Newsome reacts to SPLC amid federal indictment: ‘Calling us domestic terrorists while they’re paying the f***ng KKK’
On April 21, a federal grand jury in Alabama indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center on charges including wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy. Prosecutors allege the SPLC funneled more than $3 million between 2014 and 2023 to individuals tied to groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations and National Alliance through shell entities, while misleading donors about how funds were used.
In the year before the indictment, LGIS publications including DuPage Policy Journal and Prairie State Wire reported on the SPLC’s activities in Illinois, including a piece examining alleged connections between Antifa and the SPLC in Chicago.
One of those stories featured Downers Grove parent activist Terry Newsome, who said he experienced negative personal and professional impacts following articles about him published by the SPLC.
“They're calling us domestic terrorists while they're paying the fucking KKK to go pretend they're us, to come after us, to hurt us,” Newsome told the DuPage Policy Journal in the wake of the indictment. “So they're first trying to discredit us as parents in the community, all of us, and then they're gonna use and hire the KKK to show up at our events to further discredit, and they're the real bad ones.”
Authorities allege in a federal indictment that the SPLC concealed financial activity through a network of shell entities and bank accounts, stating that “the SPLC opened bank accounts connected to a series of fictitious entities” which “allowed the SPLC to disguise the true nature, source, ownership, and control of the fraudulently obtained donated money.”
Prosecutors further claim the payments included more than $1 million to a member of the National Alliance and over $270,000 tied to a “Unite the Right” rally organizer in Charlottesville, while in some cases those individuals were simultaneously promoted publicly, with at least one recipient simultaneously “featured on the SPLC's ‘Extremist File’ webpage.”
The indictment also alleges donors were misled and not told their funds were used “to pay high-level leaders of violent extremist groups,” through fictitious businesses. Prosecutors further said the scheme’s “financial transactions were designed to conceal the true nature, source, ownership, and control of the donated funds.”
SPLC’s indictment is amplifying such claims from activists like Newsome who says he was targeted and negatively impacted by the SPLC’s efforts.
In 2021, Newsome emerged as a parent activist opposing sexually explicit materials in school libraries after protesting Community Unit School District 99 school board meetings over animated pornography, sometimes depicting juveniles engaged in alternative sexual lifestyles, in library materials in the district where his twin sons were enrolled.
By November 2022, Newsome appeared in an SPLC “Hatewatch” article by Chicago-based researcher Jeff Tischauser, which linked his school activism to broader allegations of extremist associations and rhetoric.
Newsome said he was labeled a “‘domestic terrorist’ after the Southern Poverty Law Center published that story" and that the SPLC's reporting was pivotal in his public emergence as an activist.
“When I first started at the Downers Grove thing and then Jeff Tischauser came after me and wrote that SPLC story, I was devastated at the time,” Newsome said.
Newsome said the SPLC’s coverage later led to him being terminated by his employer.
“(Tischauser) was doing that to try to demonize us, just like they do with everyone else,” Newsome said.
Instead of stepping away, Newsome leaned further into the political ecosystem. He became a Republican precinct committeeman, launched the “Behind Enemy Lines” podcast, and has since served as an informal advisor to Republican politicians locally and on the national scene.
Newsome (right) sits down with U.S. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) (left). (Terry Newsome)
He also reportedly became a target of activists and was subjected to threats of physical harm. Newsome described what he called a broader pattern of targeting, noting the FBI had a working relationship with the SPLC, specifically during the Biden administration.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center would go out and teach the FBI, state, and local governments,” Newsome said
He claimed there was a partisan bias and disparity in the SPLC’s work with the FBI and other government leaders.
“They were teaching them who the domestic terrorists are, the dangers,” Newsome said. “And it's all of us. But it's not Antifa. It's not the BLM.”
In the month’s after Tischauser’s article, Newsome said he was also visited by the FBI who asked about his activities on Jan. 6, 2021.
“They showed up under the pretense of protecting my free speech, but they knew they threatened me, so that’s why they showed up on my front porch,” Newsome, who said he was a passive observer during the Jan. 6, 2021, protest leading up to the Capitol riot in Washington, D.C., said.
Newsome said the FBI agents said they were there due to threats from Antifa, but their investigation quickly turned to Newsome’s whereabouts on Jan. 6.
“I go, ‘you guys know, it's been two years. You know I didn't go inside there,’” Newsome said.
He claims this relationship likely led to him being flagged by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) during air travel.
He recalled a time when he was traveling with his family and was pulled aside by a TSA agent.
“You're on a list with really bad people,” he recalled being told by the TSA employee.
Newsome pointed to unanswered inquiries from lawmakers, including former Florida Congressman and current One America News Network (OANN) host Matt Gaetz, who sent a demand letter on his behalf.
“They never answer him,” Newsome said. “So you think if I was made a terrorist, they would say, well, this is what he did. They never even answered them.”
Newsome and former Florida Congressman and current One America News Network (OANN) host Matt Gaetz. (Terry Newsome)
Newsome said the FBI under Biden also did not respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request he lodged in the matter.
“Then I got the FOIA asking the FBI...am I on a domestic terrorist watch list?” he said. “And they refused to answer me.”
In Oct. 2025, the FBI, under Director Kash Patel, severed all ties with the SPLC, ending information-sharing and confirmed it no longer was using the SPLC’s intelligence products or maintaining contact with the organization.
A June 2025 Prairie State Wire article also featured criticism of the SPLC after it included Turning Point USA, founded by Charlie Kirk, in its “Year in Hate and Extremism” report, prompting backlash from Kirk, who called it a “cheap smear” and a “scam,” and from Elon Musk, who also labeled the organization a “scam organization.”
Months later, Kirk, an Illinois native, was assassinated in front of a crowd of thousands at a Utah university event, allegedly by a gunman who prosecutors said wrote that he had “had enough of (Kirk’s) hatred” and that “some hate can't be negotiated out,” in explaining the killing.
Prairie State Wire’s reporting featured Mark Herr of the Center for Self-Governance, who argued the SPLC is driven by an ideological agenda.
“Their motive is not actually stopping white supremacy,” Herr told Prairie State Wire at the time. “Their motive is collapsing the system they believe promotes white supremacy, and those are two different things.”
Herr claimed the group exerts influence through its designations, including on government and corporate decisions.
“It’s actual corporations like Amazon that were—but that are no longer—using SPLC’s list. Currently, NextDoor, Meetup.com, and others have policies that, based on SPLC’s list, were then censoring and then terminating their account,” Herr said.
Herr noted the SPLC’s effect on local governments as well.
“SPLC is not just at the federal level of government law enforcement,” he said. “They’re embedded in state governments.”
Herr further contended that the SPLC’s work reflects politicized definitions of extremism and broader efforts to reshape institutions, noting the SPLC’s ultimate aim is for the “modern abolition of the U.S. system because they think that it is structurally defective and the source of any type of oppression.”