The Southern Poverty Law Center is under fire as new allegations and a Justice Department probe claim the group funneled donor money to extremist outfits, and that controversy now reaches back to a violent 2012 attack on a conservative think tank. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council says the shooter was motivated by SPLC listings, staff were left traumatized, and the group has had to absorb heavy security costs. The case raises hard questions about political labeling, accountability, and whether powerful nonprofits are being weaponized in our culture wars. This article lays out the incident, the accused motive, the legal fallout, and the demands for restitution from a Republican perspective.
Federal investigators recently accused the SPLC of moving millions in donations into groups they publicly claim to oppose, and that allegation has energized conservative calls for accountability. Republicans argue this is not just about bookkeeping but about how labeling can influence real-world threats to people and institutions. If watchdog organizations trade on fear and partisan hits, the consequences can be dangerous.
Tony Perkins leads the Family Research Council, which the SPLC put on its hate list a decade ago, and that designation set the stage for a violent episode. On Aug. 15, 2012, an assailant reached the FRC office pretending to be an intern, then pulled a gun and opened fire in the lobby. Perkins remembers the moment the building’s security system tripped and the chaos that followed.
“The doors closed on our floor, and I heard some commotion, and so I ran out to see what it was, and was told that there was a shooting downstairs,” he recalled, describing how routine work became a life-or-death scene in seconds. Staff rushed down to find a scene no one expected outside a policy office. The building manager, Leo Johnson, was found wounded and bleeding on the lobby floor.
“By the time I got down there, the police had arrived, and so we saw Leo Johnson, who was our building manager, who was in a pool of blood,” Perkins said, capturing how quickly a routine day turned traumatic. The suspect, Floyd Lee Corkins II, carried multiple fully loaded magazines, a supply of ammunition, and something more bizarre: 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches. Corkins later said the sandwiches were part of a plan to smear victims because he believed the restaurant was anti-gay.
“It was a shocking day for our staff, especially — there was glass and blood and bullet holes in our lobby,” Perkins said, highlighting the physical and emotional damage that followed. Corkins was arrested at the scene, charged with several federal crimes including terrorism-related counts, and ultimately pleaded guilty. He received a lengthy federal sentence for planting terror and violence in a place of work and worship.
In a recorded interrogation, Corkins explained where he found his target list and said plainly where he got the idea. “It was, uh — Southern Poverty Law lists, uh anti-gay groups,” Corkins said, admitting he had searched online and used those listings to select a victim. That confession links the violence back to how organizations classify and publish lists of groups they claim are dangerous.
Perkins argues the SPLC did real work decades ago against genuine hate groups but shifted tactics when the original threats faded. “I think they began to peddle that legacy to those on the left … in particular, beginning around 2010, 2012, when there was a big effort to redefine marriage,” Perkins said. “They wanted to leverage that to help the left by going after conservative groups that were standing in the way, but they needed to hold on to those white supremacist extremist groups, to pin the conservative and Christian groups next to.”
From a Republican viewpoint, the allegation is straightforward: politicized labeling can produce a target-rich environment where fringe actors rationalize violence. Perkins wants accountability through the courts, not through shuttering speech, and he hopes damaged organizations can recover some of the costs imposed on them. FRC has spent millions beefing up security since that day, a direct consequence of being placed on an influential list.
“So yes, they’re sitting on $750 million. Part of what I hope the government, the federal government, the courts get to is making them pay restitution to their victims” is how Perkins frames the response he wants from authorities. Republicans calling for liability measures argue this would deter reckless, politically driven classifications and force nonprofit watchdogs to answer for the harms they cause. The debate now centers on whether the law will treat this as negligence, malfeasance, or free expression gone wrong.
The Corkins attack and the SPLC allegations pose a broader question about responsibility in public debate: when political actors create lists and labels, who pays when those lists are used to justify real-world harm? Conservatives want the courts to weigh in, and they want victims made whole without trampling on speech. That demand for legal accountability, not cancellation, shapes the GOP response as the case moves forward.
