Rep. Pat Fallon claimed SPLC listed 2 veterans' orgs as 'hate groups.' His source? A satirical news [View all]

As the House Armed Services Committee met on Wednesday to consider extremism in the U.S. military, Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Tex.) tried to push back on the credibility of the hate-group researcher testifying before the lawmakers.

“Has your organization named the American Legion as a hate group?” Fallon asked a puzzled Lecia Brooks, chief of staff at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“Were you aware that the organization named the VFW, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, as a hate group?” he continued. “You had in the past.”

A spokesperson for the SPLC confirmed to The Washington Post that it has never listed either veterans organization on its “hate map,” a much-cited, sometimes challenged list of extremist groups. But as Brooks pointed out later in the hearing, Fallon’s claim wasn’t just false — it had been fabricated by a satirical news site, Duffel Blog, that lampoons the U.S. military.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/25/pat-fallon-vfw-splc-satire/