Democrat Pulls Out a KKK-Melted Clock, Drops It on the GOP Mid-Hearing, Then Asks the Question That Ties Stephen Miller Directly to White Nationalism
House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee used a hearing to go after the Southern Poverty Law Center.
But Democratic Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon wasn’t having it. She delivered a blistering rebuke, directly linking the attack to what she called the Trump administration’s embrace of white nationalist ideology after the Department of Justice indicted the civil rights activist group in April.
The Pennsylvania congresswoman opened by invoking a piece of history that still hangs on the SPLC’s wall: a clock melted by the KKK’s 1983 firebombing of the organization’s Montgomery, Alabama, headquarters.
“This melted clock, which was frozen in time by the KKK firebombing, still hangs in SPLC headquarters as a reminder of the very real dangers of defending American civil liberties from hate,” Scanlon said during a May 20 hearing.
“So how grotesque is it, given that history, that the majority has chosen to frame this hearing as an accusation that the Southern Poverty Law Center itself is in the business of manufacturing hate.”
Scanlon argued the hearing was not really about the SPLC at all — but about silencing an organization that has dared to oppose the administration’s agenda. She rattled off a list of what she described as a coordinated authoritarian assault on civil society.
“In the past year, we’ve seen pardons of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who orchestrated the violent January 6th attack, the DOJ hiding from the public government research confirming that right-wing extremism poses the biggest domestic terrorism threat to our nation,” she said, adding that the White House had issued directives to target left-leaning nonprofits “without evidence.”
Scanlon closed by framing the moment in stark historical terms: “They’re trying to turn back the clock and drag America backward into some of the darkest days of our past.”
Scanlon then asked witness Maya Wiley whether the SPLC became a target because it published emails from Stephen Miller that contained white nationalist sentiments. Wiley gave a pointed response: “Possibly, yes.”