Furious lawmaker slams attempt to 'take us back to the darkest chapters' of U.S. history

A furious congressional lawmaker slammed a prosecution by the Trump administration as racist and "an effort to criminalize dissent" during a hearing on Wednesday.

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) described the Department of Justice's criminal case against the Southern Poverty Law Center as being all "about white nationalism and a direct attack on Black Americans in this country, and it comes from the very top."

She was speaking at the U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing on the SPLC, where the group had to testify in front of lawmakers and defend itself against accusations of secretly paying members of hate groups it monitors.

Balint sees the case as "a sham indictment" and "an attempt to silence Black voices and an effort to undo our multiracial democracy," which is indicative of Trump "fully embracing authoritarianism," she said during the hearing.

"This president and his supporters in Congress want to turn the clock back. They're trying to undo the progress of the civil rights movement," Balint said. "The president is systematically taking us back to the darkest chapters of American history."

She also defended the SPLC from accusations that they "manufacture hate," saying "there's no reason that the SPLC has to manufacture hate because the Trump era has supplied plenty of it."