statements to banks (regarding shell companies it created to cloak these payments), and one count of conspiracy to commit concealment of money laundering.

Roy called for an investigation into the network of leftist nonprofits funded by Neville Roy Singham, an American billionaire now living in China, after leaders of that network met with the Cuban Communist Party’s politburo.

Roy has called for a select committee in Congress to investigate Antifa and the radical Left’s infrastructure after the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.

“I don’t know how we hold them accountable yet,” he admitted. “We should try, but the one thing I know we must do is expose it.”

“We need to expose it on the national stage for all to see what they’ve been up to and that it’s purposeful and that every American’s life is more in danger or in jeopardy because of it,” he warned.

Roy sent a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and to the chairmen of the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., respectively, on Sept. 11, citing “a sustained breakdown of law and order, fueled not by chance, but by anti-American ideology.”

The letter cites numerous examples of violent threats, including the assassination attempts on President Donald Trump, the shooter that targeted Republican members’ 2017 Congressional Baseball Game practice, crimes committed by illegal aliens, violent riots featuring Antifa, the soft-on-crime approach of prosecutors supported by Hungarian American billionaire George Soros, and more.

The Open Society Foundations, founded by Soros and chaired by his son, Alex, responded to Trump’s recent suggestion that Soros funds violence. The foundations “do not support or fund violent protests,” the group stated. “Allegations to the contrary are false, and the threats against our founder and chair are outrageous.”

Roy’s letter notes that the Southern Poverty Law Center put both Turning Point USA and the conservative Christian nonprofit Family Research Council on a “hate map” with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, only for both organizations to be the target of shootings.

The SPLC, which gained its reputation by suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy in the 1980s, has put nonprofits such as Focus on the Family, PragerU, Moms for Liberty, and more on the “hate map,” saying they form part of the “infrastructure upholding white supremacy.” The SPLC has reportedly engaged in information sharing with Antifa agitators through a mediator, and one of its lawyers was arrested at a Molotov cocktail riot.

The Treasury Department, the IRS, the FBI, and other agencies are reportedly investigating left-wing groups accused of funding or organizing violence.