California Tries to Silence Daleiden With Felony Charges for Exposing Planned Parenthood’s Sale of Baby Parts

Planned Parenthood's powerful friends in California use their office to try to silence pro-life filmmaker.

By Anika Smith Published on March 29, 2017

The undercover filmmaker whose work exposed Planned Parenthood’s sale of baby body parts has been charged with 15 felonies in the state of California.

Lead investigator David Daleiden and co-investigator Sandra Merritt have been charged with 14 counts of filming people without their consent and one count of conspiracy to invade privacy.

The complaint hinges on the claim that the recorded conversations were confidential. In a phone interview with The Washington Post yesterday, Daleiden pointed out that Planned Parenthood’s own president, Cecile Richards, called the setting of the conversations “nonconfidential.”

“Planned Parenthood’s own CEO might have to be the first witness that we call in opposition to the charges that are being brought,” Daleiden said.

Daleiden promised that in the coming weeks he will release unseen footage of his Planned Parenthood investigation.

These charges are the latest effort to discredit Daleiden and his investigation into Planned Parenthood’s grisly practices. While mainstream media accounts refer to “heavily edited videos,” the Center for Medical Progress has released hours of unedited footage. Viewers may hear for themselves the context of the conversations with Planned Parenthood and Stem Express officials when they negotiated sales and discussed organ harvesting.

Last April then-California attorney general Kamala Harris ordered a raid on Daleiden’s home. In that raid the rest of his undercover footage was seized. This happened while Harris was campaigning for Planned Parenthood. Harris used her pro-abortion platform to win the open Senate seat representing California last year.

The new California attorney general, Xavier Becerra, was praised by Planned Parenthood as a “champion for women’s reproductive rights” when Gov. Jerry Brown appointed him last year. So Becerra has in effect taken over Harris’s efforts to silence Daleiden.

Former Los Angeles district attorney Steve Cooley is representing Daleiden in the case. He is an old hand at rooting out political corruption: His administration has cracked down on corrupt politicians and attorneys. He reminded The Post that Kamala Harris began the “investigation” that led to Tuesday’s felony charges in order to “pander to her constituents and her supporters.”

“It was nothing more than a First Amendment journalist pursuing a good cause and fighting a battle, now a martyr who’s being crushed by the power of the State of California,” Cooley said.

David Daleiden released a statement yesterday. He pointed out that the Center for Medical Progress has faced similar charges before, and been vindicated:

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 — currently being 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.

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