Federal prosecutors dismissed the Southern Poverty Law Center’s claim that it can’t be prosecuted because Donald Trump criticized the organization.
In a Friday court filing, the Department of Justice told a federal judge the SPLC’s legal argument “reads more like a press release” than an actual defense.
The SPLC, represented by nine lawyers including Hunter Biden attorney Abbe Lowell, is charged with allegedly opening bank accounts and transferring money to informants using fake business names. The organization’s defense: Trump called them names on social media, so the prosecution must be politically motivated.
“This Court need not concern itself with parsing the defendant’s allegations.”
According to The New York Times, the SPLC’s lawyers told Judge Emily C. Marks that Trump accused the center of being “one of the greatest political scams in American History” in a social media post after the indictment. The defense claims this proves vindictive prosecution.
The DOJ fired back that prosecutors “sought an indictment in this case because, after law enforcement conducted a proper investigation, the Government believed the defendant committed federal financial crimes that could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Legal experts say vindictive prosecution claims rarely succeed. Lawyer and legal journalist Rory Little has written that “all prosecutions are necessarily the product of selection,” and the legal bar for proving vindictive prosecution violations “is necessarily high.”
Texas A&M law professor William Byrnes told The Federalist in April that “fraud is fraud.” While another administration might not have pursued the same charges, he said, “that doesn’t mean that the crimes aren’t being committed.”
Prosecutors warned that dismissing the case would set a dangerous precedent. If the SPLC’s argument works, they wrote, “any defendant could raise such an amorphous defense against a future criminal charge simply by publicly criticizing the prosecuting agency or the government generally.”
While the SPLC’s vindictive prosecution motion received widespread media coverage, the government’s dismissive response appears to have been entirely ignored by major outlets.
The charges remain allegations. The case has not been proven in court.
