Whitmire: ‘They’re out to get me’ just became a winning legal defense

This is an opinion column.

Historically, alleging vindictive prosecution in a courtroom was about as effective as a schoolchild claiming a teacher simply had it out for them. It was the Hail Mary play for defendants who had run out of options, consistently failing because the burden of proof rested on the accused to demonstrate that charges were merely personal vendettas disguised as legal action.

The shifting landscape of legal defense

Proving a prosecutor’s intent is notoriously difficult, as motive is rarely documented or articulated openly. However, for high-profile entities like the Southern Poverty Law Center, the landscape has changed. Now, they have the loudest megaphone in the country—Donald Trump—effectively serving as their unintentional witness.

Following the indictment of the SPLC in Alabama on charges related to donor fraud, the president took to Truth Social at 1:13 a.m. to call the organization a "political scam" and a "Democrat Hoax." He later doubled down during a "60 Minutes" interview, baselessly claiming the SPLC funded the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville to influence elections—assertions notably absent from the Justice Department’s actual indictment.

A pattern of retribution

The SPLC is now leaning into a vindictive prosecution defense, arguing that the Justice Department is targeting political adversaries while protecting presidential allies. This strategy gained unexpected momentum due to the president's own public statements. Last fall, Trump appeared to accidentally post a message intended for Attorney General Pam Bondi to his public Truth Social account, questioning why others like Adam Schiff had not been charged.

This pressure to prosecute has extended to others in the administration's crosshairs, including multiple attempts to charge New York Attorney General Letitia James and a reported criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll for perjury following her civil victory against Trump. These actions have solidified the perception that the administration’s core legal strategy is one of direct revenge.

A precedent for dismissal

The effectiveness of this defense was recently validated in Tennessee. When Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man ordered to remain in the U.S. who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, successfully sued to return, the federal government responded by indicting him on old human smuggling charges. U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw dismissed the case, citing the work of former Attorney General Robert Jackson in warning against prosecutors who pick a target before finding a crime.

Judge Crenshaw’s ruling explicitly noted, "That is the situation here," effectively labeling the prosecutors as the aggressors rather than the seekers of justice. The SPLC is now applying this precedent, arguing that they do not need to guess the motives of the Justice Department; the president has already provided them with the evidence in his own words and digital posts. For the SPLC, winning their dismissal might be as simple as copying and pasting the administration's own declarations.