Michigan GOP demands Jocelyn Benson explain her past SPLC board ties
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Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s marketing campaign hit again at Republican assaults Friday after the state GOP demanded responses from the Democratic gubernatorial front-runner on her past work with the federally-indicted Southern Poverty Law Center.
Benson is a former volunteer and later board member of the SPLC, who was indicted Tuesday on 11 counts over accusations that he fraudulently paid members of extremist groups just like the KKK and people tied to the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche stated the SPLC paid members of those extremist teams so it might create a “work product that reported on these activities.”
“Jocelyn Benson regularly touted her experience as a leader of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a group that the Department of Justice says secretly funneled money to the KKK and other hate groups they were purportedly tracked,” the Michigan Republican Party posted on its official X account on Friday.
“What did Jocelyn know, and when did she know it?”
Michigan Attorney General Jocelyn Benson is seen at an occasion. (Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)
After her 2004 commencement from school in MassachusettsBenson moved to Alabama to work for the SPLC the place she aided investigations of hate teams and hate crimes, in keeping with the Harvard Law Review.
She additionally visited the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma the place civil rights figures just like the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., marched and had been badly crushed by legislation enforcement.
An official with the Benson marketing campaign confirmed she served as a volunteer researcher for the SPLC after school and later served on the Montgomery-based group’s board from 2014-2018.
But when pressed on what Benson knew in regards to the allegations within the DOJ’s indictment, her marketing campaign pushed again on the Republican Party’s assaults.
“Jocelyn Benson has spent her career advancing the unfinished work of the civil rights movement and expanding economic opportunity, including helping dismantle white supremacist and neo-Nazi extremist networks responsible for hate crimes across the country,” the marketing campaign informed Fox News Digital on Friday.
“And while Donald Trump is trying to use his Department of Justice to distract from his reckless economic policies that are driving up costs for Michiganders, Jocelyn remains focused on lower costs, raising wages, and protecting the rights and freedoms of the people in this state.”
Republicans continued to press Benson for solutions.
MIGOP chairman Jim Runestad informed Fox News Digital that Benson’s tenure on the SPLC board coincided with the timeframe through which the DOJ alleged the group started “paying the KKK and other extremist groups.”
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“Benson owes an explanation to the public in what she knows about the SPLC’s alleged criminal behavior, considering the criminal activity started around the same time Benson was named to the Board,” Runestad stated.
Benson has beforehand described her early work on the SPLC as centered on investigating extremist teams.
In a 2025 interview with “Keen on America“Benson recounted researching teams” claiming to be the reincarnation of [Adolf] Hitler,” saying she as soon as sat alone in a hotel room in Spartanburg and feared these individuals “were going to find out who I was and come and kill me and no one would ever know about it and all the rest.”
“And that was an act of courage, small and no one saw it, but it helped me build a bravery muscle that and several other points throughout my life so that 20 years later, 25 years later, when I’m standing up to the president of the United States, it wasn’t the first time I’ve had to take on those harrowing fights,” Benson went on within the interview.
In prior feedback, an SPLC official named Penny Weaver described Benson as coming to Montgomery “straight out of college as an unpaid intern, then worked for us.”
“Benson worked as a waitress to support herself so she could continue to volunteer at the center,” Weaver stated, including that Benson begged to have the ability to volunteer for the SPLC.
The SPLC is a longstanding left-wing nonprofit that claims to combat white supremacy and racial hatred by reporting on extremist teams and conducting analysis to tell law enforcement about them with the objective of dismantling the teams. SPLC’s CEO, Bryan Fair, addressed the probe in a video message posted on-line, arguing the Trump administration has “made no secret who they want to protect and who they want to destroy.”
“We are reviewing the charges,” a subsequent assertion from Fair despatched to Fox News Digital added. “However, after today’s Department of Justice press conference, we are outraged by the false allegations levied against SPLC – an organization that for 55 years has stood as a beacon of hope fighting white supremacy and various forms of injustice to create a multi-racial democracy where we can all live and thrive. Taking on violent hate and extremist groups is among the most dangerous work there is, and we believe it is also among the most important work we do. To be clear, this program saved lives.”
The full record of those teams, in keeping with a Justice Department press launch, consists of the Ku Klux Klan, United Klans of America, Unite the Right, National Alliance, the National Socialist Movement, Aryan Nations affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, National Socialist Party of America (American Nazi Party), and the American Front.
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Blanche and FBI Director Patel additionally argued Tuesday that the SPLC tried to cover their funds to teams the SPLC told its donors it was making an attempt to fight, resulting in a number of of the fees within the indictment.
Fox News Digital’s Alexandra Koch and Alec Schemmel and Fox News’ Jake Gibson and David Spunt contributed to this report.
