Washington, D.C. (Sept. 3, 2015)—Today, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Rep. John J. Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the Committee on the Judiciary, sent a letter calling on their Chairmen to suspend their “one-sided” investigations of Planned Parenthood, or to also fully investigate multiple allegations of illegal activity by the Center for Medical Progress and its founder, David Daleiden, who engaged in an unsuccessful three-year effort to secretly entrap Planned Parenthood officials.
 |
Dean of the U.S. House
of Representatives
John Conyers, Jr. |
“As the Ranking Members of two House Committees that have launched congressional investigations against Planned Parenthood, we are writing to request that you suspend these investigations, which are based on the potentially illegal actions of a radical anti-abortion group that has admitted to falsifying documents, lying to their own contributors, and deceptively editing secretly-recorded videos in a three-year crusade against Planned Parenthood,” the Ranking Members wrote.
“However, if you choose to move forward, we request that our committees also investigate the actions of David Daleiden and his organization, the Center for Medical Progress, which—in contrast to Planned Parenthood—may have violated numerous state and federal laws in their clandestine effort to roll back the rights of millions of women across the country who rely on the legal and critical healthcare services provided by Planned Parenthood every day,” they added.
The Ranking Members cited a forensic analysis of videos secretly recorded by the Center for Medical Progress that concluded that even the “full footage” released by the group contains “cuts, skips, missing tape, and changes in camera angle,” as well as “more than 30 minutes of missing video.” The analysis also found that the video transcripts contain “numerous errors, discrepancies, and omissions” that “render them useless as ‘evidence.’”
The letter from the Ranking Members noted that, “within the last two weeks, attorneys for Mr. Daleiden have indicated that he and others involved in this scheme intend to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights rather than defending the dubious actions of their organization.”
“Our committees are actively pursuing aggressive investigations of Planned Parenthood even though we have seen no credible evidence that the organization has done anything unlawful,” the Ranking Members wrote. “Yet, thus far our committees have taken no action whatsoever to investigate the potentially illegal actions of Mr. Daleiden and his group.”
“Based on these facts, we call on you to halt these one-sided investigations immediately,” the Ranking Members wrote. “Millions of women across the country rely on Planned Parenthood for critical health services, and they should not be denied their rights under the law and the Constitution based on the Center for Medical Progress’s warped—and ultimately unsuccessful—effort to entrap Planned Parenthood.”
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