Benson Oversaw SPLC While It Allegedly Funded Nazis
The Feds say the Southern Poverty Law Center paid millions to extremist groups while she was on the board
Who paid for the tiki torches that August weekend in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia?
Based on a federal indictment that dropped this week, the chaos we witnessed that weekend was at least partially funded—and fomented—by the Southern Poverty Law Center while Jocelyn Benson was a board member with an oversight role.
Benson joined the SPLC board in 2014, while dean of Wayne Law School in Detroit, and departed in 2019, shortly after becoming Michigan Secretary of State. In the late 1990s, Benson cut her teeth at the SPLC, gaining the trust of a neo-Nazi in South Carolina, then exposing his alleged Jewish heritage.
The whole idea of the Southern Poverty Law Center is that they hunt down extremists. But according to the U.S. Department of Justice, the center takes it a step further. It reportedly funds and creates extremism, then cries foul, then enlists law enforcement to do its bidding.
The federal indictment covers the entirety of Benson’s tenure on the board. It reads in part:
“Between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC secretly funneled more than $3 million in donated funds to individuals who were associated with various violent extremist groups including:
- Ku Klux Klan
- United Klans of America
- Unite the Right
- National Alliance
- National Socialist Movement
- Aryan Nations affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club
- National Socialist Party of America (American Nazi Party)
- American Front”
Unite the Right held the Charlottesville rally. One woman died after a driver plowed into her and dozens were injured.
The feds accuse the Southern Poverty Law Center of wire fraud, but their offense is much greater than that. Infiltrators were sent specifically to bring the mob to a boil. Someone throws a brick; next thing you know, the mob is throwing bricks.
Jocelyn Benson has a personal history of creating extremism where none existed.
Her memoir, “Purposeful Warrior,” starts with Benson recounting the time armed protesters showed up outside her home in Detroit, taking issue with the results of the 2020 election.
Just one problem: According to the Detroit Police Department, there were no armed protesters.
“I know there were people who did congregate outside the residence to protest, and we did not see any weapons,” Sgt. Nicole Kirkwood, a spokeswoman for the Detroit Police Department, told National Review at the time.
Jocelyn Benson’s entire career—from the work she did at Southern Poverty Law Center as an intern, then as a board member, and even during her time as Secretary of State—has benefited from accusations of extremism that are either fake or fabricated.
A liberal white woman who play-acts as a descendant of the Civil Rights Movement, Jocelyn Benson faced one basic problem after graduating college: The demand for racism far outweighed the supply.
So they made it up, and allegedly even funded it.
And now Benson’s origin story must be viewed in a new light. This is not a white woman who got into “good trouble” fighting racism. This is a bored woman who made a career move overseeing its creation.
