Lawyers for undercover investigator David Daleiden filed a motion Wednesday asking a federal judge to recuse himself from the case, arguing that he has links to the abortion industry.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick blocked Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress from releasing some of their undercover footage in 2015 after the National Abortion Federation filed a lawsuit. When a new undercover video was released online in May, Orrick ordered that it be removed and said he would consider holding Daleiden in contempt.
In a motion filed Wednesday, Daleiden and his attorneys asked that Orrick recuse himself from the case because of a pro-abortion bias, the AP reports. They said they recently discovered that Orrick has had a long relationship with an group that partners with Planned Parenthood, and his wife publicly supported abortion online.
“The instant case is not only high profile but involves one of the most persistently debated moral and political issues of our times,” the request states. “The public is well aware that abortion is a topic on which many people, including judges, are apt to have very strong feelings they would find difficult to set aside in order to be impartial.”
They said Orrick is a former board member of the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center in San Francisco, which has a close partnership to Planned Parenthood.
While Orrick was secretary of the board, the organization “embedded a Planned Parenthood clinic inside its premises, and lists among its ‘key partnerships’ … Planned Parenthood Shasta Pacific …” according to the request.
The Planned Parenthood affiliate also is a member of the National Abortion Federation, the plaintiff in the case, according to the court document.
They said Orrick did not disclose that he was a board member at the time the partnership began, or that he later served as an emeritus board member.
They also brought up Orrick’s wife’s public comments online that support Planned Parenthood and criticize Daleiden.
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In 2015, LifeNews reported the judge’s wife, Caroline “Linie” Farrow Orrick, publicly showed her support online for research using aborted babies’ body parts, taxpayer funding for abortion and Planned Parenthood.
At one point, her Facebook profile was framed with a pink “I stand with Planned Parenthood” message, according to the request.
“Planned Parenthood urged its supporters to add these elements to their Facebook pages as part of a social media campaign orchestrated specifically in response to the release of videos by myself [Daleiden] and CMP,” the request continues.
They said she also publicly “liked” a Facebook post that implied Daleiden’s work was “domestic terrorism” and another that applauded his indictment in a separate case in Texas. Later, Texas prosecutors dropped all charges against Daleiden in the case.
“Judge Orrick has a personal bias and prejudice in favor of Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation and against the Center for Medical Progress and me. CMP and I feel unable to receive fair consideration of our arguments before Judge Orrick because we do not enjoy the close personal and professional relationship with him, forged over many years, that Planned Parenthood does,” Daleiden said in the request.
The AP reports Orrick’s office did not immediately return a phone message left for him about the request.
The investigation by Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress shocked the nation by catching Planned Parenthood and other abortion groups harvesting aborted baby parts and potentially selling them illegally.
The expose’ videos catching Planned Parenthood officials selling the body parts of aborted babies have shocked the nation. Here is a list of all14:
- 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.
