By Hudson Driver –
Two investigative journalists – who have endured nine years of political-addled “lawfare” for exposing Planned Parenthood’s apparent felony willingness to sell aborted fetuses – have finally been vindicated in California court, media report.
David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt posed as “fetal procurement” agents for BioMax and negotiated prices of livers, hearts, brains and other leftovers from abortions – all the while recording with hidden video cameras. Release of the videos in 2015 set off shockwaves in the nation.
The abortion industry and their political allies retaliated with civil and criminal lawsuits. The National Abortion Federation sued over abortion providers’ safety, and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra charged the pair with multiple felonies. Kamala Harris, then in charge of CA’s Dept. of Justice, raided their non-profit to confiscate the incriminating videos that had not yet been released to the public.
California’s prosecution protracted nine years but was dropped this January in a negotiated plea bargain, in which Merrit pled no contest to only one felony charge to later be reduced to misdemeanor and completely expunged from her record. There will be no prison or fines.
“Sandra Merritt did nothing wrong,” says Matt Staver of Liberty Counsel. “She did the right thing by exposing the depravity of the abortion industry. Murdering human babies to harvest their body parts for profit is evil and there is no excuse for Sandra’s political persecution.
“This is an extraordinary result for Sandra and the state of California deserves to walk away virtually empty handed,” he adds.
Ordinarily, investigative journalists are protected under the Free Speech amendment to uncover abuse of government. But Democrats, unwavering supporters of the abortion industry, turned the tables on the truth, sifting through laws to persecute the messengers and snuff out the message. With a super-majority in California, the Democrat held nothing back in their “lawfare.”
“After nine years of unprecedented political prosecution, putting an end to the lawfare launched by Kamala Harris is a huge victory for my investigative reporting and for the public’s right to know the truth about Planned Parenthood’s sale of aborted baby body parts,” Daleiden told Live Action. “Now we must all get to work to protect families and infants from the criminal abortion industrial complex.”
Daleiden’s Center for Medical Progress surreptitiously filmed negotiations with abortion providers at various locations, including the National Abortion Federation’s 2014 and 2015 abortion convention and trade shows. Videos include dinners and inside Planned Parenthood offices, discussing sales of human body parts.
“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 avoid violating partial-birth abortion law and obtain more profitable body parts to sell,” according to Liberty Counsel.
“I want a Lamborghini,” reportedly said Dr. Mary Gatter in one of them, haggling over prices.
Planned Parenthood told the New York Times it turned down offers to buy body parts, but under-oath testimony would indicate that they in fact wanted the money. Planned Parenthood’s Tram Nguyen could be heard admitting that she actually intended to move forward with the financial arrangement.
Steve Cooley, a former Los Angeles County district attorney who led Daleiden’s legal defense team, qualified as “vindictive” the criminal case against Center for Medical Progress.
“In my five decades as an attorney, 40 years of which were as a prosecutor, I have never seen such a blatant exercise of selective investigation and vindictive prosecution,” Cooley said. “The California attorneys general who initiated this case and pursued it for nearly 10 years should be ashamed for weaponizing their office to pursue people who were merely exposing illegality associated with the harvesting and sale of fetal body parts.”
About this writer: Hudson Driver is a student at the Lighthouse Church School in Santa Monica.
