Michigan governor hopeful pressed on past SPLC work after DOJ indictment: 'What did Jocelyn know?'

By Fox News · Fox News

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s campaign hit back at Republican attacks Friday after the state GOP demanded answers 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, which was indicted Tuesday on 11 counts over accusations it fraudulently paid members of extremist groups like the KKK and those tied to the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the SPLC paid members of these extremist groups so it could 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 tracking," the Michigan Republican Party posted on its official X account on Friday. "What did Jocelyn know, and when did she know it?" JAY JONES TARGETED AS AGS URGE NATIONAL GROUPS TO DENY MEMBERSHIP OVER SCANDALS: ‘STAIN ON OUR INSTITUTION’ After her 2004 graduation from college in Massachusetts , Benson moved to Alabama to work for the SPLC where she aided investigations of hate groups and hate crimes, according to the Harvard Law Review. She also visited the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma where civil rights figures like the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., marched and were badly beaten by law enforcement. An official with the Benson campaign confirmed she served as a volunteer researcher for the SPLC after college and later served on the Montgomery-based group’s board from 2014-2018. But when pressed on what Benson knew about the allegations in the DOJ's indictment, her campaign pushed back on the Republican Party's attacks. "Jocelyn Benson has spent her career advancing the unfinished work of the civil rights movement and expanding economic opportunity, including helping dismantle…