U.S. District Judge William Orrick issued an Feb. 5 injunction that bars the Center for Medical Progress from releasing covertly recorded videos of Planned Parenthood executives.
The judge claimed that the free-speech restriction is valid because the center says that the executives were trying to gain profits, even though Planned Parenthood officials did not formally admit to selling baby parts for “profit.”
Orrick is a federal judge in the Northern District of California. He ruled that while CMP founder David Daleiden “claims he uncovered lawbreaking”–which would be selling baby parts for profit rather than research–Orrick said, “there is no such evidence in (the) recordings.”
According the San Francisco Chronicle, Orrick said CMP “created a fake company and lied to gain access to NAF’s annual meetings.” He said the release of the CMP videos produced a “dramatic increase in the volume and extent of threats to and harassment of the National Abortion Federation and its members.”
Orrick’s decision comes after “a grand jury in Texas…charged Daleiden and another antiabortion activist, Sandra Merritt with falsifying government documents, the fake California driver’s licenses they used to pose as researchers and gain access to Planned Parenthood offices.” The grand jury also handed up charges against Daleiden for allegedly “trying to buy fetal tissue from Planned Parenthood.”
Fox News reported the Texas grand jury’s investigation was centered on “criminal allegations against Planned Parenthood” resulting from the videos, but ultimately resulted in charges against Daleiden and Merritt.
Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson responded to the shift in anticipated charges by saying, “We were called upon to investigate allegations of criminal conduct by Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast. As I stated at the outset of this investigation, we must go where the evidence leads us. All the evidence uncovered in the course of this investigation was presented to the grand jury. I respect their decision on this difficult case.”
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.