American Courts are NOT committed to upholding the rule of law based on the U.S. Constitution when plaintiffs represent traditional American values. Judge Emmet Sullivan willingness to fry Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn only because of his connection to Make America Great Again President Trump is only the tip of the iceberg of how much Courts are committed to fundamentally transforming America away from traditional Conservative American values.
In conjunction to defying the rule of law and American values, the Court actually prejudicially set the stage for convictions Center for Medical Progress defendants Sandra Merritt and David Daleiden criminally and civilly. Background info:
In spite of the no-brainer that killing a baby before birth is murder (NOW some state are allowing the outright murder of birthed babies in the name of abortion rights), Planned Parenthood has been exposed of selling murdered baby parts for financial gain and the Transform America crowd in nationwide prosecutions and Courts are manipulating law and hiding evidence to legally persecute Sandra Merritt and David Daleiden who should be hailed as heroes for exposing the callousness and criminality of Planned Parenthood.
I have to wonder how criminal and morally bankrupt our American legal system has become now that the documents once sealed but now unsealed show just how nefarious Planned Parenthood is as a criminal enterprize.
JRH 5/27/20
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Unsealed! Newly Released Video Testimony Shows Admissions that Planned Parenthood Illegally Trafficked in Aborted Baby Body Parts then Lied to Covered it Up
PLANNED PARENTHOOD TESTIMONY ON SELLING BABY PARTS UNSEALED, NEW VIDEOS RELEASED
Planned Parenthood Officials Testified Under Oath About Financial Incentives in Fetal Tissue Research Programs in Abortion Giant’s Own Lawsuit
IRVINE, May 26–The Center for Medical Progress, whose undercover videos exposed Planned Parenthood leadership negotiating the harvesting and sale of aborted fetal body parts, released a new video today featuring Planned Parenthood officials’ sworn videotaped testimony about the sales.
The new video release documents the Planned Parenthood officials’ admissions, which came in Planned Parenthood’s own retaliatory lawsuit over the undercover footage and contradict Planned Parenthood’s public claims about both the undercover videos and the abortion provider’s fetal tissue research programs. The testimony was unsealed this spring.
San Francisco, CA — Sixteen unsealed excerpts of sworn video testimony from Planned Parenthood executives was released yesterday by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), which shows in their own words that Planned Parenthood was involved in obtaining “donations” of fetal tissue organs from women having abortions, only to illegally sell it to middle-man organ procurement companies for profit.
The video testimony was presented in court during a trial last fall in a case* brought by Planned Parenthood against the CMP members who were involved in the undercover investigation into Planned Parenthood’s sale of aborted baby parts for profit. Among the defendants was Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue, who served as a CMP board member at the time of the investigation.
“From the beginning, we have been prevented from discussing evidence incriminating to Planned Parenthood, due to a gag order issued by the court. This allowed only Planned Parenthood’s false narrative to reach the public,” said Troy Newman. “In fact, the truth about Planned Parenthood’s illegal baby body parts trade has been suppressed for twenty years, since Mark Crutcher of Life Dynamics, Inc. conducted the first investigation on this subject in 2000. Now, with the unsealing of this testimony and other evidence, the truth is finally being told.”
One particularly incriminating exchange was during the video testimony of Tram Nguyen, Abortion Center Administrator for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast (PPGC). She was asked by defense counsel about an e-mail stream between her and the Regional Medical and Surgical Services Director of PPGC.
Nguyen agreed in that e-mail exchange that she wanted to move forward with an attached contract that would have paid PPGC $750.00 per fetal liver and $1,600.00 per fetal liver/thymus pair.
Planned Parenthood has publicly lied to Congress and the media since 2015, by telling them that they had “rebuffed” this contract.
And that was not the only contract Planned Parenthood lied about. While publicly claiming that it only received reimbursements for hard costs, Planned Parenthood was actually raking in handsome profits at a number of its abortion facilities, as other recently release evidence proves.
Last month,newly unsealed invoices showed detailed billing for aborted baby remains from nine abortion facilities operated by Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, a California affiliate totaling nearly $25,000 over just three months. Of the nine facilities, the San Jose Planned Parenthood clinic was by far the most profitable, raking in $8,205 for a total of 157 specimen labeled “POC” or “products of conception.”
In December 2017, two California companies, DV Biologics and DaVinci Biosciences, admitted guilt and agreed to pay nearly $8 million to settle a civil case brought by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office for illegally trafficking in aborted baby tissues and organs procured exclusively from Southern California Planned Parenthood abortion facilities. The two companies were also ordered to shut down, but in a miscarriage of justice, Planned Parenthood escaped prosecution.
“Why wasn’t this admission of guilt used against Planned Parenthood? Because its significant political power over corrupt politicians at nearly every level of government has shielded Planned Parenthood from consequences for decades,” said Newman. “That political corruption must be exposed and rooted out.”
The CMP defendants lost the court case where the video testimony was presented and were ordered to pay a combined judgment totaling millions of dollars to Planned Parenthood – all for daring to expose their criminal conduct. Newman’s attorneys with the American Center for Law and Justice are now petitioning for a new trial.
“Mounting public evidence, which has been sealed until now, clearly shows that Planned Parenthood broke the law. The truth can no longer be hidden or denied,” said Newman. “I call on the Department of Justice to complete their investigation into Planned Parenthood’s illegal trafficking in aborted baby parts and lying to Congress. Planned Parenthood must be held accountable for their criminal conduct.”
In addition to testimony from Tram Nguyen, the newly released videos show excerpts of testimony from the following witnesses:
Deborah Nucatola, former Senior Director of Medical Services, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA).
Mary Gatter, former Medical Director’s Council President, PPFA.
Dorothy Furgerson, former Chief Medical Officer, Planned Parenthood Mar Monte.
Linda Tracy, Advanced Bioscience Resources, who provided third party testimony about Planned Parenthood contracts.
Unsealed! Newly Released Video Testimony Shows Admissions that Planned Parenthood Illegally Trafficked in Aborted Baby Body Parts then Lied to Covered it Up
Operation Rescue® is one of the leading pro-life Christian activist organizations in the nation. Operation Rescue® recently made headlines when it bought and closed an abortion clinic in Wichita, Kansas and has become perhaps the most visible voice of the pro-life activist movement in America. Its activities are on the cutting edge of the abortion issue, taking direct action to restore legal personhood to the pre-born and stop abortion in obedience to biblical mandates.
Adopted at birth and raised in San Diego, Troy Newman has more than 27 years of experience and leadership in business and pro-life ministry with great success growing Christian organizations. Troy is an accomplished strategist with remarkable insight.
His vision, expertise, and leadership have brought about a dramatic reduction in the numbers of abortions and abortion providers nationally. His work has been featured in … READ ENTIRETY
The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) conducted an undercover expose that demonstrated the villainy of Planned Parenthood, National Abortion Federation (NAF), and research entities such as StemExpress on the baby-murder industry. CMP then collated their undercover footage and released them to the public. The undercover work was apparently conducted by CMP founder David Daleiden along with Sandra Merritt.
The State of California got on board with some Planned Parenthood lawfare by using taxpayer resources to unjustly prosecute Daleiden and Merritt by then California Kamala Harris (now Dem Senator and Dem Party candidate for President) continued by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.
I learned the political hack job against Sandra Merritt is crumbling with more of the fabricated charges against her have been tossed out by Judge Christopher Hite. Story below:
A judge has dismissed more of the bogus charges against Sandra Merritt, who helped expose Planned Parenthood’s sales of aborted baby parts along with David Daleiden.
Judge Christopher Hite of the San Francisco Superior Court has already dismissed one and a half of the 15 felony criminal charges brought against Sandra Merritt by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra for her undercover journalism work which exposed Planned Parenthood’s trade in baby body parts. The statute of limitations has run out on these dismissed charges so they cannot be brought again.
The undercover videos, most of which were recorded at the National Abortion Federation’s (NAF) 2014 and 2015 abortion convention and trade shows, exposed Planned Parenthood’s illegal involvement in harvesting and selling aborted baby body parts to companies such as StemExpress. The recordings capture Planned Parenthood executives haggling over the prices of baby body parts, picking through bloodied arms and legs of aborted babies in a pie tray, and discussing how to alter abortion methods to obtain better body parts for sale.
Merritt and Merritt’s co-defendant, David Daleiden, the founder of the Center for Medical Progress, are the first undercover journalists to be criminally prosecuted in the history of the state. As Liberty Counsel defends Merritt, no other citizen journalist or journalism organization has ever been charged with a crime for undercover recordings made in the public interest.
During the two-week preliminary criminal hearing, Judge Hite dismissed the charge regarding “Doe 8,” an abortion professor at a taxpayer-funded, public university, who never showed up to testify last week.
The other charge concerned two alleged events with “Doe 9,” a Planned Parenthood doctor. However, half of that charge was dismissed since the attorney general’s office never played the video in court of the alleged incident on April 8, 2014.
Liberty Counsel’s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Each day of this hearing reveals that this case is frivolous and should be dismissed immediately. The state of California has abused the legal process by prosecuting Sandra Merritt when she did nothing wrong. The entire case should be dismissed.”
The preliminary hearing for undercover journalist David Daleiden began last week in California. Daleiden and Sandra Merritt face 15 felony charges for invasion of privacy because they exposed Planned Parenthood’s allegedly illegal sales of aborted baby body parts.
Then the testimonies of two witnesses who worked with Planned Parenthood provided more validation of the gruesome baby body parts trade uncovered by the Center for Medical Progress. The witness, who appears to be the Planned Parenthood abortionist in Daleiden’s first undercover video, was “agitated, bothered and, at times, combative.”
Both she and a second witness, Doe 12 of the biotech company StemExpress, appeared “determined to avoid answering difficult and incriminating questions,” but their sworn testimonies “verified and vindicated” the undercover findings, according to the investigative group.
Doe 9 reportedly tried to avoid answering any questions Friday about harvesting the brains of aborted babies to possibly sell to researchers. In one undercover video, she described how Planned Parenthood abortionists have been “pretty successful” in harvesting intact brains from aborted babies by flipping the unborn baby into a breech position, which sounds a lot like an illegal partial-birth abortion.
“A clearly irritated Doe 9 pretended to not understand the question and refused to give a direct answer about the meaning of her words,” according to CMP.
Daleiden’s and Merritt’s attorneys said they tried to impeach her twice for lying under oath and contradicting her prior sworn testimony.
The expose videos catching Planned Parenthood officials selling the body parts of aborted babies have shocked the nation. Here is a list of all 14:
In the first video: Dr. Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood commented on baby-crushing: “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”
In the second video: Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Mary Gatter joked, “I want a Lamborghini” as she negotiated the best price for baby parts.
In the third video: Holly O’Donnell, a former Stem Express employee who worked inside a Planned Parenthood clinic, detailed first-hand the unspeakable atrocities and how she fainted in horror over handling baby legs.
In the fourth video: Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Savita Ginde stated, “We don’t want to do just a flat-fee (per baby) of like, $200. A per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it.” She also laughed while looking at a plate of fetal kidneys that were “good to go.”
In the fifth video: Melissa Farrell of Planned Parenthood-Gulf Coast in Houston boasted of Planned Parenthood’s skill in obtaining “intact fetal cadavers” and how her “research” department “contributes so much to the bottom line of our organization here, you know we’re one of the largest affiliates, our Research Department is the largest in the United States.”
In the sixth video: Holly O’Donnell described technicians taking fetal parts without patient consent: “There were times when they would just take what they wanted. And these mothers don’t know. And there’s no way they would know.”
In the seventh and perhaps most disturbing video: Holly O’Donnell described the harvesting, or “procurement,” of organs from a nearly intact late-term fetus aborted at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte’s Alameda clinic in San Jose, CA. “‘You want to see something kind of cool,’” O’Donnell says her supervisor asked her. “And she just taps the heart, and it starts beating. And I’m sitting here and I’m looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating, and I don’t know what to think.”
In the eighth video: StemExpress CEO Cate Dyer admits Planned Parenthood sells “a lot of” fully intact aborted babies.
The ninth video: catches a Planned Parenthood medical director discussing how the abortion company sells fully intact aborted babies — including one who “just fell out” of the womb.
The 10th video: catches the nation’s biggest abortion business selling specific body parts — including the heart, eyes and “gonads” of unborn babies. The video also shows the shocking ways in which Planned Parenthood officials admit that they are breaking federal law by selling aborted baby body parts for profit.
Unreleased Videos: Unreleased videos from CMP show Deb Vanderhei of Planned Parenthood caught on tape talking about how Planned Parenthood abortion business affiliates may “want to increase revenue [from selling baby parts] but we can’t stop them…” Another video has a woman talking about the “financial incentives” of selling aborted baby body parts.
The 11th video: catches a Texas Planned Parenthood abortionist planning to sell the intact heads of aborted babies for research. Amna Dermish is caught on tape describing an illegal partial-birth abortion procedure to terminate living, late-term unborn babies which she hopes will yield intact fetal heads for brain harvesting.
The 12th video in the series shows new footage of Jennefer Russo, medical director at Planned Parenthood in Orange County, California, describing to undercover investigators how her abortion business tries to harvest intact aborted babies’ bodies for a local for-profit biotech company and changes the abortion procedure to do so.
The 13th video: exposes a Planned Parenthood medical director admitting that babies born alive after abortion are sometimes killed.
The 14th video: catches Planned Parenthood executives discussing gruesome abortion procedures and the sale of body parts from aborted babies for profit.
_________________________
California Political Persecution of Daleiden & Merritt Crumbling
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On July 14, 2015, the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) released its first undercover Planned Parenthood video, blowing the whistle on the abortion industry’s practice of illegally harvesting and selling the body parts of aborted babies.
Just 17 days later, the National Abortion Federation (NAF) filed alawsuit against CMP and ultimately secured a preliminary injunction against lead investigator and CMP founder David Daleiden. The injunction prohibited him from releasing any footage obtained during NAF conferences and meetings, which David had attended undercover with the goal of exposing illegal activity by the abortion industry.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick violated the First Amendment Rights of the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) by gagging all undercover videos exposing the murderous intent by National Abortion Federation (NAF) in trafficking aborted and live birth baby parts for profit. PlannedParenthood was stung the same way. Leftists in law enforcement are doing their best to cover-up these nefarious murders and felonious activities with baby part trafficking.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick, who granted the preliminary injunction in favor of the National Abortion Federation to halt the release of the videos, ordered any links to the video to be removed after it was published by the Center for Medical Progress on Thursday.
Judge Orrick also ordered CMP lead investigator David Daleiden and his attorneys to appear in court June 14, The Associated Press reported, for a hearing where he will consider holding them in contempt for releasing the footage.
Mr. Daleiden has been charged with 15 felonies in California stemming from his undercover investigation into the abortion giant. His attorneys have called it a “witch hunt” that flies in the face of the First Amendment.
YouTube has not responded to a request for comment.
Judge Orrick took advantage of the 9th Circuit Appellate Court’s unfavorable ruling to make that gag order.
The abortion industry has desperately tried to suppress and delegitimize the work of CMP, including through the use of litigation. We represent former CMP board member Troy Newman – who is also the President of Operation Rescue – in lawsuits filed by the National Abortion Federation (NAF) as well as Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and numerous Planned Parenthood affiliates, and we recently filed briefs in both cases.
In the NAF case, the trial court issued a preliminary injunction that prevents the defendants from publishing videos or materials relating to NAF conferences, or sharing such information with anyone, including state Attorneys General or local law enforcement officers, while the case moves forward. The defendants have appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals to the Ninth Circuit, and we recently filed a reply brief (under seal by court order) that emphasizes that government investigators, and the general public, have a compelling interest in being able to review the videos and materials themselves.
One of the founders of CMP, Troy Newman, has filed a petition with the Supreme Court to win back the First Amendment Right to expose the crimes of Planned Parenthood.
Here is the Press Release that I first received in my Inbox from Operation Rescue; however, I’m cross posting the PR from ChristianNewsWire.com.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 4, 2017 /ChristianNewswire/ — Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue and a founding member of the Center for Medical Progress, filed a petition yesterday to the U.S. Supreme Court, challenging the Constitutionality of a preliminary injunction that prohibits the release of undercover videos recorded at National Abortion Federation (NAF) meetings – even to law enforcement when they contain evidence of crimes.
The petition, captioned Newman v. National Abortion Federation, states:
This Petition stems from an injunction forbidding the voluntary disclosure to law enforcement agencies, other governmental bodies, and the general public of recordings and other information that the enjoined individuals and entities-as well as Congressional investigators-believe are evidence of widespread criminal, illegal, and unethical conduct, including felonies.
Newman is represented by Jay Sekulow, who leads Newman’s team of attorneys from the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ).
During Newman’s tenure on the Board of the Center for Medical Progress, the NAF, and later Planned Parenthood, filed suits in a San Francisco Federal Court against Newman and others in an effort to prevent the release of further undercover videos that exposed the illegal trade in aborted baby body parts.
And it is little wonder that the NAF would not want the videos released.
Newman’s Supreme Court Petition notes that Congressional investigations conducted by the SenateJudiciary Committee and the House Select InvestigativePanel on Infant Lives referred members of the National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies for criminal investigation and prosecution.
Newman argues that the enjoined recordings corroborate the determination of the two Congressional investigations, which found evidence that NAF members (including several Planned Parenthood organizations) were engaged in the following criminal conduct:
Profiting from the sale of fetal organs;
Altering abortion procedures for financial gain;
Performing illegal partial-birth abortions;
Killing newborns who survived attempted abortions;
Failing to obtain informed consent for fetal tissue donations;
Violating federal regulations regarding Institutional Review Boards (IRBs); and
Fraudulent overbilling practices.
Newman’s petition further states:
It has long been a tenet of Anglo-American jurisprudence that individuals who believe that they have information concerning criminal or illegal activities should be permitted, and encouraged, to voluntarily provide such information to government authorities. Similarly, investigative journalism concerning matters of public concern, including the uncovering of illegal, unethical, or troubling activities, is a constitutionally protected, venerable undertaking.
Newman’s unsuccessful appeal to the Ninth Circuit was joined by state 14 Attorneys General, led by Arizona, who are seeking to review the evidence contained in the recordings.
As the most important abortion case currently under litigation, Newman v. NAF could have profound implications on the future use of undercover investigative techniques and the ability of law enforcement to gather evidence in criminal investigations.
Operation Rescue is one of the leading pro-life Christian activist organizations in the nation and has become a strong voice for the pro-life movement in America. Click here to support Operation Rescue.
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Planned Parenthood bought California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and his baby killing benefactor are probably squealing in their exposed hypocrisy of prosecuting the Whistleblowers rather than the actual Planned Parenthood felons.
Below is the Breitbart story of the 14 felony counts against Daleiden and Merritt being tossed.
A superior court in California has dismissed 14 of 15 felony charges against the video journalists who exposed alleged profiteering from the sale of body parts of aborted babies within Planned Parenthood and its partners in the biomedical procurement industry.
The chargeswere dismissed against David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt of the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) – with leave to amend, meaning California Attorney General Xavier Becerra may refile those charges, if he includes more specific facts.
Judge Christopher Hite also denied the attorney general’s request for contempt sanctions against Daleiden’s criminal defense counsel, former Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley & Associates (SCA) and his associate, former Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Brentford J. Ferreira.
“We were pleased with Judge Hite’s rulings over all,” Cooley and Ferreira said in a statement sent to Breitbart News. “We look forward to further pre-trial litigation.”
BREAKING: State judge GRANTS most of defendant Daleiden’s and Merritt’s demurrer motions, knocking out the 14 recording charges until the CA AG amends their complaint. The judge also denied the AG’s request for contempt sanctions against David’s defense counsel, and agreed Judge Orrick’s federal gag order in the civil lawsuit should not prevent defendants from using the videos in our defense.
Christian Newsreports the California Department of Justice’s statement on the dismissal:
Following the defense’s complaint that there are too many surreptitious recordings to know which ones the California Department of Justice is relying on, the judge requested more specificity in the charging document, specifically to identify the videos that are the basis of the charges. The California Department of Justice has 10 days to amend the complaint and will be making the requested changes.
Becerra’s office alleged that Daleiden and Merritt recorded 14 individuals connected to the abortion and fetal tissue industries in Los Angeles, Pasadena, San Francisco, and El Dorado, without their consent.
“This is a politically motivated prosecution,” Daleiden told reporters Wednesday. “And this is discriminatory against pro-life Americans and a rally against Californians who happen to have a different point of view.”
The explosive videos of the individuals, allegedly discussing how they obtain the highest quality fetal body parts during abortions in order to maximize sales to biotech companies, rocked the nation and set off multiple congressional investigations into the abortion and fetal tissue procurement industries.
Becerra, a former Democratic congressman who became attorney general after his predecessor, Kamala Harris, was sworn in as a U.S. senator, said his office “will not tolerate the criminal recording of confidential conversations,” reported the Los Angeles Times.
“The right to privacy is a cornerstone of California’s constitution, and a right that is foundational in a free democratic society,” Becerra added.
The Los Angeles Times’ editorial board tookissue with Becerra’s actions:
It’s disturbingly aggressive for Becerra to apply this criminal statute to people who were trying to influence a contested issue of public policy, regardless of how sound or popular that policy may be. Planned Parenthood and biomedical company StemExpress, which was also featured in the videos, have another remedy for the harm that was done to them: They can sue Daleiden and Merritt for damages. The state doesn’t need to threaten the pair with prison time.
According to OpenSecrets.org, Becerra received a total of $5,535 from Planned Parenthood during his congressional election bids between 1998 and 2014.
Harris is on record as having received $2,600 in 2016 from Planned Parenthood for her Senate race campaign. Additionally, Harris was the recipient of $39,855 from the Abortion Policy/Pro-Abortion Rights lobby group, according to OpenSecrets.org.
ElectionTrack.com reported Harris received $15,000 from Planned Parenthood for her attorney general campaign bids.
As Breitbart News reported, emails obtained by the Washington Times in September of 2016 showed that Harris’s office collaborated with Planned Parenthood to produce the California legislation criminalizing undercover journalists for publishing and distributing recordings of private communications with abortion providers.
According to the Times:
The documents are another indication of Ms.Harris‘ close relationship with Planned Parenthood and call into question the impartiality of her ongoing investigation of Mr. Daleiden, legal experts said.
The emails show Beth Parker, chief legal counsel for Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, sending multiple drafts of AB 1671 to Jill Habig, who was at the time special counsel to the attorney general.
“Attached is the language for AB 1671, proposed amendments to Penal Code section 632,” Ms. Parker wrote in an email marked March 8. “I look forward to your thoughts about this.”
Ms. Parker sent a revised draft of the legislation to Ms. Habig on March 16. “Here’s the rewrite of the video tape bill,” she wrote. “Let me know what you think.”
Habig later became deputymanager of Harris’ U.S. Senate campaign. The campaign website featured a petition asking voters to support and protect Planned Parenthood’s federal funding.
Charges brought against Daleiden and Merritt in Harris County, Texas – under suspicion of bias – were ultimately dropped, however. One of Planned Parenthood’s biotech partners – StemExpress – also backed off a lawsuit against the videomakers.
When the felony charges in California were filed, Daleiden said:
The bogus charges from Planned Parenthood’s political cronies are fake news. They tried the same collusion with corrupt officials in Houston, TX and failed: both the charges and the DA were thrown out. The public knows the real criminals are Planned Parenthood and their business partners like StemExpress and DV Biologics—currentlybeing prosecuted in California—who have harvested and sold aborted baby body parts for profit for years in direct violation of state and federal law. We look forward to showing the entire world what is on our yet-unreleased video tapes of Planned Parenthood’s criminal baby body parts enterprise, in vindication of the First Amendment rights of all.
Though Planned Parenthood has denied any wrongdoing in its alleged sale of body parts, it also announced in October 2015 that it would no longer accept payments for aborted fetal tissue.
The organization and its media and political allies continue to insist the CMP videos were “deceptively edited.” However, a Democrat opposition research firm named Fusion – hired by Planned Parenthood itself to review the videos – said while their analysts observed the videos had been edited, “the analysis did not reveal widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation.”
Additionally, Fusion noted, “[A]nalysts found no evidence that CMP inserted dialogue not spoken by Planned Parenthood staff.”
An analysis by Coalfire, a third-party forensics company hired by Alliance Defending Freedom, found that the videos were “not manipulated” and that they are “authentic.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee and the House SelectInvestigative Panel have referred Planned Parenthood Federation of America, several of the largest Planned Parenthood affiliates in the country, and three of their business associates in the fetal tissue procurement industry to the FBI and U.S. Department of Justice for criminal prosecution.
1. A secret agreement, especially for fraudulent or treacherous purposes; conspiracy: Some of his employees were in collusion to rob him.
2. Law. A secret understanding between two or more persons to gain something illegally, to defraud another of his or her rights, or to appear as adversaries through in agreement: collusion of husband and wife to obtain a divorce.
Testimony after testimony from Intelligence heads and even disgraced Clinton-liar former Director James Comey have said there has been NO collusion between then candidate Donald Trump and Russia to steal the election from proven Crooked Hillary. The Dems have closed their ears so badly to the truth, they keep on propagandize American voters there is an act collusion by President Trump, the Dems just can’t prove it yet.
The more provable collusion is between former AG Loretta Lynch telling former FBI Director not to say Crooked Hillary was under investigation. That Lynch directive included using the words “a matter” rather than investigation and a steely stare against Comey when showing the former AG a yet undisclosed document suggesting Crooked Hillary wrong-doing.
It is the American Left that gets away with the criminality of collusion in the USA!
David Daleiden’s Center forMedical Progress (CMP) that released a series of undercover videos demonstrating that Planned Parenthood was killing live-birth babies to deliver the murdered babies intact for research purposes and monetary profit to private research labs.
AND YET Planned Parenthood nor the murderous perpetrators have been prosecuted for the crimes. BUT CMP, David Daleidenand Sandra Merritt are being criminally persecuted – err I mean prosecuted – for exposing Planned Parenthood crimes.
The collusion between Leftist prosecutors and Planned Parenthood has to be a crime, right? Who prosecutes the prosecutors?
CALIFORNIA, June 9, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) is seeking to disqualify the judge who censored its undercover footage of an abortion conference because of his ties to a pro-Planned Parenthood organization that lets the abortion company run a clinic on its premises.
When David Daleiden began releasing his now-famous exposé on the abortion industry’s participation inthe baby body parts trade, the National Abortion Federation (NAF) took him to court. Daleiden had undercover recordings of its abortion trade show. NAF succeeded in getting U.S. District Judge William Orrick to issue a gag order preventing the release of this footage.
Last month, Daleiden’s attorneys released the footage. Some of the extended footage had already been leaked by Got News, but the video released by the CMP attorneys was more condensed and contained a compilation of the most shocking statements from abortionists at the conference.
Orrick then ordered Daleiden and his attorneys, Steve Cooley and Brentford J. Ferreira, to appear in court on June 14. They may face contempt of court charges for having released the video.
But CMP is arguing that Orrick should be disqualified from the case because he served on the board of an organization that houses a Planned Parenthood clinic. CMP’s motion toremove Orrick from the case says that Orrick’s affiliation with this organization shows “bias in favor of the plaintiff and prejudice against the defendants.”
The organization is Good Samaritan Family Resource Center (GSFRC) in San Francisco. It describes its relationship with Planned Parenthood as a “key partnership.” Orrick is a former GSFRC board member. He was GSRFC’s secretary of the board in 2001 “when GSFRC entered ‘key partnership’ with PPSP [Planned Parenthood],” the motion states.
“The video recordings that are the subject of this case include recordings of PPSP/PPNC staff members,” it says.
“At no time did Judge Orrick disclose to Defendants that he sat on the board of an organization that had as a ‘key partner’ an organization Defendants alleged, both in public statements and as part of their defense, was involved in violations of state and federal law,” CMP’s motion continues. “Judge Orrick did not disclose his close and long-standing relationship with an organization that houses a facility and hosts Planned Parenthood staff, whom NAF claims are in physical danger from ‘anti-abortion extremists’ incited by Defendants.”
The motion goes on to detail Orrick’s wife’s support of abortion on Facebook. Mrs. Orrick “liked” a National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) Facebook post that criticized CMP as “a sham organization run by extremists.”
In 2015, “Mrs. Orrick ‘pinkified’ her Facebook page and added ‘I stand with Planned Parenthood’ as a Facebook profile picture overlay.”
CMP’s attorneys explained:
Planned Parenthood urged its supporters to add these elements to their Facebook pages as part of a campaign orchestrated specifically in response to the release of videos by Mr. Daleiden and CMP. ‘Pinkifying’ showed one’s support for Planned Parenthood and one ’s belief that the videos were fraudulent.
Another cause for CMP’s concern is Mrs. Orrick “liked a Facebook Post by ‘Keep America Pro-Choice’ that applauded Mr. Daleiden being indicted in Texas.” It, and the “like” of the NARAL post, “were juxtaposed with a profile photo featuring Judge Orrick and Mrs. Orrick.”
As The Federalist‘s Mollie Hemingway uncovered at the time Orrick issued the initial gag order on the video, he is a major financial backer of pro-abortion former President Obama.
“He raised at least $200,000 for Obama and donated $30,800 to committees supporting him, according to Public Citizen,” she reported.
Judge who censored undercover Planned Parenthood videos was on pro-abortion group’s board
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David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt were brought up on charges in late March 2017 by a Leftist Pro-Planned Parenthood California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.
About a half-a-year ago, the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) under the auspices David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt exposed Planned Parenthood not only as a baby-killing factory but also as an agent for selling murdered baby parts to a research organization illegally. The thing that makes Planned Parenthood heinous is that babies had to be born intact for the most precious baby parts. Intact means born alive then killed.
Then later in the same post I cross-posted an Operation Rescue email which informs about the charges:
Sacramento, CA – Late yesterday, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra charged pro-life investigative journalists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt of the Center for Medical Progress with 15 felony counts related to secret recordings they made that provided evidence of Planned Parenthood’s participation in the illegal trafficking of aborted baby remains.
The best that I can tell is that Daleiden and Merritt have two different legal defense teams. Apparently David Daleiden is represented primarily by the Thomas More Society and Sandra Merritt’s team appears to be primarily the Liberty Counsel.
Since I am on the Liberty Counsel’s email press release alerts. As such, I found out that the California prosecution managed to have Sandra Merritt handcuffed and thrown in jail.
Sandra Merritt handcuffed & jailed
A May 5 Liberty Counsel update tells how the California authorities treated Ms. Merritt as she was incarcerated for a grueling 12 hours prior to her attorneys procured her release:
After 12 hours, three judges and $75,000 in bail, Sandra “Susan” Merritt was finally released from jail Wednesday. Merritt turned herself in to California authorities to answer the 15-count felony charges brought against her by the State of California for her undercover work in exposing Planned Parenthood’s illegal sale of aborted baby body parts.
Before Merritt was searched, handcuffed and taken away to jail, she and Horatio Mihet, Liberty Counsel’s Vice President of Legal Affairs and Chief Litigation Counsel, shared the Bible verse in Psalm 37:5-7 which says, “Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will do it. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.”
The State of California made it clear that it will spare no expense to convict her and put her in jail for 11 years. However, Liberty Counsel is defending Merritt and will seek dismissal of these outrageous and baseless charges. Similar criminal charges arising from the same recordings were brought against Merritt in Houston, Texas in 2016 but were eventually dismissed. The allegations say that Merritt and David Daleiden filmed 14 people without permission between October 2013 and July 2015 in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and the county of El Dorado. One felony count was filed for each person. The 15th charge was for criminal conspiracy to invade privacy.
In light of the California authorities treating Sandra Merritt like a hardened criminal, the Liberty Counsel has begun an online movement to gather signatures in support of Sandra. Join the “I Stand With Sandra” statement to inspire confidence in this grandmother who has helped to expose the murderous baby-killing Planned Parenthood in their nefarious for-profit murder of live babies to sell the most viable human body parts to human researchers.
Below is the Liberty Counsel short email and the text explaining that Sandra Merritt is deserving of support and the LINK that will take you to where LC text is located for you to sign your name.
THANK YOU SO MUCH for standing with us as Liberty Counsel defends Sandra Merritt in her legal battle against Planned Parenthood and its allies.
When we face battles like this and it feels as if the deck is stacked against us, it is extremely helpful to know that friends like you are standing with us. That’s why I want to rally at least 50,000 citizens to join in signing our “I Stand With Sandra” Statement Of Support.
I’m so thankful that we already have your name on file. Will you do me a favor? Will you help rally your friends to stand as well? Go here for Facebook and other share tools, or simply forward the message below to your friends.
Thank you once again!
Mat Staver
(Forward this message)
Hey!
Sandra Merritt is now facing 11 years in jail because she exposed Planned Parenthood’s atrocities. I’m standing with Sandra. Will you join me? Go here for more info:
Stand with Sandra Merritt As She Fights A Two-Front Legal Battle Against Planned Parenthood And Its Supporters
Join [20+ thousands of] signers!
Sandra Merritt is coming under legal attack for her courageous work in exposing Planned Parenthood — the nation’s largest abortion mill’s trafficking in aborted baby body parts. Now, Sandra is facing a two-front legal battle. Planned Parenthood is conducting a massive civil lawsuit against her. And now the Planned Parenthood-backed Attorney General is seeking an 11-year prison term or Sandra.
Liberty Counsel is asking our team members to sign this “I Stand With Sandra” statement of solidarity as we rally prayer and support for this important legal battle. Complete the form below to Stand With Sandra!
Help us rally 50,000 people to “Stand With Sandra” this month!
YES! I’m standing in solidarity with Sandra Merritt and Liberty Counsel to fight these legal attacks from Planned Parenthood and its supporters.
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Yurki1000 posted a comment on my NCCR about page urging me to spread the word about a petition to drop charges against David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt by California for exposing just how evil Planned Parenthood is in killing unborn babies. Signing the petition will take you to a donation page. Your support would be a worthy cause. But at least sign the petition! California has taken privacy laws to the point of disregarding the First Amendment on Free Speech and a Free Press.
Essentially Yurki is cross posting an email from Stand4Life which is a part of Operation Rescue. Support Daleiden and Merritt and sign the petition!
STAND4LIFE sends me email. Would you spread the word please?
– Planned Parenthood is pure evil. They make billions of dollars every year by murdering pre-born children and then selling their dismembered body parts to the highest bidder. And on top of it all, they receive $500 million of OUR taxpayer dollars every year!
We can end it, my friend. We can fight for justice for David and Sarah. We can defund the butchers at Planned Parenthood and end the slaughter of innocent, pre-born children.
If you’re ready to join the fight, please do so right now by signing Operation Rescue’s national petition.
And please, please urge your friends and family members to do the same. We need as many pro-life allies as possible to show the radical abortion lobby that we will keep fighting for the unborn!
About a half-a-year ago, the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) under the auspices David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt exposed Planned Parenthood not only as a baby-killing factory but also as an agent for selling murdered baby parts to research organization illegally. The thing that makes Planned Parenthood heinous is that babies had to be born intact for the most precious baby parts. Intact means born alive then killed.
Even though Planned Parenthood committed the crimes, it was Daleiden and Merritt that were charged – first in Texas and now in California.
The Texas charges were dropped after it became obvious pro-Dem Party prosecutors tainted a Grand Jury to indict them. NOW, under similar corrupt circumstances, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (who replaced another corrupt CA AG that went after CMP undercover operators) is another corrupt AG with ties to Planned Parenthood.
Evidently California has made it easy for criminals to commit crimes by passing privacy laws that mandate a citizen cannot be recorded with prior authorization. HENCE, a private citizen cannot get the goods on a criminal or criminals for breaking the law.
If you trust more in Biblical Morality than Secular Humanism then you understand Planned Parenthood and all people that believe a woman has a greater right to choose baby-killing more than an unborn person has a right to life, then you should tune into the Sixth Commandment:
When governments enforce the laws of man over God’s Commandments, you know there is a cultural degradation in America.
Who is responsible for this cultural degradation? Left Wing Democrats that first fundamentally transformed America in stealth via activist Judges then down right out in the open under eight years of the Obama Administration.
California AG Files Politically Motivated Charges Against Daleiden and Merritt
From Operation Rescue
Sent March 29, 20178:40 AM
Sacramento, CA – Late yesterday, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra charged pro-life investigative journalists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt of the Center for Medical Progress with 15 felony counts related to secret recordings they made that provided evidence of Planned Parenthood’s participation in the illegal trafficking of aborted baby remains.
“Just as corruption was involved in the last attempt to falsely charge David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, I predict that corruption is at the heart of these California charges as well. It is despicable that the California Attorney General charged innocent whistleblowers with felonies instead of the career criminals at Planned Parenthood. This is the ultimate abuse of power and tyranny. The Planned Parenthood butchers have committed tens of thousands of felonies by illegally selling baby’s body parts for profit,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue who also served as a founding member of the board for the Center for Medical Progress.
“We call on U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to aggressively prosecute Planned Parenthood and their partners in the illegal aborted baby parts trade,” said Cheryl Sullenger, Senior Vice President of Operation Rescue. “We ask that Attorney General Sessions resist any intimidation by California authorities who are simply acting as Democratic operatives on a political agenda to thwart any prosecution of Planned Parenthood.”
In response to the charges, Daleiden has released a new video that features Planned Parenthood executives making statements that further illustrate their involvement in the illicit trade of aborted baby remains.
Late Tuesday night, California’s Attorney General charged David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt with a whopping fifteen felonies.
Daleiden and Merritt, by way of the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), released several horrifying undercover videos exposing Planned Parenthood officials negotiating the price of aborted baby parts.
California is a two-party consent state, meaning both parties in any recording must consent to be recorded. 14 of the 15 charges are for recording confidential conversations without consent. The last is for conspiracy to commit a felony by recording private conversations at a conference.
Placing the two-party consent nonsense on hold for a moment, Daleiden and Merritt made two errors through the course of their investigation, one of which was omitted from the charges levied against them.
1) creating and using fake IDs
2) using an expired employee ID to login to Stem Expresses system
The former was not included, the latter was cited in the 15th felony charge.
Pretending to be a fictitious person is not a crime. Neither is creating a fake organization. The sale or purchase of fetal tissue, though (should it interfere with interstate commerce), that’s a federal felony. We’re not holding our breath for any AG to file charges against those who were captured on video discussing the sale of dismembered babies.
CMP’s series of undercover videos lead to a Congressional investigation in which Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood President, referred to the conversations as “non-confidential.”
Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) got into a heated debate with Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards during a Congressional hearing earlier this week.
Jordan wanted to know why Richards, just a few days after watching one of the Planned Parenthood videos which showed high-ranking officials bartering over baby parts, issued an apology.
The media should be rushing to defend Daldeiden [sic] and Merritt against these clearly politically wrought charges. And yet…
Some of the best reporting from the last century has been done undercover. Shows like Dateline and To Catch a Predator were predicated on using undercover tactics and ruses to either expose wrongdoing or bait would-be wrong doers.
In what seems like a lifetime ago, I worked with James O’Keefe and his undercover investigative outfit, Project Veritas. I recruited and coached undercover vidoegraphers [sic] across the country. One of our biggest considerations in every investigation was “is this legal?” I worked extensively with our attornies and videographers on the legal boundaries of recording and investigating. A case that came up regularly in our guidance was Medical Laboratory Consultants vs. American Broadcasting Companies (2002). In this case, the 9th circuit held that undercover, hidden camera investigations in medical labs were not an invasion of privacy.
As to the conference Daleiden and Merritt attended and recorded, we worked on several different investigations in two-party consent states where attending a conference was either part of the investigation or was the investigation. Guidance was always the same — if there is an announcement, either written or oral at a conference that sessions and general conference going would be recorded, then there is no expectation of privacy and hidden camera reporting would likely pass legal scrutiny.
Daleiden further responded to the charges by releasing yet another undercover video, and arguably the most sickening one to date, showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing dismemberment abortions and killing newborns:
At a networking reception at a Planned Parenthood conference, CMP investigators posing as buyers from a biotech company are introduced to Dr. Taylor by Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Senior Director of Medical Services.
Dr. Taylor confirms she does elective abortions on healthy fetuses and pregnant women up to 24 weeks. When the investigators ask her about obtaining intact fetal organs, Dr. Taylor replies, “It’s not a matter of how I feel about it coming out intact, but I gotta worry about my staff and people’s feelings about it coming out looking like a baby.”
She continues, “We have the people who do our paperwork for the fetal death certificates, they email us calling them ‘babies’. Baby this, baby that, baby so-and-so, and I’m like, that’s creepy!”
Dr. Taylor explains to the investigators, “In Arizona, if the fetus comes out with any signs of life, we’re supposed to transport it. To the hospital.” When one investigator then asks, “Is there any standard procedure for verifying signs of life?” Dr. Taylor replies, “Well, the thing is, I mean the key is, you need to pay attention to who’s in the room, right?”
Dr. Taylor then laughs as she repeats what the Arizona law requires, and says, “It’s a mess. It’s a mess.”
Dr. Taylor acknowledges that the feticidal chemical digoxin cannot be used in an abortion where fetal body parts will be harvested for sale, but she remarks that in a standard dismemberment dilation and evacuation abortion, “My biceps appreciate when the dig[oxin] works,” to kill the fetus before the procedure. “I remember when I was a [Family Planning] Fellow and I was training, I was like, Oh, I have to hit the gym for this,” she says, describing the force she feels in her biceps when performing a dismemberment abortion with forceps.
Charges filed against Daldeiden [sic] for in Texas were dropped last summer.
Shortly after Daleiden released the latest undercover video, the 9th circuit granted the National Abortion Federation a preliminary injunction, “prohibiting Biomax Procurement Services LLC, the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), David Daleiden, and Troy Newman from releasing recordings and materials they illegally obtained at NAF’s educational meetings.”
California’s AG may hope to punish Daleiden and Merritt for exposing the disgusting underbelly of Planned Parenthood, but ultimately, it will embolden life and speech advocates nationwide.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat who filed 15 felony charges against pro-life filmmakers Tuesday, previously accepted thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Planned Parenthood during his congressional campaigns.
Becerra announced Tuesday that the state had filed charges against David Daleiden, the founder of The Center for Medical Progress, and his associate, Sandra Merritt, for their roles in the release of a series of undercover videos that showed Planned Parenthood employees appearing to negotiate the price of aborted fetal body parts.
Profiting from the sale of human body parts — including those of the unborn — is illegal under federal law. Planned Parenthood denied illegal conduct and applauded the indictment of the pro-life filmmakers.
…
According to the Washington Examiner, Becerra, who previously served in the House of Representatives, received campaign contributions from Planned Parenthood during his congressional campaigns. Data from the Center for Responsive Politics shows that Becerra received $2,000 from Planned Parenthood during his 2012 campaign, and $1,000 in 2014.
When Becerra was appointed to be California’s attorney general by the state’s Gov. Jerry Brown (D) late last year, Planned Parenthood released a statement praising him as “a long-time champion for women’s reproductive rights and health.”
Becerra’s predecessor, Kamala Harris, who now represents California as a Democrat in the U.S. Senate, received $2,600 from Planned Parenthood during her 2016 Senate campaign, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
Harris had a history of working on behalf of Planned Parenthood’s agenda.
As attorney general, she spearheaded an investigation into The Center for Medical Progress. Daleiden said last April that Harris’ office raided his home and seized his video footage.
Emails obtained by the Washington Times in September showed that Harris’ office also collaborated with Planned Parenthood to draft legislation criminalizing the recording or distribution of a private conversation with a health care provider, targeting The Center for Medical Progress. The emails showed a Harris staffer asking Beth Parker, chief legal counsel for Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, to review the text of the bill.
Harris vowed to defend Planned Parenthood as a senator and urged supporters to sign a petition in defense of the group on her campaign website.
The Washington Free Beacon reported that both attorneys general received thousands of additional funds from other pro-choice groups allied with Planned Parenthood during their congressional campaigns.
Becerra’s office did not immediately respond to TheBlaze’s request for comment about the campaign contributions.
Daleiden’s attorney, Tom Brejcha, who is also president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society, said in a statement provided to TheBlaze, “When it comes to felony charges against our client, David Daleiden, history is on our side.”
“When David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt were falsely charged in Texas, after they mounted a vigorous defense, the charges were abruptly dropped. We expect that the same will prove true in California,” Brejcha said.
Lila Rose, the president and founder of the pro-life group Live Action, which has also released undercover footage of Planned Parenthood employees, said in a statement that “using state power to attack citizen journalists who expose crimes against the defenseless is a severe miscarriage of justice”:
The real criminal is Planned Parenthood, not David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt. The Center for Medical Progress did a tremendous service by exposing the barbaric baby parts trafficking that Planned Parenthood had kept hidden behind closed doors. They should be lauded for their brave work, not punished.
California’s last two pro-abortion attorneys general have yet to investigate Planned Parenthood after two congressional committees found significant evidence that it may have broken the law with its baby parts trafficking scheme. Similar charges against David and Sandra were dropped in Texas months ago, yet Mr. Becerra insists on punishing them and putting his political agenda ahead of the laws that he was sworn to uphold.
California AG Files Politically Motivated Charges Against Daleiden and Merritt
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I think Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson might be pitching Crooked Hillary Clinton for a VP slot. Why? Anderson shared “sealed video evidence” with Planned Parenthood, then Anderson swayed a Grand Jury to indict whistleblowers David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt rather than indict Planned Parenthood for killing live birth babies for the little human lives’ body parts to sell to research organizations.
An attorney representing Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, Josh Schaffer, has admitted that he pressured the Harris County District Attorney’s office to refocus a grand jury investigation away from his client and onto pro-life journalists David Daleiden and his associate, Sandra Merritt, of the Center for Medical Progress. Schaeffer also confessed that Assistant District Attorney Sunni Mitchell did an “end around” the State Attorney General Ken Paxton in order to share sealed video evidence with Planned Parenthood.
The grand jury later returned indictments against Daleiden and Merritt. Shaffer stated publicly that he was informed by the District Attorney’s office that no investigation of Planned Parenthood ever took place.
The admissions came in an affidavit filed as an exhibit by Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson to a brief responding to the defendants’ motion to quash the indictments against Daleiden and Merritt.
After the release last year of undercover videos taken by Daleiden, lead investigator for the Center for Medical Progress, and his associate, Susan Merritt, Paxton ordered Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson to launch an investigation into allegations that Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast (PPGC) was illegally selling aborted baby remains for profit and altering abortion procedures to ensure that marketable organs would be available for sale.
At the “suggestion” of Schaffer, the grand jury never investigated Planned Parenthood, but instead turned its attention to Daleiden and Merritt.
Attorney General Paxton had instructed the Harris County DA’s office not to share evidence with Planned Parenthood – including CMP videos – that was obtained through the grand jury process.
Schaeffer stated in his affidavit that he immediately began to seek the unedited videos taken by the CMP from Assistant Attorney General Sunni Mitchell. Shaffer stated:
As soon as I made contact with HCDAO prosecutors in August of 2015, I began requesting the unedited video footage. Sunni Mitchell, the prosecutor who was leading the HCDAO investigation, said that she was not opposed to giving me that footage. However, she said that the HCDAO did not have any video footage other than what was available on YouTube. I suggested that she request the unedited video footage from the Attorney General’s Office. In time, I learned that she obtained it from that Office. However, I was told that the Attorney General’s Office agreed to give it to the HCDAO on the condition that the HCDAO not give it to PPGC. Mitchell told me that she would try to obtain the footage by other means.
“Schaffer essentially has admitted to collusion with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, then denied that collusion existed,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue and a founding board member of the Center for Medical Progress. “He obviously thinks his weak attempt at a ‘Jedi mind trick’ will keep him out of trouble. He’s wrong.”
Mitchell eventually obtained the video from Murphy Klasing, one of Daleiden’s attorneys, who mistakenly released the video. Once Klasing realized that the video was under seal in Federal Court, he requested that Mitchell return the footage. Mitchell informed Klasing that she had already given it to PPGC and the National Abortion Federation, who was suing Daleiden in Federal Court.
Mitchell clearly understood that the Attorney General’s Office did not want the video to fall into Planned Parenthood’s hands. By requesting it from another source and supplying it to Planned Parenthood, she knowingly disobeyed the Attorney General’s directive and undermined any attempt to prosecute them in the future.
Planned Parenthood’s attorney also admitted that at first Mitchell told him that she did not know the identity of the woman in the CMP videos that went under the pseudonym of Susan Tannenbaum. Schaffer stated that it was he who supplied Mitchell with Tannenbaum’s true name, Sandra Merritt, which enabled Mitchell to obtain indictments against her as well as Daleiden.
“We have always questioned the ability of Devon Anderson and Sunni Mitchell to conduct unbiased investigations of abortion providers after they allowed Douglas Karpen to go free in 2013,” said Newman. “In Daleiden’s case, it is clear that they were working with Planned Parenthood all along to build a spurious criminal case against pro-life activists in order to protect Planned Parenthood from prosecution. This makes the indictments against Daleiden and Merritt irreparably tainted and they should be dropped immediately.”
Mitchell was tapped by Anderson to lead a 2013 grand jury investigation into allegations brought by Operation Rescue against abortionist Douglas Karpen that he had intentionally murdered infants born alive after failed abortions at his two Houston abortion facilities. Under Mitchell’s direction and despite eyewitness and photographic evidence, the grand jury controversially failed to indict Karpen. Operation Rescue later learned that Karpen was represented by one of Devon Anderson’s closest friends, Chip Lewis, who is also her largest campaign contributor.
In her responding brief opposing the defense motion to quash the tainted indictments, Anderson makes one more startling admission. She acknowledged that her office violated the law when it made public Daleiden and Merritt’s indictments before they were served or placed in custody or under bond.
However, Anderson attempts to downplay the violation as “harmless” and a “technical violation” that is “inconsequential.” She appeals to the court to simply ignore this violation.
“Any time due process is not followed in the course of a criminal prosecution, it is anything but ‘harmless,’” said Newman. “It dangerously erodes the ability of the public to have confidence in the competency and honesty of the prosecutor’s office.”
Operation Rescue has repeatedly reported on evidence that raises suspicions of corruption in the Harris County District Attorney’s office and has called for Devon Anderson’s resignation along with the appointment of an independent special prosecutor to reopen the case against Planned Parenthood.
A hearing on the motion to quash is set for July 26, 2016. At that time, Daleiden’s Houston attorney Jared Woodfill plans to put Planned Parenthood’s Josh Schaffer on the stand.
“The collusion between the DA and Planned Parenthood lawyers will be flushed out during this hearing,” Woodfill told Breitbart Texas. “We will put Planned Parenthood’s lawyer on the stand and will expose the witch hunt that ended up with the indictment of my client but let baby part selling Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast get off scot-free.”
But whether or not Woodfill’s plan succeeds remains to be seen. The judge that will oversee that hearing is District Judge Brock Thomas – Devon Anderson’s former law partner.
“We can only hope and pray that Anderson’s former law partner isn’t as corrupt as she is,” said Newman.
LifeNews.com Note: Cheryl Sullenger is a leader of Operation Rescue, a pro-life that monitors abortion practitioners and exposes their illegal and unethical practices.
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David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt from The Center for Medical Progress are being politically persecuted via State Attorney Generals committed to protect Planned Parenthood from breaking the law in performing live births of babies then murdering them for the body parts to sell for research.
SlantRight 2.0 cross posts exposing this political persecution:
A league of Democrats in the House tried to prevent this investigation by the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives. That means the GOP House Majority were able to break through the Dem Party cover-up on the Federal level just as State political hacks have been going after Daleiden and the CMP for exposing Planned Parenthood practices of live baby-killing then the marketing of fetal baby parts to research companies with Stem Express appearing the most named research organization mentioned. According Life Action News, 12 subpoenas were issued by the House Select Committee:
The remaining subpoenas all request information either related to StemExpress, or to the University of New Mexico and Southwestern Women’s Options, the late-term abortion facility run by late-term abortionist Curtis Boyd.
This is going to be one long post. I am posting five news reports. The first two are from LifeNews.com which sent the update to my inbox, then by Breitbart.com, The Federalist and finally a portion of Live Action News because of the length this post will present.
New documents produced by a Congressional committee show the Planned Parenthood abortion business profited from the sales of aborted baby parts. The documents provide more evidence that a Center for Medical Progress video already put forward that the abortion company is violating federal law prohibiting the profiting from the sales of body parts from aborted children.
The video at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s massive Houston abortion clinic and documents from a Texas Public Information Act request show how Planned Parenthood used accounting gimmicks to hide its illegal sale of body parts from aborted babies. The video highlights previously overlooked footage from the April 9, 2015 site visit of investigative journalists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt from The Center for Medical Progress to the abortion facility.
Now, a new white paper on the pricing of aborted bay parts from the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives reveals Planned Parenthood appears to be breaking the law. The document points out that “to profit from the acquisition or transfer of fetal tissue violates Title 42 USC §289 g-2, which prohibits the transfer of any fetal tissue for valuable consideration that exceeds the reasonable costs associated with the procurement.”
The white paper and accompanying exhibits show that the middleman company StemExpress does all of the work to transfer the aborted baby parts — making it so Planned Parenthood is spared any significant expense, thus leaving it with pure profit from the sale of the parts.
“The [abortion clinic] has no costs so the payments from the [procurement business] to the [abortion clinic] are pure profit,” the report concludes. “All costs are born by the [procurement business] or the customer. The payments from the customer to the PB exceed its cost by a factor of 300 to 400 percent.”
“The abortion industry sells baby hearts, livers, brains, hands and other organs procured by a middleman company inside their facilities at no cost or effort to the facilities themselves. The facility receives upfront fees that can amount to five-figure sums every month and then the procurement companies resell organs for tens of thousands more—depending on the child’s characteristics,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, said in a release. “The documents make clear there is absolutely no cost to the abortion clinic so that all monies received go to their bottom line.”
The document also reveals 1 in 5 abortion clinics, whether they were affiliated with Planned Parenthood or independent abortion centers, were selling the body parts of aborted babies when CMP began exposing the sales at Planned Parenthood.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn, the head of the select panels, commented on the new findings: “The release of those horrific videos last summer raised many questions about whether abortion clinics and middleman tissue procurement businesses were profiting from the sale of baby body parts, organs and tissues.”
She said about a hearing today that will investigate the new documents further:
“This hearing will examine business documents, invoices, marketing brochures, and management documents that reveal one for-profit procurement business and several abortion clinics may have acted in violation of federal law by profiting from the sale of baby body parts, organs and tissues.”
David Daleiden of CMP commented on the new documents and said “The financial documents uncovered by the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives prove that Planned Parenthood profited from the sale of aborted baby parts to their long-time business partner StemExpress.”
“The facts are now undeniable that Planned Parenthood had no “costs” to “reimburse” and every dollar they received for little baby hearts, brains, and livers netted illegal profit. Planned Parenthood lied to the media, to Congress, and to the American people for 9 months falsely asserting they had no financial benefit from supplying baby parts. Now, Planned Parenthood and their partners in crime must face justice under the law for their barbaric criminal profiteering from aborted baby parts,” he continued.
The expose’ videos catching Planned Parenthood officials selling the body parts of aborted babies have shocked the nation. Here is a list of the twelve videos:
In the first video: Dr. Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood commented on baby-crushing: “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”
In the second video:Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Mary Gatter joked, “I want a Lamborghini” as she negotiated the best price for baby parts.
In the third video:Holly O’Donnell, a former Stem Express employee who worked inside a Planned Parenthood clinic, detailed first-hand the unspeakable atrocities and how she fainted in horror over handling baby legs.
In the fourth video:Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Savita Ginde stated, “We don’t want to do just a flat-fee (per baby) of like, $200. A per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it.” She also laughed while looking at a plate of fetal kidneys that were “good to go.”
In the fifth video: Melissa Farrell of Planned Parenthood-Gulf Coast in Houston boasted of Planned Parenthood’s skill in obtaining “intact fetal cadavers” and how her “research” department “contributes so much to the bottom line of our organization here, you know we’re one of the largest affiliates, our Research Department is the largest in the United States.”
In the sixth video: Holly O’Donnell described technicians taking fetal parts without patient consent: “There were times when they would just take what they wanted. And these mothers don’t know. And there’s no way they would know.”
In the seventh and perhaps most disturbing video:Holly O’Donnell described the harvesting, or “procurement,” of organs from a nearly intact late-term fetus aborted at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte’s Alameda clinic in San Jose, CA. “‘You want to see something kind of cool,’” O’Donnell says her supervisor asked her. “And she just taps the heart, and it starts beating. And I’m sitting here and I’m looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating, and I don’t know what to think.”
In the eighth video: StemExpress CEO Cate Dyer admits Planned Parenthood sells “a lot of” fully intact aborted babies.
The ninth video: catches a Planned Parenthood medical director discussing how the abortion company sells fully intact aborted babies — including one who “just fell out” of the womb.
The 10th video: catches the nation’s biggest abortion business selling specific body parts — including the heart, eyes and “gonads” of unborn babies. The video also shows the shocking ways in which Planned Parenthood officials admit that they are breaking federal law by selling aborted baby body parts for profit.
Unreleased Videos: Unreleased videos from CMP show Deb Vanderhei of Planned Parenthood caught on tape talking about how Planned Parenthood abortion business affiliates may “want to increase revenue [from selling baby parts] but we can’t stop them…” Another video has a woman talking about the “financial incentives” of selling aborted baby body parts.
The 11th video: catches a Texas Planned Parenthood abortionist planning to sell the intact heads of aborted babies for research. Amna Dermish is caught on tape describing an illegal partial-birth abortion procedure to terminate living, late-term unborn babies which she hopes will yield intact fetal heads for brain harvesting.
The 12th video in the seriesshows new footage of Jennefer Russo, medical director at Planned Parenthood in Orange County, California, describing to undercover investigators how her abortion business tries to harvest intact aborted babies’ bodies for a local for-profit biotech company and changes the abortion procedure to do so.
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Planed [sic] Parenthood Sold Aborted Babies’ Brains, Hearts, Livers, Glands, and Even Their Scalps
The Select Panel on Infant Lives has released a series of exhibits that prove beyond a doubt that Planned Parenthood has lied to the American people about not earning illegal profits from trafficking aborted baby tissue and organs.
“It is clear from the documentation released by the Select Panel that money paid to Planned Parenthood in exchange for aborted baby remains qualified as illegal ‘valuable consideration.’ This completely validates every allegation that was put forth by investigators from the Center for Medical Progress,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue, who also served as a founding board member for the Center for Medical Progress.
Newman continued, “Planned Parenthood has engaged in an aggressive public relations campaign to convince the public that videos released by the Center for Medical Progress were ‘hoaxed’ and that Planned Parenthood never profited from the sale of fetal remains. Now we all can see for ourselves that this was a bold-faced lie. Planned Parenthood should be prosecuted for their crimes. They must not be held above the law.”
The exhibits are accompanied by a White Paper on the Pricing of Fetal Tissue produced by the Select Panel, which explains how all of the costs of tissue procurement were absorbed by the organ procurement companies, such as Stem Express, and that Planned Parenthood essentially incurred no costs.
Documents show that Planned Parenthood clinics were awarded $10,000 contract signing bonuses by one procurement company that were disguised as “donations.” That bonus was on top of money paid for POCs (products of conception) and blood samples.
An example of Planned Parenthood’s profit-taking is shown on page 37 of the Exhibit packet. It shows that four Planned Parenthood clinics in California were paid $11,365.00 in August 2012, alone for 171 “POCs” and 196 blood samples harvested at their facilities.
A drop-down menu from a tissue procurement company’s website shows a list of organs that were available for sale, including brains, hearts, livers, glands, and even scalps. These organs had to be procured from abortion facilities like Planned Parenthood.
Now you do not have to be a lawyer to see what’s going on here,” stated Rep. Marsha Blackburn, Chairman of the Select Panel, in a written statement. “You put up a website that offers any baby body part imaginable – and why on earth do they need a baby scalp? Then you pick the gestation period and then check out.”
“There is a grisly answer to Rep. Blackburn’s question about why anyone would need a baby scalp,” said Newman. “Tissue wasn’t just being used for ‘medical’ research but by commercial entities for the use in the development of products for sale to the public. The male hair growth industry is a very lucrative one.”
LifeNews.com Note: Cheryl Sullenger is a leader of Operation Rescue, a pro-life that monitors abortion practitioners and exposes their illegal and unethical practices.
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House Panel Documents Point to Planned Parenthood Profits from Aborted Baby Parts
Financial documents discovered by a congressional investigative panel allegedly show that Planned Parenthood has profited from the sale of the body parts of babies aborted in its clinics.
The House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives was created to investigate fetal tissue practices in the abortion industry. The impetus was provided by the release of videos last summer which exposed Planned Parenthood’s apparent practices of selling the body parts of aborted babies and altering the position of babies during abortion to harvest the most intact organs.
Although Planned Parenthood has denied any wrongdoing in its sale of body parts, the abortion business also released a statement last October announcing it would no longer accept payments for aborted fetal tissue.
A new white paper on the pricing of fetal tissue, produced by the House panel, notes that “to profit from the acquisition or transfer of fetal tissue violates Title 42 USC §289 g-2, which prohibits the transfer of any fetal tissue for valuable consideration that exceeds the reasonable costs associated with the procurement.”
The white paper and accompanying exhibits highlight three important discoveries made by the panel.
First, fetal tissue procurement companies – such as StemExpress, which was featured in the investigative videos produced by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) – appear to do all of the work in the fetal tissue transfer, with no cost to abortion clinics such as Planned Parenthood, allegedly allowing the abortion companies to receive millions of dollars in pure profit.
Second, by 2015, StemExpress was working with nearly 100 abortion clinics. Approximately 1 in every 5 abortion facilities nationwide was involved in the sale of the body parts of aborted babies to StemExpress. Just prior to the release of the CMP investigative videos, the tissue procurement business was about to have access to over 50 percent of the abortion market.
Third, CMP’s video exposé was just the tip of the iceberg regarding the relationship between Planned Parenthood and StemExpress.
The House Select panel is holding a hearing on Wednesday to examine its documents and exhibits and consider the issue of whether abortion clinics and other “middleman businesses” were violating federal law by profiting from the transfer of aborted fetal tissue.
“The release of those horrific videos last summer raised many questions about whether abortion clinics and middleman tissue procurement businesses were profiting from the sale of baby body parts, organs and tissues,” panel chair Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said in a statement, adding:
This hearing will examine business documents, invoices, marketing brochures, and management documents that reveal one for-profit procurement business and several abortion clinics may have acted in violation of federal law by profiting from the sale of baby body parts, organs and tissues.
David Daleiden, project lead of CMP, said in a statement about the House panel’s documents, “The financial documents uncovered by the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives prove that Planned Parenthood profited from the sale of aborted baby parts to their long-time business partner StemExpress.”
He added:
The facts are now undeniable that Planned Parenthood had no “costs” to “reimburse” and every dollar they received for little baby hearts, brains, and livers netted illegal profit. Planned Parenthood lied to the media, to Congress, and to the American people for 9 months falsely asserting they had no financial benefit from supplying baby parts. Now, Planned Parenthood and their partners in crime must face justice under the law for their barbaric criminal profiteering from aborted baby parts.
Planned Parenthood and its leftwing media supporters continue to insist the videos, produced by CMP, were “deceptively edited.”
However, a Democrat opposition research firm named Fusion – hired by Planned Parenthood itself to review the videos – said while its analysts observed the videos had been edited, “the analysis did not reveal widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation.”
Additionally, Fusion noted, “[A]nalysts found no evidence that CMP inserted dialogue not spoken by Planned Parenthood staff.”
An analysis by Coalfire, a third-party forensics company hired by Alliance Defending Freedom, found that the videos were “not manipulated” and that they are “authentic.”
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11 Quick Takeaways From House Hearing On Aborted Baby Parts Trafficking
The market for aborted baby parts is significant, growing, and operating in violation of federal law, witnesses testified at a House hearing.
Abortion clinics and the businesses that purchase aborted baby parts likely conspired to violate federal laws against fetal human organ trafficking, expert witnesses at a House hearing testified yesterday. Evidence of a widespread market for unborn baby parts — down to the tongue, scalp, eyes — was introduced at a testy hearing of the House Select Panel on Infant Lives.
Here are the 11 big takeaways from the hearing chaired by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, (R-TN).
1) Federal Law Prohibits Profiting Off of Aborted Baby Parts
In 1993, the House passed the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act of 1993 with an amendment stating, “It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human fetal tissue for valuable consideration if the transfer affects interstate commerce.” Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), the abortion rights proponent who pushed the amendments, said at the time, “It would be abhorrent to allow the sale of fetal tissue and a market to be established for that sale.”
Witnesses such as Catherine Glenn Foster of the Charlotte Lozier Institute testified that the law has not been enforced in the last 23 years, permitting just such a market to flourish.
2) The Basic Business Model for Aborted Baby Parts
Abortion clinics supply the aborted baby parts to researchers through a “procurement business” middleman. Researchers pay some amount of money to the procurement business. The procurement business pays the abortion clinic for the human organs they supply via abortion. And the abortion clinic receives payment for the organs and tissue they obtain. Payment is permitted for “reasonable costs,” associated with securing the aborted baby parts.
The procurement industry markets itself to abortion clinics as a way to improve their profitability. In a section of one procurement company brochure titled “Easy to implement program + financial profits,” the company stated that partnering with them would provide “a financial benefit to your clinic,” and was “financially profitable.” The brochure also featured an endorsement from Dr. Dorothy Furgerson of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte.
The market for aborted baby parts was good for at least one procurement company, which was poised to do business with 250 abortion clinics before undercover videos exposed fetal organ sales and drew unwanted attention to the practice.
3) Abortion Clinics Aren’t Incurring Costs
Federal law permits payment for reasonable costs associated with the procurement of aborted baby parts. But under the business model being investigated, the procurement business sends its own technician into an abortion clinic to do the work of securing the human organs. The costs are incurred by the procurement business, but the abortion clinic still gets paid money.
“Every conceivable task is performed by the procurement business employees” and not abortion clinic staff, according to committee staff presenting information from one procurement business. The customer places an order for tissue; the order is posted for a procurement technician to see; the technician reviews the medical files of women and girls who have abortions scheduled for the day; the technician informs the clinic about tissues needed for orders; the technician obtains consent from patients based on gestation and order data; the technician procures the body parts requested; the technician packages and ships the tissue to the customer; the technician records invoices for the clinic; and, finally, the middleman pays the clinic per tissue sample.
Investigators released evidence of guidance given to procurement technicians showing that they alone manage the entire organ procurement process — from targeting specific women for baby parts based on order demands to shipping the body parts to the customer. There was no evidence shown that abortion clinics incur costs as part of the process.
This business model might explain why Planned Parenthood announced in October that it would no longer accept money for aborted baby parts. To accept money, when there are no reasonable costs associated with providing the parts, would be a clear violation of the law.
Or as Foster said, “Abortion clinics are being promised a profit and are paid even when they have no apparent costs to be reimbursed, which further multiplies a clinic’s windfall via savings on disposal services. Tissue procurement companies are likewise paid exorbitantly by their customers. This market in baby organs and tissues demonstrates a flagrant and repeated disregard for the rule of law. It was no surprise when America’s biggest abortion business, facing public and prosecutorial exposure, relented and agreed to end its longstanding practice of receiving direct payments for baby body parts.”
4) The Market for Aborted Baby Parts Is Very Specific
Evidence was released at the hearing showing a drop-down menu order form where researchers can order any and all baby body parts, including brain, heart, lungs, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, esophagus, tongue, and scalp. Yes, scalp.
5) Aborted Baby Parts Are Valuable
One of the most interesting things about the revelation that abortion clinics sell fetal body parts is that the unborn child is not considered a valuable human when it comes to ending her life prematurely, but her body parts are considered incredibly valuable precisely because of her humanity. Invoices regarding the sale and transfer of fetal organs were presented at the hearing. One customer paid $22,610 for 38 fetal brains. Another paid $3,340 for a fetal brain, $595 for a “baby skull matched to upper and lower limbs,” and $890 for “upper and lower limbs with hands and feet.”
6) Everyone Agrees: Forensic Audits Are Needed
Investigators have begun to find evidence of a significant market for fetal organs. They know that there are profitable procurement businesses that have exploded in growth in recent years. They know that hundreds of abortion clinics are partnered with these procurement businesses. And they have evidence that abortion clinics were paid for the organs from aborted children, even though the procurement business handled all of the costs.
When income exceeds costs, that’s profit. Planned Parenthood and other abortion clinics claimed they didn’t profit from their sale of human organs.
Witnesses testifying at the hearing for both the Republicans and the Democrats said that the committee needs to subpoena financial records from procurement businesses and abortion clinics in order to determine whether these sales violate the law.
Brian Patrick Lennon, a former Assistant United States Attorney in Michigan, reviewed the evidence presented for the hearing and said that there was enough for a “competent, ethical federal prosecutor” to “establish probable cause that both the abortion clinics and the procurement business violated the statute, aided and abetted one another in violating the statute, and likely conspired together to violate the statute.” However, he said that forensic accounting and analysis were absolutely needed to determine whether the payments to those involved in the business were in excess of what the law permits.
No state investigation has involved forensic auditing, and no federal investigation has thus far.
7) Democratic Members Are Upset at Investigation
From the moment the hearing started, Democratic members of the panel, such as Rep. Diana DeGette, (D-Planned Parenthood) attempted to keep the evidence of fetal organ markets from being discussed. Evidence revealed that they are working with procurement businesses attorneys to fight the investigation. That bolstered reporting from The New York Times that Democrats on the committee are helping others in the fetal organ market hide information sought by investigators.
The strenuous Democratic efforts to fight the evidence, to help those in the industry thwart investigation, and to question the very investigation into fetal organ markets were difficult to ignore.
Democratic members’ strategy appeared to be 1) fight discussion of evidence; 2) say the investigation is too expensive; 3) issue Planned Parenthood talking points against The Center for Medical Progress videos (which were not a topic of discussion at this hearing); and 4) claim that the evidence of fetal organ markets didn’t show fetal organ markets. When shown the drop-down order menu for fetal scalps, for instance, DeGette said it wasn’t evidence of fetal organ markets. This would be akin to looking at the Amazon.com website and saying it doesn’t suggest you can buy books online.
This strategy wasn’t particularly effective at the hearing, but it does show the danger of believing one’s own talking points. An independent audit showed that The Center for Medical Progress videos were not deceptively edited, and Planned Parenthood itself conceded that the statements by its staff featured in the video were not manipulated. But Planned Parenthood supporters (and recipients of Planned Parenthood campaign donations, such as those on the panel) and their allies in the media protested that the videos were nevertheless fraudulent. Their talking point from the very beginning has been that the whole story is made up. Faced with overwhelming evidence of a fetal organ market, the response was to fight discussion of the evidence and then to claim that the evidence didn’t really show what it seemed to show. In that sense, their performance at the hearing is similar to the pro-choice movement’s response to the initial videos. Who are you going to believe, Jerry Nadler or your own lying eyes? They’re banking on the media believing Nadler. (And it’s not a bad bet!)
8) Democrats Struggling with Consistency on Discretion
Throughout the investigation, Democrats have claimed to be worried that investigating those involved in fetal organ markets will put them at risk. At the hearing yesterday, Republican staff removed all identifying information of the people and companies being discussed. However, Democratic members revealed names while discussing the evidence. Even more, they complained that the Republican staff had redacted the names.
9) Consent Process Raises Questions about Minors, HIPAA
The hearing showed that the procurement business technicians “consent” the women and girls who seek abortions. Some witnesses noted that the technicians have access to the names and private information of the individual seeking the abortion and will call her out by name to discuss “donating” the body parts of her unborn child. If she consents, she signs a form. One witness raised the issue of the third party business having access to this information. Another noted that many abortion clinics are performing abortions on minors, raising a question of whether the minor even can consent to the tissue “donation.”
10) Media Still Lagging on Major Story
Bethlehem College professor Joe Rigney made an excellent point about the relative lack of media interest in this human rights story about fetal organ harvesting. He said, “Journalists like to think that, when faced with coverup of great evil, they’d do what the Globe team did in the movie Spotlight.” Their conduct with the revelation of fetal organ harvesting and selling shows the exact opposite, he said. “They’re not the brave exposer of institutional evil. They’re the bishop talking about how much good the Church does for the neighborhood, so let’s keep this abuse thing quiet.”
This hearing did have media interest, and many reporters are covering it well. But when a hearing reveals evidence of a significant market in fetal organ sales — in a year when that very claim has been fought over — much more coverage is needed. And when congressional investigators are doing a better job than journalists of finding out information, it’s flat out embarrassing. The expert witnesses who testified today about minors, HIPAA, and conspiracies involving abortion clinics and procurement businesses were witnesses that members of the media could have interviewed in previous months.
11) Daleiden Vindicated
Perhaps the best way to sum up this hearing was that it revealed evidence that vindicates David Daleiden and The Center for Medical Progress. Daleiden showed that abortion clinics were selling human organs from the babies they abort, that there is a market for such body parts, and that this raises questions of violations of federal law.
Daleiden said, after the hearing, “The undercover video admissions by senior-level Planned Parenthood officials only scratch the surface of this barbaric trade. The financial documents uncovered by the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives prove that Planned Parenthood profited from trafficking fetal organs and tissues. We now know the criminal trade in body parts is spread nationwide throughout the abortion industry, with nearly one in five abortion clinics selling baby parts to StemExpress. Even the pro-Planned Parenthood witnesses called by the panel minority agreed that a robust investigation should seek testimony and accounting documents from Planned Parenthood.”
That’s why Planned Parenthood’s staunchest defenders tried to keep the evidence at the hearing from being discussed.
The subpoenas are being moved almost as quickly as the baby parts after an abortion. The House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives has announced the issuance of 12 new subpoenas in its ongoing investigation on the harvesting of fetal body parts, following the release of multiple undercover videos last year from the Center for Medical Progress.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee had previously requested the information, but says these subpoenas were sent“to organizations who have failed to fully cooperate with both requests for information and previous subpoenas.” A press release notes that groups have been uncooperative with the panel.
“To date the Majority Staff of the Select Investigative Panel has sent more than 40 letters requesting documents. Those letters all asked for information to be provided voluntarily.”
Committee Chairman Marsha Blackburnmade the following statement with regards to the ongoing investigation:
There should be no resistance to letting all the facts come out — but some abortion supporters seem to be clearly rattled with basic facts coming to light… Therefore, in the interest of completing our investigation pursuant to H. Res. 461, we will continue to issue subpoenas when necessary to ensure information can be gathered in a timely fashion.
The subpoenas were handed to various biomedical organizations. One of … READ THE REST
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VIDEO: The Pricing of Fetal Tissue [No one talks until about the 30:30 minute mark of a 3:27:01 recording of the Committee]
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