Washington Free Beacon staff writer Joe Schoffstall on Thursday discussed his latest reporting about the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight."
Schoffstall found that the SPLC transfers millions to offshore entities, including in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens. The non-profit organization has over $328 million in assets and has moved a great deal of that overseas.
Carlson asked Schoffstall why they would do that.
"I cannot answer that question," Schoffstall said. "I tried to get it from them but the accountant hung up on me; they did not respond to numerous requests for comments. We can't really speculate on that."
Schoffstall expanded on how the SPLC refused to disclose anything, even when he contacted its accountants.
"Most accountants, even Clinton's accountants would hand over forms," he said. "She just said, 'I don't comment on clients' and hung up the phone."
Carlson asked why the group needs to make such moves when it is a nonprofit.
"The reasoning behind it, I couldn't speculate on," Schoffstall said. "But it is unusual. A lot of people that I spoke to said it was very unusual that they were sending millions of dollars to the Cayman Islands."
"They have interests in the British Virgin Islands as well as Bermuda, but we can only find a segment — the 2014 numbers — that show the $5 million," he said. "So there's other segments, like they have the British Virgin Islands and Bermuda, we don't know the amounts on there."
"They also have ownership in foreign corporations, but each corporation that they have ownership in, they don't meet the threshold of ownership report it on a tax form," he added.
Carlson asked why they had amassed such a vast amount of money. Schoffstall explained how the SPLC makes money from far-left activism.
"They make all their money from the hate industry," he said. "In the 1970s, they served a legitimate purpose. They won a lot of landmark lawsuits for civil rights. Flash forward to today, they swing far left. They are known for the hate map, as you know, which contains mainstream conservative groups along with actual racists like the KKK."
"This turned into a windfall for them," he said. "Their leadership, the top people in management, they average probably around $300,000 in pay."
Carlson also asked why they were not spending more money to help the disadvantaged.
"They only spend $61,000 on litigation as well, being a law center," Schoffstall said.
Carlson finished the segment by calling the SPLC "a totally fake organization."