{"id":454,"date":"2026-06-15T22:36:49","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T22:36:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/propertytransitionmedia.com\/?p=454"},"modified":"2026-06-15T22:36:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T22:36:49","slug":"doj-rolls-its-eyes-at-splc-claim-of-vindictive-prosecution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/propertytransitionmedia.com\/?p=454","title":{"rendered":"DOJ Rolls Its Eyes At SPLC Claim Of ‘Vindictive Prosecution’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Department of Justice just sighed heavily for the record and told a court not to bother.<\/p>\n

Read more Lawsuit: Washington State Violated Title IX By Allowing Trans Student To Assault Female Athlete<\/a><\/p>\n

In a much-discussed bit of recent political theater, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a long and dramatic brief alleging \u201cvindictive prosecution\u201d by Mean Orange Man\u2019s supposedly politicized Department of Justice. Represented by nine lawyers, including elderly theater kid and Hunter Biden attorney Abbe Lowell, the SPLC demanded that their fraud prosecution for allegedly opening bank accounts and transferring money to informants in the name of fake businesses be dismissed. Their evidence that the SPLC can\u2019t be prosecuted was that Donald Trump criticized them. <\/p>\n

As The New York Times wrote, summarizing the argument, \u201cthe lawyers told Judge Emily C. Marks, a Trump appointee who is handling the case, how Mr. Trump, in a social media message shortly after the indictment was returned, had accused the center of being \u2018one of the greatest political scams in American History\u2019 and somehow connected the group\u2019s work to his defeat in the 2020 election.\u201d If Donald Trump calls you names, you can\u2019t be charged with crimes. It\u2019s a get-out-of-jail-free card.<\/p>\n

In a brief filed on Friday, federal prosecutors argued plainly that \u201cthis Court need not concern itself with parsing the defendant\u2019s allegations.\u201d <\/p>\n

In an example of professionals using lawyerly language to insult the other side, the DOJ wrote that the brief from the SPLC \u201cemploys a novel approach,\u201d by which they mean that the SPLC\u2019s giant legal team is putting on a show for the media that doesn\u2019t mean anything as a legal argument: \u201cIndeed, the defendant\u2019s motion reads more like a press release or response to its critics rather than an attempt to identify the exercise of a recognized, specific legal right that, according to the defendant, led to the indictment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going on, prosecutors write that they \u201csought an indictment in this case because, after law enforcement conducted a proper investigation, the Government believed the defendant committed federal financial crimes that could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Claims of vindictive prosecution are hard to win. As the lawyer and legal journalist Rory Little has written, \u201cAll prosecutions are necessarily the product of selection.\u201d A defendant who claims vindictive prosecution is saying prosecutors decided to go after him, and that\u2019s pretty much what prosecution tends to mean. Given that reality, Little writes, \u201cThe legal bar for proving violations is necessarily high, and even obtaining discovery is carefully limited.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the Texas A&M law professor William Byrnes told The Federalist several weeks ago, \u201cfraud is fraud.\u201d Maybe another administration wouldn\u2019t have pursued the same charges on the same evidence, but \u201cthat doesn\u2019t mean that the crimes aren\u2019t being committed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pointing to the potential for wider effects, prosecutors noted that a dismissal would establish the standard that no one could ever be prosecuted once they engaged in public political disagreement with an administration. If it works for the SPLC, they wrote, \u201cany defendant could raise such an amorphous defense against a future criminal charge simply by publicly criticizing the prosecuting agency or the government generally,\u201d after which the agency could be said to be prosecuting its enemies.<\/p>\n

In the DOJ\u2019s Friday brief, this passage appears on pg. 2:<\/p>\n

Though Lowell and the SPLC\u2019s other lawyers are speaking with the expected dramatic language about politics and meanness, the legal argument will be hard to win. <\/p>\n

Finally, though, while the defense motion alleging vindictive prosecution was widely covered in the news, the government\u2019s are-you-kidding-me response appears to have been entirely ignored. That should tell you something about the purpose of the argument.<\/p>\n

Read more Louisiana Man Faces Felonies For Poisoning Teen Daughter, 1 Pound Grandbaby With Abortion Pills<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The SPLC tells a court that it can’t be prosecuted because it criticizes Donald Trump, so federal prosecution is vindictive. It won’t work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[679],"tags":[680,1731,547,3,1732,300,1733,1734,1735,169,1736,1219],"class_list":["post-454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corruption","tag-abbe-lowell","tag-bryan-fair","tag-doj","tag-donald-trump","tag-federal-courts","tag-fraud","tag-legal-briefs","tag-legal-motion","tag-rory-little","tag-splc","tag-vindictive-prosecution","tag-william-byrnes"],"yoast_head":"\nDOJ Rolls Its Eyes At SPLC Claim Of ‘Vindictive Prosecution’ - Property Transition Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/propertytransitionmedia.com\/?p=454\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"DOJ Rolls Its Eyes At SPLC Claim Of ‘Vindictive Prosecution’ - Property Transition Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The SPLC tells a court that it can't be prosecuted because it criticizes Donald Trump, so federal prosecution is vindictive. 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