Southern Poverty Law Center targeted by FAIR in formal legal complaint

Jeff Dunetz writes at The Lid,

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is over-the-line liberal loony-toons organization posing as a civil rights charity who exists by the motto “If you are a conservative you are a racist or some other type of bigot. One target of the SPLC has had enough. The Federation for American Immigration Reform, known as FAIR, has filed a formal legal complaint with the IRS claiming that the SPLC was engaging in political activity as opposed to the educational activity allowed per the 501(C)(3) tax exemption rules(complaint embedded below).

“The SPLC went way over the line in this last election. It publicly engaged in deep, deliberate, and unlawful participation during the 2016 presidential election cycle, flagrantly violating its non-profit tax status,” alleges FAIR President Dan Stein. “The IRS should investigate all of these instances, and take appropriate steps to either sanction and fine the SPLC, or remove its tax-exempt status as a public charity. We are alleging – via meticulously detailed documented evidence – that it repeatedly engaged in widespread, illegal electioneering in 2015 and 2016,” he said.

Stein noted the SPLC used its website and homepage to overtly try to directly discredit Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, alleging in instance after instance that Trump was unworthy of voter support. The SPLC used its tried and true formula of opinion-based smears and innuendos – tactics that it claims shield it from liability suits – to engage in blatant political activity masquerading as “teaching tolerance.” The complaint reiterates that “smear[ing] by association” is a “primary technique” of the SPLC and, in this case, one clearly and obviously intended to sway public opinion against candidate Trump and other campaigns.

…These and other communications documented in the complaint clearly lacked any educational and public-interest value and instead were part of an overt, ongoing, orchestrated effort to sway voters in their voting preferences.
“Clearly, the primary goal of the SPLC in 2016 was to ensure that Donald J. Trump was not elected president,” said Stein. “Any honest examination of this record can only lead to the conclusion that the SPLC was engaged in on-going prohibited political activity.”

Read more here.