Analysis

Center for Medical Progress hearings to date: Witnesses’ shocking admissions and defiance

Daleiden, abortion, Planned Parenthood, Center for Medical Progress

The preliminary hearing in the case against Center for Medical Progress undercover investigators David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt has been underway for over two weeks and has revealed shocking details regarding the abortion industry and the trafficking of human body parts for profit. Daleiden and Merritt are facing 14 counts of illegally taping confidential conversations, with one count having already been dropped by the judge. If convicted, they face up to ten years in prison.

Shocking Admissions

Doe 12 — the CEO of fetal tissue harvester StemExpress — has admitted that her company did harvest and supply fully intact aborted children to researchers. Since there is proof of a StemExpress order stating “without Digoxin applied,” it can be implied that either abortionists delivered babies alive (since Digoxin was not given to stop their hearts), or that they were killed via an altered procedure, possibly an illegal partial-birth abortion.

The medical director of Planned Parenthood Los Angeles (until 2013) also took the stand. She is known in court as Doe 10, and admitted that there was no ban at the abortion facility on changing abortion “technique” in order to harvest specific and intact body parts. According to federal consent rules, doctors are not allowed to alter the method of a medical procedure without the patient’s consent.

In an undercover video, Doe 10 less she would ask the abortionists to use a “less crunchy” of abortion and told Daleiden, who was undercover with his fake procurement company BioMax, that she would need “compensation” in order to strike a deal with him because she “wants a Lamborghini.”

LifeSiteNews reports, “Doe 10 testified that Planned Parenthood abortionists ‘would never change the method’ but admitted Planned Parenthood began making the distinction between ‘technique’ and ‘method’ after the CMP undercover videos were released.” But there is no distinction in the law between “method” and “technique,” according to Breen.

Special Agent Brian Cardwell of the California Department of Justice testified that as the lead investigator, his focus was searching out “potential victims” for the Attorney General’s office. He was not focused on investigating if the California recording law had actually been broken. He admitted he did not watch all of the CMP undercover videos that were being used as evidence against Daleiden and Merritt. He also admitted he never asked the Does whether or not they could be overheard during these supposed “confidential” conversations. In addition, the warrant affidavit did not include Doe 5’s statement to Agent Cardwell that she was in a public setting where she could be overheard or that Doe 4 was recorded in an elevator and hotel lobby with others present. Agent Cardwell did not look into whether the Does’ claims that the conversations were confidential was in line with California recording laws.

Another shocking statement came from Deputy Attorney General Johnette Jauron, the lead prosecutor on the case, who claimed that the California recording law, PC 632, does not include a definition of confidentiality. CMP says the courtroom broke into “audible laughter.” PC 632 says “confidential communication… excludes a communication made in a public gathering or in any legislative, judicial, executive, or administrative proceeding open to the public, or in any other circumstance in which the parties to the communication may reasonably expect that the communication may be overheard or recorded.”

READ: David Daleiden reveals to court what led to undercover sting exposing baby body parts trafficking

Evading Questions from Attorneys

In her second day on the stand, Doe 12 evaded questions from defense attorneys as to whether or not StemExpress sold living fetal hearts to researchers. Daleiden’s attorney Peter Breen of the Thomas More Society found her to be “evasive.” LifeSiteNews reported:

“I feel I’d need to go back and read the testimony,” Doe 12 said.

“Did you provide whole fetal hearts to Stanford?” Breen asked.

“If you’re talking undamaged, I’d say unlikely,” Doe 12 replied.

“When you say ‘damaged’, you would agree a heart should be able to perfuse blood?” Breen said. “They can’t do a study on a dead heart.”

When Deputy Attorney General Johnette Jauron objected, Breen said Doe 12 “directed procurement for the 2012 Stanford study.”

“Have your technicians procured whole fetal hearts for use by researchers?” he asked her.

“I have not and I am not aware of undamaged heart tissue being collected,” she said.

When Breen asked her what she meant by “damaged,” Doe 12 replied, “I mean damaged. I feel descriptive words work well for your clients to manipulate.”

Breen questioned Doe 12 about Dr. Robert Berman, who at the same time was both medical director at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte and medical director for StemExpress. Since Doe 12 is the CEO of StemExpress, she would know about this, yet when Breen asked her, “Did Dr. Berman perform abortion procedures at the same clinic where StemExpress was procuring fetal tissue?” she responded, “I feel like you have to talk to Dr. Berman.”

Breen told LifeSiteNews, “Even though Doe 12 founded the company, she couldn’t remember key details, or any details at all, about what appears to be a conflict relationship where she actually had the abortion provider doing the fetal tissue procurement on her staff.” This is a conflict of interest.

She also claims that a non-disclosure agreement was signed by herself and Daleiden before their conversation, but in a previous sworn declaration she had admitted the NA was sent to Biomax reps after their meeting. When asked about the prior testimony which she signed she “stubbornly refused to recognize it as her own,” said CMP.

Doe 9 took the stand “to play games with the court,” said CMP. She claimed the “videos were edited to make her say things she didn’t say.” But then she admitted that the video clips played in court were not altered. During the hearing, she also refused to clarify what she meant when in the videos she spoke of altering abortion procedures to keep the heads of the babies intact. Her statements in the video indicated she may have been performing illegal partial-birth abortions. CMP reports:

Doe 9 refused to acknowledge or explain her statements on the undercover video describing using ultrasound guidance to flip a baby in the womb to breech position in order to extract it with the head intact for brain harvesting and then saying, “We’ve been pretty successful with that, I’d say.” A clearly irritated Doe 9 pretended to not understand the question and refused to give a direct answer about the meaning of her words.

Doe 9 also refused to give direct answers to similar questions regarding what she meant by her description of flipping the baby to feet-first breech position in order to get intact fetal heads.

Daleiden took the stand last week and gave heartbreaking testimony of what led him to begin investigating the trafficking of fetal body parts. Read more about that here.

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