House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi joined several Democrats Thursday in calling for a federal investigation into the Center for Medical Progress, the nonprofit group responsible for leaking secretly recorded conversations with Planned Parenthood executives.
“Let’s have an investigation of those people who were trying to ensnare Planned Parenthood in a controversy that doesn’t exist,” Mrs. Pelosi said, The Hill reported.
“Planned Parenthood has said that they have done nothing illegal,” she added. “They do not ever charge, which would be illegal, for fetal tissue. They have only defrayed the cost of mailing that to someone, which is not breaking the law.”
Mrs. Pelosi joins Democratic Reps. Jan Schakowsky, Zoe Lofgren, Jerry Nadler and Yvette Clarke, who sent a letter Tuesday to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and California Attorney General Kamala Harris asking them to investigate whether the the Center for Medical Progress broke California’s two-party consent law by secretly recording a private conversation.
“I believe the Center for Medical Progress may have broken the law in developing and executing this unbelievably elaborate and troubling scheme, and all Americans should have concerns about that,” Ms. Schakowsky said in a statement.
“Like the millions of women who access their broad range of health services every day, we trust Planned Parenthood,” Mr. Nadler said in a statement. “This video is nothing more than a witch hunt.”
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Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Wednesday that she would review “all information” available before deciding to launch a full investigation, The Hill reported.
The Center responded by accusing Planned Parenthood and its “political cronies” of trying to stifle free speech.
“Planned Parenthood [is] trying to use the power of their political cronies to shut down free speech, to silence the freedom of the press, to persecute [Executive Director] David Daleiden, and to save their half-a-billion in taxpayer money and avoid accountability to the law and the American people,” the group said in a statement.
Mr. Daleiden said the attacks on his organization “does not change the facts about what our investigation has uncovered and what the American people now know — that Planned Parenthood is engaged in an enterprise-wide operation that traffics and sells baby body parts.”
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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