The preliminary hearing for undercover journalist David Daleiden concluded this week with a judge ruling that he was “engaged in criminal activity irrespective of his journalistic status.”
Daleiden could be sent to jail for the so-called “crime” of exposing Planned Parenthood’s allegedly illegal sales of aborted baby body parts and alleged murder of born-alive infants. He and fellow Center for Medical Progress investigator Sandra Merritt face multiple felony charges for invasion of privacy in California.
The pro-abortion news outlet Rewire reports federal Judge Christopher Hite accused Daleiden of “criminal activity” Tuesday when he refused to dismiss a 2016 search warrant for Daleiden’s apartment issued by then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris.
Defense lawyers argued that the search warrant was politically motivated, and Harris worked closely with Planned Parenthood officials to prosecute Daleiden after he exposed their horrific abortion practices. Harris, now a Democratic presidential candidate, also accepted huge campaign donations from the abortion chain.
But Hite refused to dismiss the warrant, writing: “Even assuming Daleiden was a journalist at the time of the recordings his actions would not be protected by the California Shield Law or the Federal Privacy Protection Act under the circumstances alleged in the search warrant. While this newfound freedom of information and speech brings about different perspectives and discussions, it does not give either the media or a citizen journalist free reign to violate criminal laws applicable to the general public.”
Though Hite did not issue a final ruling on whether the case should proceed to trial, Rewire predicted that a full trial appears likely.
The Center for Medical Progress said testimony from the preliminary hearing demonstrates that Planned Parenthood, not Daleiden and Merritt, is the one that should be prosecuted.
“There was never any legal reason to prosecute CMP investigators for recording public conversations,” the group said in a statement Wednesday. “This sham case was launched by dirty political dealings between Planned Parenthood and Kamala Harris and must be thrown out, so the justice system can finally focus on the real criminals who sold baby body parts.”
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Even Rewire, which reports from a pro-abortion perspective, acknowledged that Daleiden’s prosecution could have serious “repercussions” for all undercover journalists.
“The threat of this prosecution is in the threat of finding that undercover investigations and recording in place where people could generally overhear your conversation, or in blurring the line so much that journalists or investigators won’t ever record because the threat of prosecution could wax and wane from second to second,” Matthew Strugar, a First Amendment attorney in Los Angeles told the news outlet.
No other journalists have been prosecuted for similar undercover investigations under California law, Daleiden’s and Merritt’s defense lawyers contend.
The preliminary hearing began two weeks ago with a witness for the abortion industry admitting that the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) videos were “not altered.” Then, a biotech company CEO who worked with Planned Parenthood could not deny that they harvested aborted babies’ hearts while they were still beating. The hearing will determine whether the case should go to a full jury trial.
Daleiden and Merritt posed as representatives of a company seeking to buy aborted baby body parts for scientific research projects. Using the disguise, they spoke with abortion industry workers at places like restaurants and a National Abortion Federation conference.
On Friday, Daleiden described talking with a whistle-blower named Holly O’Donnell, who used to work for StemExpress, a fetal tissue procurement company that had a close relationship with Planned Parenthood, according to Courthouse News. Daleiden said O’Donnell told him that she had harvested body parts from a “fully intact” 25-week baby at a Planned Parenthood in Northern California.
“She cut open the baby’s face to harvest the brain,” his testimony continued, according to CMP. “Prior to doing that, her supervisor showed O’Donnell the baby’s beating heart.”
“I came to suspect StemExpress and Planned Parenthood of Mar Monte of homicide,” he said.
The undercover investigation exposed numerous atrocities inside Planned Parenthood abortion facilities across the U.S. Its findings prompted investigations by the U.S. House and Senate, as well as a number of states. Both said they found strong evidence that the abortion chain broke the law. The Department of Justice is investigating.
Planned Parenthood repeatedly has denied all allegations of wrong-doing, and many news outlets now parrot its talking points that the undercover videos were deceptively edited or debunked, even though that is not true. An independent forensics investigation verified that the videos were authentic.
Some undercover videos show how Planned Parenthood employees callously and flippantly negotiated the price of tiny baby hearts, lungs, livers and brains. Other evidence indicates the abortion giant may have broken HIPAA patient privacy laws.
The expose videos catching Planned Parenthood officials allegedly 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.
