The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a civil rights organization, has asked a federal court to silence acting Attorney General Todd Blanche after he allegedly made false statements on Fox News.
Last week, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Alabama secured an indictment against the SPLC, alleging that the organization paid the leaders of racist organizations.
"That same evening, Acting Attorney General Blanche appeared as a guest on the widely viewed Fox News program The Ingraham Angle," SPLC's lawyers noted in a motion on Tuesday. "During the program, Acting Attorney General Blanche claimed—falsely—that the government did not have information to suggest that the SPLC had shared information it learned from the informants with law enforcement."
During the interview, Blanche insisted that there was "no information that we have that suggests that the money they were paying to these informants and these members of these organizations, they then turned around and shared what they learned with law enforcement."
For its part, the SPLC insisted that Blanche's statements were false and "must be corrected" because its attorneys "provided information to the government demonstrating unequivocally that the SPLC had shared information from its informants with law enforcement."
"In fact, the prosecutors in this case knew of specific instances when the SPLC provided information to law enforcement to thwart, stop, or otherwise help dismantle the activities of those racist groups," the motion stated. "Acting Attorney General Blanche’s false statement gives rise to the concern that the grand jury heard evidence which incorrectly represented that the SPLC never shared information received from informants with the government, as well as arguments premised on that erroneous assertion."
"The Department of Justice is well aware that the SPLC provided helpful information, through the use of its confidential informants, to law enforcement. The Department of Justice also knows that these confidential informants helped law enforcement put violent extremists in jail," the document added. "There can be nothing more fundamental to our system of justice than the obligation of an officer of the court to tell the truth and to refrain from making false statements."
The SPLC concluded by asking the court to remedy what it alleged were Blanche's "violations."
"The defense respectfully requests that this Court take some form of remedial action to minimize external influence on potential jurors, to protect the SPLC’s right to a fair trial, to deter further misconduct and to protect the integrity of the federal court," the group's motion said.
An order was sought requiring Blanche to retract his allegedly false statements and "refrain from making any further false or misleading statements about the allegations in the indictment."