GOP accuses White House of behind-the-scenes push to have conservative groups labeled 'extremist'

Florida Republicans think the Biden administration may have played a role in the Southern Poverty Law Center categorizing the conservative group Moms for Liberty as an "extremist" group, ABC45 reported.

The SPLC released its 2022 "Year In Hate" report earlier this month and added several groups to its "hate map," which includes the Ku Klux Klan. Added to the list was Moms for Liberty, which has been at the forefront of protests against materials that promote LGBTQ and race issues in public school classrooms.

MFL, and another similar group that was added to the list, Parents Defending Education, reacted to the SPLC's categorization, saying that it is "neither hateful nor extreme to raise concerns" about their children's education.

Now Republicans think the White House was influencing the SPLC.

In a letter written to President Biden on Wednesday, Florida Republicans led by Sen. Marco Rubio said that Susan Corke, the SPLC official behind the 2022 "Year in Hate" list, met with a leader of the U.S. National Security Council (NSC) earlier this year.

"This meeting raises serious questions as to whether the White House encouraged SPLC to work on behalf of the administration to label parental rights groups and organizations as 'extremist groups,'" the letter reads.

Republicans want to know the "purpose" of the alleged meeting between Corke and NSC and whether White House officials incentivized SPLC to label parent groups "extremist." They also said it follows a pattern of the White House targeting "concerned parents for scrutinizing decisions from local education leaders" -- a likely reference to a since-retracted National School Boards Association (NSBA) letter saying certain parents who showed up to school board meetings partook in "domestic terrorism and hate crimes," which prompted Attorney General Merrick Garland to get law enforcement involved.

The SPLC has been the subject of controversies and criticism over the fairness in which it issues its rulings multiple times in the past. The organization itself has been accused of fostering an environment that allowed for "mistreatment, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and racism" within its ranks. In 2018, the SPLC issued a public apology to Maajid Nawaz for including him on a list of anti-Muslim extremists. Nawaz was a former Islamist who reformed himself and works to de-radicalize Islamists. On Aug.15, 2012, a gunman opened fire at the headquarters for the evangelical activist group Family Research Council in D.C. and wounded a security guard, later telling the FBI that he targeted the FRC because they were on the SPLC's hate map.