David Daleiden
A Texas prosecutor whose links to the local Planned Parenthood abortion business run deep has become a focal point of a criminal case against the undercover operative whose videos in 2015 revealed the abortion enterprise's efforts to sell the body parts of unborn babies.
David Daleiden and an associate were indicted by a grand jury assembled by Harris County prosecutor Devon Anderson on counts relating to using an allegedly fake driver's license even though the grand jury had been charged with investigating Planned Parenthood's possibly illegal body parts sale activities.
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At the time, officials with Operation Rescue, another cutting edge pro-life organization like Daleiden's Center for Medical Progress, called for a new "untainted" grand jury.
Anderson's grand jury had indicted Daleiden, founder of the CMP, and Sandra Merritt, after they 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.
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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.
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.
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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.
OR reported its information "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."
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OR explained it filed a 2013 complaint that resulted in a grand-jury investigation of Karpen, who was accused by former co-workers 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."
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"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."
This week, lawyers for Daleiden filed papers asking the local court in Houston to quash the charges.
The Planned Parenthood lawyer, Schaffer, "stated that during the grand jury proceedings, he and prosecutors maintained a 'dialogue … about the details of the case, and kept that going through,'" the filing explains.
"To further demonstrate collusion with the pro-abortion lawyers, an attorney for the National Abortion Foundation, Mr. Derek Foran, announced to the world via The New York Times that he had insider information and 'learned about the indictments in Texas about a half hour before they were publicly announced,'" it states.
The submission also explains Anderson's grand jury violate a variety of procedural rules, leaving the indictment invalid.
Among the offenses committed against Daleiden?
"It is well settled that no person may disclose the existence of an indictment as it is to be kept secret until the defendant is in custody or has been released on bond…"
The grand jury also was without "proper authority" so the charge "must be quashed," the filing explains.
"Furthermore, the prosecutors have systematically leaked grand jury proceedings to unauthorized persons. There is no justifiable basis for this conduct and granting this motion to quash the indictments is the only appropriate remedy," it said.
A spokesman in Anderson's office confirmed to WND she was not taking questions on the issue, and he submitted a statement she had prepared: "These matters will be thoroughly reviewed by a judge and jury. I am confident that the actions of the DA's office in this case will withstand any scrutiny."
But an officer with Operation Rescue, Cheryl Sullenger, said the two motions on Daleiden's behalf "accuse the office of District Attorney Devon Anderson of colluding with Planned Parenthood – who was supposed to be the subject of the investigation – and others to improperly extend the grand jury for the purpose of launching a new investigation against Daleiden and his associate, Sandra Merritt."
"Once Daleiden and Merritt were charged, evidence was released by Operation Rescue's Texas attorney, Briscoe Cain, that proved Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast was engaged in providing fetal body parts from aborted babies to four public-funded Texas universities. That evidence was ignored by Anderson," she reported.
"Grand jury proceedings are supposed to be secret, but apparently, this one leaked like a sieve – but only in the direction of Planned Parenthood and its cronies," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman, who served as a founding board member for Daleiden's Center for Medical Progress. "The grand jury was so tainted with improper conduct that all the charges against Daleiden and Merritt should be thrown out immediately, with a huge apology included!"
Sullenger also reported a lawyer with the Harris County prosecutor gave to lawyers for Planned Parnethood information produced by Daleiden to the grand jury.
"The defendant believes and is informed that the National Abortion Federation was notified of the contents of Mr. Daleiden's grand jury production by Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast," stated Daleiden's attorneys in his motion to quash the Harris County charges. "Defendant also believes and has been informed that, throughout the instant grand jury proceedings, prosecutors provided some or all of the evidence produced to the grand jury – including the TRO videos and other material produced by Daleiden – to the target of its investigation, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast."
OR reported it fought with Anderson over an investigation into abortionist Douglas Karpen several years ago. He never was charged, despite "several eyewitnesses and photographs of babies who were said to have been born alive and murdered by slashing their necks and twisting their heads nearly off," Newman said.
Sullenger reported Anderson is well-known to be a close friend of Karpen's attorney, Chip Lewis, and after Anderson's grand jury "no-billed" Karpen, Lewis donated $25,000 to Anderson's political campaigns.
WND reported 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.
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.
WND also reported when California Attorney General Kamala Harris, a candidate for U.S. Senate and a well-known advocate of abortion-provider Planned Parenthood, dispatched a squadron of 11 agents to the home of David Daleiden to confiscate videos.
