One of the wildest criminal proceedings in the history of legalized abortion is happening this week in San Francisco. David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt are on trial for posing as potential buyers for the body parts of aborted babies. As part of their investigation they recorded conversations in restaurants with Planned Parenthood employees where they haggled over the prices and methods by which the “tissue” would be harvested.
When Daleiden and Merritt began releasing their videos, there was public uproar, which was partially responsible for the election of President Trump, as well as the ending of much of Planned Parenthood’s government funding. These videos clearly capture Planned Parenthood employees breaking federal law, which prohibits the sale of fetal tissue for profit.
But somehow Planned Parenthood workers have never been prosecuted. Instead, the two people responsible for making the videos were charged in state court for violating California’s laws against wire-tapping. This week was their evidentiary hearing—where the State shows their evidence to a judge, to demonstrate they have met a burden of proof to go to trial.
While the trial hasn’t started yet, this whole legal process has proved to be a huge mistake for Planned Parenthood, as it has already produced one insanely embarrassing revelation after another for them. Here are the five craziest things uncovered so far in court:
ONE. The prosecution was initiated by Planned Parenthood asking Loretta Lynch (at the time, the US Attorney General) to reach out to Kamala Harris (at the time the State Attorney General in California) to investigate the journalists who made the videos. In other words, the investigation was obviously politically driven, and Harris took orders from Lynch, while Lynch took direction from Planned Parenthood. The State was forced to turn over a letter from Lynch to Harris, which was cited as the reason for initiating the case. That’s not the way any of this is supposed to work.
Two. The State of California let Planned Parenthood see and edit the search warrant to be served on Daleiden, before it was executed. Thus, Planned Parenthood got to ensure that the devices Daleiden used were included on the warrant, and got to approve the scope of the investigation.
Three. The search warrant deceptively edited California law to cover the violence of abortions. California law prohibits “wire-tapping” without consent. In other words, you cannot record a private conversation without both party’s consent. However, the law has an express exception—if the purpose of the recording is to uncover evidence of a crime of violence, then the recording is not illegal. Obviously the defense would say that the illegal sale of fetal tissue acquired through “crunchy” methods is a violent crime, and obviously the prosecution would disagree. Yet Planned Parenthood and the State of California edited the exception clause out of the law included in the search warrant. So the judge who signed off on it didn’t have the full text of the law in front of him to begin with.
Four. Planned Parenthood originally went to the Los Angeles Police and filed a criminal complaint against Daleiden and Merritt. The LAPD declined to pass along the complaint to prosecutors, because it was on its face absurd. The law prohibits recording “private conversations” and because the videos were made in public restaurants, there was nothing illegal about them. This is why Planned Parenthood then reached out Lynch and asked her to pressure Harris.
Five. The most important revelation at this hearing was the admission from one of the doctors in Daleiden’s video that the videos themselves were not edited or doctored. Remember that when the stories first broke, the standard pro-abortion line was that the videos were “deceptively edited.” But now, in court and under oath, that is shown to be false.
These revelations have been so embarrassing that after three days of the hearing, the prosecutors asked the judge to give the defense a gag order prohibiting them from sharing on social media what was happening in the court room. And this was during the prosecution’s phase of the proceedings! In other words, the prosecution’s own case is so damaging to the reputation of their client that they want it done in secret (and I know the State’s client is supposed to be the people, but in this case it is very clearly Planned Parenthood—the State’s witnesses have all said they are being paid by Planned Parenthood for their testimony, and they received the State’s questions in advance). The request for a mid-hearing gag-order brought a fairly stern rebuke from the judge, with an admonition about the importance of public courts. Twitter and Facebook however were more accommodating, suspending Daleiden’s accounts for “sharing confidential court proceedings.” Laughable, because remember, he is the defendant.
This entire spectacle is an offense. California law—ironically designed to allow animal rights activists to go under cover and film slaughterhouses—is clear; Daleiden and Merritt’s videos may be embarrassing to Planned Parenthood, but that does not make them illegal.
Pay attention to this case. If Planned Parenthood prevails, it will be a dangerous omen for the pro-life movement. A Planned Parenthood victory would indicate that the highest levels of American government and law enforcement take direction from a political organization, and that they are willing to use law enforcement to stifle opposition. The horrors of the modern abortion industry are possible only because they are covered in darkness. Strangely enough, this hearing is bringing many of them to light.
