Wash Times:
Congressional Democrats have opened their own investigation into the Planned Parenthood videos — but into the group that took the footage in which officials haggle over the prices of organs and discuss keeping a baby alive so his brain can be harvested.
The Center for Medical Progress may have broken federal laws in setting up a false-front company to secretly record Planned Parenthood employees talking about these and other practices, the Democrats say.
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Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, also said it’s possible some of his colleagues in Congress knew about CMP’s activities and didn’t flag them for potential illegal behavior.“These disturbing actions raise questions about whether the Center for Medical Progress has broken federal or state laws, and whether some members of Congress may have been aware of these potentially illegal activities before they were made public earlier this year,” the Maryland congressman wrote in a Thursday letter to David Daleiden, chief executive of CMP.
Mr. Cummings‘ letter asks for documents on CMP funding, donors, associates, activities and meetings and copies of all video and audio footage with Planned Parenthood employees.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, Utah Republican, already has opened an investigation into the scandal, and asked Planned Parenthood and the Health and Human Services Department for information.
Mr. Cummings said in his letter that if the investigation is going to be “legitimate and balanced,” the committee also must address CMP’s activities.
CMP has been roiling much of the country with its disturbing undercover videos, and it released its seventh video this week. Planned Parenthood officials have been captured talking casually over lunch or in offices with CMP actors, pretending to be tissue buyers, about pre-ordering fetal parts and about changing abortion techniques to get the best “specimens.”
The videos also have graphic footage of lab technicians picking through post-abortive fetal remains looking for high-value organs, while noticing which sex the baby was.
Holly O’Donnell, a former procurement technician for biotech firm StemExpress, has said on camera that pregnant women did not always give proper or voluntary consent for fetal donations; in Wednesday’s video, she said she was asked to slice open the head of a 20-week-old male fetus with a beating heart to collect his brain.
Since the videos first appeared July 14, pro-choice activists have been urging Congressional Democrats and other allies to defend Planned Parenthood.
“Anti-abortion activists are trying to discredit and destroy Planned Parenthood,” said CREDO Action, which has collected some 133,000 signatures on a petition telling Democrats in Congress to “Stand up for Planned Parenthood and block any attempts to undermine or defund” it.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, responded to the early videos by calling for an investigation “of those people who were trying to ensnare Planned Parenthood in a controversy that doesn’t exist.”
Planned Parenthood has a “solid grounding of support with the American people,” Mrs. Pelosi told a briefing with reporters before the summer recess. Controversies over use of fetal tissue in research are misplaced — such research has long been approved, she said.
Four House Democrats also moved swiftly, asking Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch and California Attorney General Kamala Harris to investigate CMP, which is based in Irvine, California.
I note that Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is on record defending Planned Parenthood.
But, in an ironic twist, he has helped author a bill that would make the act of “crushing” animals a federal offense, punishable by seven years in prison.
http://www.toomey.senate.gov/files/documents/CrushingBill.pdf
He must have missed this video where Planned Parenthood Dr. Deborah Nucatola explained the abortionist must be “just kind of cognizant of where you put your graspers, you try to intentionally go above and below the thorax, so that, you know, we’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m going to basically crush below, and I’m gonna crush above.
Now, go look at the last two videos and call those little faces, arms, legs and bodies ”just tissue.”
When you do not like the message, kill the messenger. This another primitive philosophy the left has been practicing for decades.
No state Attirney General. Has ever accused Planned Parenthood of anything criminal
More of that war on whistleblowers from the left. Honest to God democrats are all a##holes.