BREAKING: MI SOS Jocelyn Benson's Deep Ties to SPLC a Potential Liability as Federal Criminal Investigation Looms

By Kristine Christlieb, MFEI News & Commentary Editor

April 21, 2026

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, the frontrunner in the 2026 governor's race, has both personal and institutional ties to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a far-left organization announcing in a video statement Tuesday it is the subject of a U.S. Department of Justice criminal investigation that centers on the use of informants who infiltrate extremist groups.

Interim President and CEO Bryan Fair acknowledged "the focus appears to be on the SPLC's prior use of paid confidential informants to gather credible intelligence on extremely violent groups," adding that the program was kept quiet to protect informant safety.

Benson's connection to the SPLC is not peripheral. By her own account, she worked at the organization as an undercover operative in the late 1990s, going so far as to pose as a freelance journalist to gain access to neo-Nazi leaders and white supremacist groups.

In her 2025 memoir, The Purposeful Warrior, Benson describes the work in her own words: "just shy of twenty years old, posing as a freelance journalist, meeting with leaders and members of hate groups to gather information on their activities and plans."

It was at the Southern Poverty Law Center where Benson found the "purpose" invoked in the title of her book. MFEI News & Commentary's review of the memoir pinpoints Benson's Damascus Road moment.

Benson and a girlfriend were making their pilgrimage to Montgomery [during spring break]. On that trip, Benson met with SPLC staff and attorneys “to hear about how they were working on the front lines to address racially biased hate crimes and teach the next generation of children to stand up to hate in all its forms.”

During that spring break in 1998, Benson found her purpose. She says, “I prayed to be someone who would choose to stand at the foot of the Edmund Petrus Bridge and march forward to further a cause that I believed in.”

The SPLC internship Benson later accepted was unpaid. It's not clear if that would absolve her from the kinds of potentially illegal activities being investigated. Is unpaid undercover work captured in the category of activity now under federal scrutiny? Will voters care?

Benson later joined the SPLC's board of directors, a role she held for several years. When questioned about the board membership in March 2019 — shortly after taking office as Michigan's Secretary of State — her office stated she had informed SPLC leadership she was stepping down.

Tyler O'Neil of PJ Media documented that Benson remained listed on the SPLC board after that announcement, and challenged her office to produce a resignation letter — a request that went unanswered.

Throughout her political career, Benson has worn her SPLC history as a badge of honor. As recently as 2020, she posted to X: "I started my career tracking white supremacist and neo-Nazi organizations at the SPLC."

Poll Shows Benson Leading the Pack

The timing of the announcement is significant. A new poll, also published Tuesday, shows Benson as the frontrunner for Michigan governor, a race expected to be among the most competitive in the nation in 2026.

The DOJ investigation puts a sitting statewide official and gubernatorial candidate in the awkward position of having her signature career credential now attached to an organization under federal criminal scrutiny.

The DOJ has not named individuals in connection with the investigation, and no charges have been filed.

Here's the open question: what was the precise nature and scope of Benson's undercover work at the SPLC, who directed it, and did the activities she participated in overlap with what federal investigators are now examining.