The SPLC really does not have a lot of credibility in the left wing circles either, but a lot of lefties kiss up to them in the hopes of getting paid or sponsored in some way with a small percentage of the huge money that SPLC gets every year from various grants, donations, and what is reported to be a very sizable investment portfolio.

That situation has even gotten to the point that some of their long time allies are publicly distancing themselves from the SPLC although most likely maintaining close "private" ties to them.

As for their "relationship" with homeland security, it is more like the troublemaker neighbor down the road who watches everything you do and calls the police against you on everything they can once they have something to work with, but they do very little of their own dirty work. It is strongly rumored that several key leadership figures in the neo-nazi movement have been on the SPLC payroll and that the SPLC has somehow inserted themselves into several ongoing FBI investigations by using the same informants. It is something of a force multiplier approach whenever some agency takes interest in a targeted group (usually at the insistence of the SPLC), then the SPLC will coordinate between their informants and whichever agency is relevant to the investigation.

The real ticket is catching the SPLC in anything illegal enough to take them to civil court on, like some of their operatives using illegal wiretaps or violating a terms of use agreement in a website somewhere or being armed for hostile purposes on private property.

You could set them up with maybe a fake class on "explosives" and then get video of everyone there, make and stashes of fake "explosives" which in turn get found by the investigating agencies but you can figure out who knew of which stashes, and then burn the spy.

One thing that Potock probably fears bigtime is some well connected Oathkeepers getting access to case files and digging up dirt on procedural violations which could in turn be used against the SPLC.