LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat who is running for governor, isn’t shy about her longtime ties to the now federally-indicted Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

The left-leaning SPLC is under a U.S. Department of Justice criminal investigation, and faces 11 counts related to wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering. It centers on the SPLC paying people to infiltrate groups like the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazi organizations in order to incite racial unrest. These are the very groups the SPLC said they fought against.

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The Michigan Fair Elections Institute (MFEI) stressed that Benson’s affiliation with the SPLC wasn’t “peripheral.” It said, “By her own account, [Benson] worked at the organization as an undercover operative in the late 1990s, going so far as to pose as a freelance journalist to gain access to neo-Nazi leaders and white supremacist groups.”

It was at the Southern Poverty Law Center where Benson found the “purpose” invoked in the title of her 2025 memoir The Purposeful Warrior. In addition, she served on the board starting in 2014.

Benson’s office has not released a statement regarding the indictment.

However, SPLC Interim President and CEO Brian Fair released a video in response to the grand jury indictment. “For 55 years, the SPLC has stood as a beacon of hope, fighting white supremacy and various forms of injustice to create a multiracial democracy where we can all live and thrive.”

That multiracial democracy did not include “hate groups” on the organization’s infamous list, including Turning Point USA, Focus on the Family, and Coral Ridge Ministries.