Steve Cortes, president of the League of American Workers, accused leftists of organizing and financing the 2017 Charlottesville riot, while using it to create what he called the “Fine People Hoax.” The statement was made following the federal indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“The Leftists organized and financed the very Charlottesville riot — that they then used to concoct the entire Fine People Hoax. Lies stacked upon underlying deceit. Propaganda built on a fake foundation of staged events. That corrupt organization actually organized the very Charlottesville event that triggered the Charlottesville hoax,” Cortes said on X, while promoting his accompanying column on the topic.
The 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, drew hundreds of participants and more than a thousand counterprotesters, leading to violent clashes that injured more than 30 people and resulted in the death of Heather Heyer when a car rammed into a crowd. Local governments, including Albemarle County, the City of Charlottesville and the University of Virginia, incurred roughly $540,000 in combined costs for police overtime, fire and public works services, legal fees and crisis communications related to the event and a prior July rally. Private Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital spent more than $59,000 on related response efforts, as reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
The Southern Poverty Law Center faced an 11-count federal indictment on April 21, charging wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Prosecutors alleged the group secretly directed more than $3 million in donor funds from 2014 to 2023 to individuals associated with violent extremist organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations and National Socialist Party of America, as part of a now-discontinued informant program, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Cortes founded the League of American Workers in 2022 and serves as its president. He previously worked as a CNBC commentator and as a senior adviser for Trump’s 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, according to Wikipedia. Cortes also joined CatholicVote as senior political adviser and spokesman in February 2025.
The League of American Workers describes itself as a conservative advocacy group focused on labor and economic policy, according to its website.
