On Wednesday, David Daleiden and his lawyers filed a motion to dismiss a gag order in the federal case involving the undercover sting videos showing Planned Parenthood selling baby body parts for profit. If the federal judge’s gag order is dropped, Daleiden told reporters that at least 12 new videos would drop.
In a conference call with reporters, Daleiden, project lead at the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), said that if the gag order is lifted, “You can expect probably a solid dozen more videos, really in the same vein as the original undercover video releases” in 2015. He was responding to a question from the Washington Free Beacon’s Bill McMorris.
Daleiden and CMP became famous (or infamous) for publishing videos showing Planned Parenthood affiliates haggling over prices for aborted baby body parts in 2015. Planned Parenthood responded by hiring Fusion GPS to publish a report suggesting the videos were falsely edited. Then, the National Abortion Federation (NAF) brought a federal lawsuit against Daleiden. As part of that lawsuit, a federal judge placed an injunction on further videos, which Daleiden said were some of the “most damning.”
“NAF’s federal lawsuit was one of the first in federal court sought a federal gag order against the remaining undercover videos,” Daleiden told reporters on the call. “This undercover footage has not seen the light of day. It includes some of the most damning and incriminating tapes that we ever recorded” about “the sale of aborted baby parts.”
NAF dropped seven of the original eleven claims against Daleiden and CMP in July, and Daleiden’s lawyers filed three orders on Wednesday: an anti-SLAPP motion to strike NAF’s complaint, a motion to dismiss NAF’s complaint, and a motion to dissolve or modify and clarify the preliminary injunction on the videos.
Since the NAF federal lawsuit no longer includes the federal claims, Daleiden’s lawyers argued that it should be struck out of federal court.
Furthermore, recent events have underscored the truth behind the sting videos. Last December, DaVinci Biosciences and DV Biologics admitted guilt in a $7.8 million settlement with the Orange County District Attorney for selling aborted baby body parts from Planned Parenthood of Orange & San Bernardino Counties for profit. Planned Parenthood affiliates are also under criminal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.
“The DaVinci companies’ admission of guilt for selling baby parts from Planned Parenthood is a ringing vindication of CMP’s citizen journalism methods and accuracy,” Daleiden declared in a release about the DaVinci companies settlement.
Even if the orders filed Wednesday are honored, however, new Planned Parenthood sting videos would not come out until October, Daleiden said.
The videos covered in the gag order involve meetings of the NAF at its annual convention. Daleiden insisted that the videos were filmed in public places. Daleiden and his lawyers also remarked on the unprecedented nature of a California prosecution case brought against CMP staff. For the first time in California history, the state is prosecuting a journalist for filming undercover videos.
Importantly, the videos covered by the gag order are now key evidence in the criminal case, and Daleiden’s lawyers warned that “any restriction on them from the federal court would unconstitutionally interfere with the California justice system and David Daleiden’s 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 14th amendment rights to defend himself from the AG’s and Planned Parenthood’s false charges.”
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @Tyler2ONeil.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member