This is fresh air. I am Terry Gross. The Southern Poverty Law Center, the SPLC, a group known for monitoring and exposing white supremacist groups and individuals, was indicted by the Justice Department Tuesday on charges of money laundering, fraud, and false statements to banks.

One of the SPLC's tactics, which was discontinued, was paying people

to join hate groups undercover, monitor the hate group's activities from the inside, and, when

appropriate, reporting those activities to local and national law enforcement. The indictment

accuses the SPLC of using donor money to amplify hate by sending

in paid undercover monitors who had to participate in some of the group's racist activities,

while the SPLC also paid people who were members and leaders of hate groups to become

informers.

It also says the organization failed to disclose to donors that this was how their money was being used.

Many critics of the Trump administration say the indictment was politically motivated.

The day before the indictment was announced, I interviewed Stephen J. Ross, the author of a new

nonfiction book with parallels to the SPLC's story. It's about the American Nazi groups

that formed after World War II to carry on Hitler's legacy in the U.S. and three groups that

expose the white supremacists by recruiting and paying men and women to go undercover,

join the groups, spy on them, and report their findings to the police and FBI.

Those three groups were the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee,

and the non-sectarian anti-Nazi League.

After the SPLC indictment was announced, we called Ross to talk about the parallels between his book and the new indictment.

We'll hear that follow-up interview at the end of today's show.

Ross's new book is titled The Secret War Against Hate, American Resistance to Antisemitism and White Supremacy.

His previous book, Hitler in L.A. is about pro-Nazi groups on the West Coast in the years before and during World War II.

Stephen Ross is the son of Holocaust survivors.

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