Informants Don’t Sleep Over – Despite What’s Apparently Going on at the SPLC
A June 2026 federal superseding indictment in the Middle District of Alabama adds a detail to the Southern Poverty Law Center fraud case that breaks the usual defense. It alleges that the SPLC official identified as “Employee-2” — reported to be the group’s former director of intelligence — was in a romantic relationship with a paid source identified as “F-9,” who had infiltrated a neo-Nazi organization. The two allegedly shared a house and two bank accounts. Between 2015 and 2021, approximately $140,000 in donor money allegedly flowed from the SPLC operating account into those joint accounts — about 66% of all money ever deposited into them — and was allegedly used to pay the couple’s personal living expenses. All of it, supposedly, tax-deductible, at a 501(c)(3) operating under the IRS.
“Paying informants is normal — it’s just like the FBI,” the defense says. Only the FBI is like the FBI; your bowling league can’t decide to wiretap people. And ordinary intelligence practice has hard rules this conduct allegedly breaks: you do not get personally involved with your asset, and you never commingle money with a source — because the day you do, you can no longer certify that anything the source gave you is clean. The SPLC has denied wrongdoing, and these are allegations, not convictions. The question to watch is whether the joint-account and relationship facts move this from a fraud case into something that discredits the underlying intelligence itself.
Eric Garland is an intelligence analyst personally sanctioned by the Russian Federation in May 2022 for his work on Russian intelligence operations. He is the author of the 2016 “Game Theory” thread, named by The New York Times as one of the 25 most important tweets in history.
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SOURCES
United States v. Southern Poverty Law Center, M.D. Ala. — superseding indictment, June 2026
U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs — statement, June 2026
CBS News — “Justice Dept. obtains superseding indictment against Southern Poverty Law Center,” June 2026
NPR — “SPLC charged with defrauding donors with payments to extremist informants,” April 21, 2026
The Washington Times — reporting on the SPLC informant program, June 9, 2026
New York Post — reporting on Employee-2 / F-9, June 16, 2026
