The Justice Department Sides With the Ku Klux Klan

The United States did not always have a Department of Justice. President Ulysses S. Grant founded it in 1870 to help suppress the Ku Klux Klan in the Southern states and enforce federal civil-rights protections for formerly enslaved Americans. On Tuesday, Justice Department officials announced what may be the first Klan-friendly prosecution in the department’s history.The Southern Poverty Law Center, or SPLC, is one of the most influential civil-rights groups in the nation. Founded in 1971, it h...