SPLC and USAID

In the comments to the earlier post about the SPLC's criminal problems, I commented: "It sounds like the allegations aren't really about paying for sources, but about paying to create and sustain terrorist and extremist groups because it was useful to have them as a political foil. That's akin to how USAID was using 'aid' money to fund NGOs that were funding all sorts of bad activities. The SPLC was I suppose part of that large NGO archipelago."

That supposition is now confirmed.

USAID was funding the SPLC through an organization called the Tides Center, based in San Francisco.

From 2016 through 2024, USAID granted $27 million to the Tides Network to “strengthen global civil society organizations, promote transparency, accountability, citizen engagement, and serve as fiscal agent for USAID’s Civil Society Innovation Initiative.”

The Tides Center set up a fund through its Tides Foundation with that money for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Vote Your Voice” initiative.

The executive director of the Tides Center is Ayesha Khanna. She was co-chair of Women for Obama in Atlanta, Georgia.

In the comments to AVI's post on the same topic, Tom and I had this exchange:

Tom

They needed an enemy, so they funded one. They became what they hate. Not sure where they go from here. If I recall, they have half a billion dollars in assets. Maybe, I don't know, give it to the poor?

3:49 PM

Grim

Your recollection is incomplete. They have about a quarter billion dollars in assets offshore. They’ve been moving them offshore aggressively for a decade— since just about the time of Unite the Right, I suppose.

https://freebeacon.substack.com/p/southern-poverty-law-centers-murky

6:02 PM

Tom

I stand corrected. Again. Still. 

Not still: even more. This sudden move to aggressively offshoring its wealth now looks strongly like knowledge of guilt, and a recognition that this wealth needed to be protected by being put beyond the ability of a future US government to target as a part of a prosecution like this. Last time I was questioning whether there was a real crime to target: now I see that they themselves appear to have recognized that there was a crime, and that they needed to offshore a lot of money in defense against future prosecution.