GOP Targets Ossoff Over Ties to Indicted SPLC in Georgia Senate Race

Federal prosecutors' indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center for alleged financial crimes is shaking up Georgia's 2026 Senate race. Republicans are going after Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., for his past connections to the group.

The Department of Justice filed criminal charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center in April. Prosecutors accused the organization of defrauding donors by secretly sending money to extremist groups to infiltrate and monitor them.

Ossoff, the most vulnerable Senate Democrat seeking re-election in 2026, received an endorsement from the law center's 501(c)(4) arm. Federal Election Commission filings show the group gave more than $700,000 to his campaign in 2020. The Georgia Democrat has also praised the group's work against racism.

"Thank you for decades of work defending civil rights in the United States," Ossoff said in a video marking the nonprofit's 50th anniversary in November 2021.

"I'm deeply concerned, like many of you, by the rising level of polarization, hatred and mistrust in our society," he added. "We must recommit to the path of love, tolerance and peaceful coexistence if we are to flourish as a nation and as a world."

Prosecutors allege that during this period, the SPLC funded extremism rather than fighting it. From 2014 to 2023, the Alabama-based group paid more than $3 million to informants in the United Klans of America, Aryan Nations and other neo-Nazi organizations, the 11-count indictment states. It lists charges of bank fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. The SPLC allegedly hid the payments through bank accounts in fictitious names and failed to notify federal law enforcement.

One informant, paid more than $270,000 by the law center, belonged to an online group that helped plan the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, per the indictment. Prosecutors say the informant attended the rally on SPLC orders and made racist postings for the nonprofit.

Heather Heyer, 32, died when a man drove his vehicle into counter-protesters at the rally, injuring nearly 20 others.

"The SPLC was not dismantling these groups," Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said at an April news conference. He added that the group "was instead allegedly manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred."

SPLC interim CEO Bryan Fair called the charges politically motivated. He said the now-defunct program saved lives.

The Republican National Committee attacked Ossoff's links to the law center.

"If Jon Ossoff is too spineless to reject the Southern Poverty Law Center’s endorsement and return their money, he’s complicit in funneling millions to violent extremist groups like the KKK," RNC spokeswoman Emma Hall said. "Anyone who doesn't condemn these indicted fraudsters is wrong for Georgia — plain and simple."

Ossoff has not commented on the grand jury indictment. His campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Ossoff faces a crowded Republican field ahead of November primaries. Reps. Mike Collins and Buddy Carter, R-Ga., and former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley are competing for the GOP nomination in a bitter three-way race. President Donald Trump has not weighed in, and recent polling shows many Republican voters undecided.

The GOP candidates have raised far less than Ossoff's $31.7 million campaign fund. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted its rating for the race to lean Democrat in Ossoff's favor earlier in April. It cited a sour national environment for Republicans.