Charlottesville: The Deceit Underlying the Hoax

New bombshell revelations and an indictment of the corrupt Southern Poverty Law Center

For years, Democratic politicians and their allies in the legacy media have spread the damnable Charlottesville Hoax: the propaganda myth that President Trump praised bigots who rioted in 2017 in the Virginia town. Of course, the opposite is true, as Trump actually said: “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.”

Now, we learn that the entire hoax of Trump and Charlottesville is, itself, built upon another grand lie. The media and people like Joe Biden have continually pushed the narrative that some big, organic gathering of hateful Americans descended upon Charlottesville and represented some larger threat to the republic itself. But it now turns out that the “Unite the Right” rally was organized and financed by the highly partisan, left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center.

In a sweeping 11-count indictment, the Department of Justice and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche charge the advocacy group with criminal defrauding of donors and “manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.”

The charges contained in this indictment are akin to the fire department becoming an aggressive criminal arson enterprise, setting fires all across a town, and then demanding more budget and authority to fight the very infernos it set ablaze.

SPLC headquarters, known in Montgomery, AL as the “Poverty Palace”

So…the end result is that America endured years of propaganda that convinced a large segment of the population – in contravention of the facts – that their president supported violent hate merchants. Even worse, masses of unskeptical Americans, who consume only legacy media content, believed that the entire America First populist movement was based on bigotry, rather than patriotism.

Now, nearly a decade later, the truth is revealed about the deception that lay beneath that grand lie. There was a layer of duplicity here that is almost difficult to fathom. Only true Marxists could excuse this level of propaganda. The SPLC created hate groups and activities like the Charlottesville rally, and the complicit media then weaponized these concocted offenses by spreading outright lies about Trump’s reaction to the staged events.

I myself played a role in this saga regarding Charlottesville, best explained by a timeline:

March 2019 – After more than a year serving as a contributor on CNN, I grew tired of the near-nightly lies told about Charlottesville during the primetime hits when I was on-air. I tried my best to debunk the myth, but was routinely shouted down, and even “benched” for short periods for daring to tell the truth. So…I wrote a column at RealClearPolitics with the exact Trump transcript and precise citations.

April 2019 – Joe Biden launched his 2020 presidential campaign based entirely upon the Charlottesville lie, claiming that the “bulging veins” of the racists convinced him to run for the White House.

August 2019 – Dennis Prager had read my RealClearPolitics article and had me on his radio show repeatedly to discuss what we branded as the “Charlottesville Hoax.” He also asked me to narrate a five-minute video for his online platform, PragerU, debunking the hoax, which went mega-viral, with well over 10 million total views.

September 2019 – CNN removed me from the air. Rebecca Kutler, now the head of MSNOW and then the director of talent at CNN, expressly told me that the permanent “benching” was because of the Charlottesville video, even though I was clearly allowed to make such online videos, per the terms of my contract. I asked to be released so that I could do TV elsewhere, and she refused. In other words, they paid me to be silent, to stay on the sidelines.

December 2019 – I was released from CNN.

June 2024 – Supposedly objective “fact-checking” site Snopes finally admits the clear reality of the full transcripts and video evidence that Trump never praised bigots at Charlottesville.

April 2026 – The Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted for millions of dollars in secret payments to racists to foment and organize racial unrest and events, including the Charlottesville event itself.

This entire sad saga matters. First, it unveils the systemic duplicity of the left in America. Because their demand for “hate” far exceeds the actual supply, they had to pay to manufacture bigotry, so that they then could oppose it. Second, the record reveals that lies build upon lies, while the truth remains, inherently, emancipating.

Whatever any citizen thinks of Donald Trump, the entire madness of Charlottesville represents a preventable and despicable tragedy. The actions of the SPLC were criminal and mafia-like. A young woman, Heather Heyer, lost her life because of this mayhem. More broadly, millions of Americans bought into an insidious lie and believed it for years, doing grave damage to the cohesion of our society. Only a full accounting, now, can begin the process of healing and truth-telling.

Steve Cortes is president of the League of American Workers and advisor to Catholic Vote. He directs political campaigns on media, polling, and Hispanic outreach, including Trump 2016/2020 and Vance 2022 U.S. Senate. He is a former broadcaster for Fox News and CNN.

This article was published by RealClear Politics
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2026/04/24/charlottesville_the_deceit_underlying_the_hoax_154063.html