Operation Rescue, the pro-life organization that once bought a building housing an abortion clinic so it could shut down the clinic, is demanding a new “untainted” grand jury to look into allegations of criminal conduct by Planned Parenthood in Houston.
The organization on Wednesday said evidence suggests the district attorney was influenced by a financial supporter who represented an abortionist in a previous case.
On Monday a Houston grand jury indicted David Daleiden, the founder of the Center for Medical Progress, and Sandra Merritt. They both posed as executives of a fake biomedical research company to capture with a hidden camera Planned Parenthood doctors and clinic managers discussing the harvesting of fetal tissue for profit.
The Planned Parenthood executives talked about how much they wanted to be paid and how they could alter their abortion procedures to preserve certain parts. One commented, “I want a Lamborghini,” a $200,000 plus sports car.
But accepting a profit for the baby body parts is illegal, as is changing an abortion procedure to obtain the parts.
Daleiden and Merritt were accused of tampering with a governmental record, a felony that carries a punishment of up to 20 years. Daleiden also was indicted with a misdemeanor for the alleged purchase and sale of human organs.
Operation Rescue said the charges against Daleiden and Merritt need to be dropped or a special prosecutor “in no way affiliated with Devon Anderson, the Harris County district attorney’s office or Chip Lewis” needs to be appointed.
The group also wants to have a “new, untainted grand jury” empaneled “to investigate Planned Parenthood criminality.”
And Operation Rescue wants a murder investigation against abortionist Douglas Karpen reopened.
The organization said Wednesday that new information, including some from an AP report, “indicates the grand jury indictments against David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt were likely in retaliation against Operation Rescue for filing a complaint against Houston abortionist Douglas Karpen, which led to a grand investigation of him in 2013.”
The AP report noted that Planned Parenthood attorney Josh Schaffer said the grand jury “never even voted on possible” charges against Planned Parenthood.
“No vote means no investigation,” said Cheryl Sullenger, senior vice president of Operation Rescue. “The people are entitled to an unbiased investigation into the serious allegations of illegal conduct by Planned Parenthood. That does not appear to have happened.”
OR explained it filed a 2013 complaint that resulted in a grand jury investigation of Karpen, who was accused by former coworkers of murdering babies born alive during shoddy abortions.
“Chip Lewis, Karpen’s attorney, falsely accused Operation Rescue of paying three former Karpen employees to testify against him and of ‘doctoring’ grisly photographs of babies Karpen had allegedly murdered, according to witnesses,” OR said.
“Lewis threatened Operation Rescue after no true bill was returned against Karpen. Lewis told the Houston Chronicle, ‘Those responsible for bringing these wholly unfounded allegations against Dr. Karpen will be held responsible for their crimes.’ He further threatened an investigation of Operation Rescue, which never materialized.”
It is Lewis, OR reported, who “has tight connections to District Attorney Devon Anderson.”
“He is a long time personal friend of hers and her now deceased husband, former D.A. Mike Anderson, and is the largest political donor to the Anderson family. It could be assumed that Anderson owes Lewis for his friendship and political favors.”
OR said the AP article also noted that the same female assistant district attorney that handled the Karpen investigation also directed the grand jury that indicted Daleiden and Merritt.
Her bias could have turned the grand jury, because OR President Troy Newman is a board member of Daleiden’s group, OR said.
“Anderson said that she would let the evidence take her where it would, and we say the evidence reveals an agenda in the district attorney’s office, under the influence of Chip Lewis, to get even with pro-life whistleblowers who have reported evidence against abortion providers of serious crimes, including murder,” said Sullenger. “In order for there to be justice, we need to stop dipping from a poisoned well and seek unbiased people to push forward with investigations against the real culprits.”
The AP report the Houston prosecutor had “infuriated anti-abortion activists before.”
The report confirmed that Anderson was a beneficiary of Lewis’ donations and that he had represented the abortion business run by Karpen.
There also was outrage because Anderson acknowledged in August that a prosecutor on her staff was on the board of the Houston Planned Parenthood clinic, but the office still maintained control of the case.
WND reported on Tuesday that Rush Limbaugh described the Texas indictments as a “rogue” prosecutor working with a “pro-abortion” staffer inside his own office.
“So all that has to happen is that your rogue prosecutor, working in concert with your pro-abortion activist in the DA’s office, get[s] in the grand jury room and start[s] explaining all this to the grand jury, which is made up of your average Hillary voter, for all we know,” he said on Tuesday. “And you start explaining what really went on here. Here we have this great organization, Planned Parenthood, that’s trying to plan families and trying to protect women from the terrible, almost fatal disease of pregnancy, and here come these rogue agents disguised as journalists, but they don’t have immunity, and they’re the ones who’ve engaged in criminal activity,” he said.
Limbaugh was far from the only one reacting with skepticism to the prosecution announcement, especially because one of the district attorney’s staffers, Lauren Reeder, is a Planned Parenthood board member.
American Life League President Judie Brown said the grand jury indictment against Daleiden and Merritt “reminds me of a kangaroo court activity.”
“The evidence against Daleiden, as reported by the mainstream media, may or may not be valid, but lest we forget that the prosecution in this case is a district attorney’s office that has a Planned Parenthood board member as a prosecutor,” Brown said. ‘It is really not surprising, then, that a grand jury run by such an office would find the activities of an organization, Planned Parenthood by name – an organization infamous for its sordid history of aborting babies and advocating for this crime against the laws of God – blameless while trying to silence those who want to protect every human being’s life.”
LifeNews.com commented: “Rather than reviewing criminal activity that results in high profits from selling abortion and then reselling the aborted children in pieces, the grand jury moved to punish the very people who reported the criminal activity. When an agency that dismembers preborn children capable of feeling pain is exonerated in such a kangaroo court, the prosecutors and those entrusted to administer justice are proving themselves inept, if not corrupted by ties to the abortion industry. The same videos contain graphic footage of abortion workers laughing as they retrieve and sift through body parts, which they identify on camera as organs, arms, and legs of children who had been aborted earlier that day.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the decision won’t affect the state’s investigation of the allegations that Planned Parenthood profits from selling fetal parts.
“The Health and Human Service Commission’s inspector general and the attorney general’s office have an ongoing investigation into Planned Parenthood’s actions,” said Abbott. “Nothing about today’s announcement in Harris County impacts the state’s ongoing investigation. The state of Texas will continue to protect life, and I will continue to support legislation prohibiting the sale or transfer of fetal tissue.”
The American Center for Law and Justice said the decision is “very troubling” because of the questions it raises about the legal system.
“By giving Planned Parenthood a pass and indicting two pro-life journalists who merely revealed this horrific practice through their undercover work, the action of this local grand jury raises serious questions about the appropriate use of our legal system,” said ACLJ Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow.
“When you consider the fact that one of the prosecutors in the Harris County district attorney’s office is deeply involved with Planned Parenthood – serving as a board member for the local Planned Parenthood affiliate in Texas where the undercover investigation took place – along with the fact that she has served as an active fundraiser for Planned Parenthood for years – you have to ask the question – was this probe tainted? Was there a conflict of interest that produced a biased result?” he asked.
The Center for Medical Progress set up a fake company and sent investigators with concealed video cameras to Planned Parenthood clinics. Planned Parenthood doctors and managers were caught haggling over the price of baby body parts. A number of them talked about being paid per item, how they could adjust abortion procedures to salvage requested body parts and how they could create a revenue stream from such transactions.
In the first undercover video released by CMP, Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood commented on crushing babies.
“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,” she said.
See the first video:
In the second video, Planned Parenthood’s Mary Gatter said, “I want a Lamborghini.”
See her comments:
In the fifth, Melissa Farrell of Planned Parenthood’s Houston clinic discusses “intact fetal cadavers”:
The seventh video has the testimony of a Planned Parenthood worker who tapped an aborted infant’s heart and saw it start beating.
And No. 8 has Cate Dyer, CEO of Stem Express, admitting Planned Parenthood sells fully intact aborted babies.
Related stories:
Pro-lifers demand ‘untainted’ Planned Parenthood grand jury
Attorney for indicted pro-life reporter: ‘It’s outrageous’
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2016/01/28/pro-lifers-demand-untainted-planned-parenthood-grand-jury/
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