By BEN JOHNSON
SACRAMENTO (LifeSiteNews) — Officials with the California attorney general’s office raided David Daleiden’s home April 5 and confiscated all his undercover video footage of Planned Parenthood’s harvesting and sale of aborted babies’ organs and tissue.
Agents raided Daleiden’s Orange County apartment around 2 p.m. local time, an individual familiar with the raid told LifeSiteNews April 5.
The “office of Kamala Harris, who was elected with tens of thousands of dollars from taxpayer-funded Planned Parenthood, seized all video footage showing Planned Parenthood’s criminal trade in aborted baby parts, in addition to my personal information,” Daleiden said in an official statement.
“Ironically, while seizing my First Amendment work product, they ignored documents showing the illicit scheme between StemExpress and Planned Parenthood.”
Harris, who is running for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat, promised last July that she would look into allegations that Daleiden and investigators at the Center for Medical Progress had broken local laws by using false identification to gain access to the highest levels of the abortion industry and covertly record his conversations.
Daleiden posed as “Robert Sarkis,” while associate Sandra Merritt posed as his assistant at BioMax, a biomedical group interested in purchasing the body parts of aborted babies from Planned Parenthood and its allies coast-to-coast. Both purportedly had false identification and set up an incorporation for the business in California.
Beginning last July, CMP released a series of videos showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing the harvesting and sale of such parts, as well as apparently discussing how they change the abortion procedure to procure intact babies.
That touched off a national backlash against Planned Parenthood and a series of state and federal investigations into its possible illegal profit from the sale of human organs, some of them still ongoing.
But the abortion industry began pressing its political supporters to turn up the heat on Daleiden and his pro-life associates for using fake IDs and filing misleading incorporation papers — actions Daleiden’s attorney, Peter Breen, told LifeSiteNews are “standard undercover journalism tactics.”
Daleiden’s allies said that the raid is the latest in a series of moves intended to legally harass and punish the young man for blowing the lid on the abortion industry’s dirty secrets.
A legal expert and Daleiden ally says the latest raid is excessive.
“To storm into a private citizen’s home with a search warrant is outrageously out of proportion for the type of crime alleged. It’s a discredit to law enforcement, an oppressive abuse of government power,” said Matt Heffron, a former federal prosecutor in Phoenix, and now a legal adviser to Daleiden.
But his opponents said Daleiden brought it on himself.
“David Daleiden engaged in an elaborate criminal conspiracy to deceive the public and ban abortion in this country, and now he’s paying the price,” said Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Erica Sackin.
National Abortion Federation (NAF) President Vicki Saporta echoed that sentiment. “As the evidence has shown in our case, he engaged in a long-running criminal conspiracy. His actions are not without consequences.”
Saporta’s group has not always been so keen on turning in criminals. The NAF inspected Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s West Philadelphia “House of Horrors” in December 2009. Although the group turned down the mass murderer’s request for membership, it failed to report the conditions inside the filth-strewn facility to the authorities.
Daleiden took the California raid in stride, saying Kamala Harris has engaged in a pattern of protecting the abortion industry.
“This is no surprise,” Daleiden said. “Planned Parenthood’s bought-and-paid-for AG has steadfastly refused to enforce the law against the baby body parts traffickers in our state — or even investigate them — while at the same time doing their bidding to harass and intimidate citizen journalists.”
“We will pursue all remedies to vindicate our First Amendment rights,” he vowed.
This is one of several legal actions hanging over CMP’s head since it went forward with undercover footage that shocked the nation’s conscience and reportedly shook Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards.
A Houston grand jury, impaneled to hear charges against a local Planned Parenthood affiliate, instead indicted Daleiden and Merritt for using a false ID and attempting to purchase human organs — charges for which they could face 20 years in prison.
The NAF sued Daleiden and CMP in California to prevent the release of a series of undercover videos of the organization’s annual meeting. Much of that footage has since leaked online.
Planned Parenthood has filed a civil suit in California, charging CMP with violating the RICO statute.
And U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch has promised to investigate Daleiden and CMP at the federal level.
In another angle on the case, Kamala Harris, the attorney general of California, has received thousands of dollars from Planned Parenthood and hosts a petition on her campaign website asking voters to join her in “defending Planned Parenthood.”
Harris, who was first elected in 2010, is now seeking the U.S. Senate seat being left vacant by Barbara Boxer.
She received $15,000 from five Planned Parenthood-affiliated PACS in 2014, according to ElectionTrack.com.
In this election cycle, Harris has raised nearly three times as much money as her closest rival, Democratic Cong. Loretta Sanchez.
That total includes $254,370 thus far from groups dedicated to “women’s issues,” and a $5,000 donation from EMILY’s List to the Kamala Harris Victory Fund.
Harris has also collected signatures asking federal authorities not to defund the nation’s largest abortion provider. “Voting to strip federal funding from an organization that provides vital health services to 2.7 million Americans is the epitome of dysfunction,” her campaign website says.
“Once again, we need you to take a stand and join Kamala in defending Planned Parenthood,” it continues. “Sign our petition to protect this organization and the important work it does.”
Harris promised to investigate the Center for Medical Progress, which incorporated its faux biomedical company “Biomax,” in California.
But as civil lawsuits piled up in California courts, abortion figures prodded Harris to go forward with a criminal investigation. A Los Angeles Times reporter, Robin Abcarian, wrote in an opinion piece, “What is Atty. Gen. Harris waiting for? I’d sure love to know.”
The attorney general’s close association with Planned Parenthood has pro-life leaders crying foul.
“Harris can’t even pretend to be objective in this case,” said Lila Rose, the president and founder of Live Action, where Daleiden got his start.
“It’s clear why — while executing a search warrant on the whistleblower — she won’t also ‘search’ the huge amount of video footage showing Planned Parenthood’s potentially illegal activity and open an investigation into that,” she said.
David Daleiden referred to one of the California-based Planned Parenthood figures he captured on video. Dr. Deborah Nucatola, the director of medical services for all Planned Parenthood facilities, also described altering the abortion procedure to harvest the best fetal organs in her Los Angeles offices.
“I guess ‘Crush below, crush above, and see if I can get it all intact,’ and ‘less crunchy techniques’ of abortion for baby parts harvesting have the full support of Attorney General Kamala Harris in California,” Daleiden said, according to The Washington Times.
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