GOP Senators Press DOJ to Investigate Planned Parenthood

Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., asking questions during a virtual Senate Committee for Health,
Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post via AP, Pool

Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) led more than two dozen Republican senators in letters Thursday that called upon the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the U.S. Treasury, and the FBI to investigate both Planned Parenthood’s ability to obtain Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and its sales of the body parts of aborted babies.

In one letter, the GOP senators wrote to Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery Brian Miller of the Treasury Department urging him to “review the loans made to at least 43 Planned Parenthood affiliates” under the PPP.

The letter continued:

Specifically, we ask that you investigate how these affiliates were able to obtain PPP loans despite their ineligibility under the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) rules, whether any Planned Parenthood affiliates knowingly provided false information in their PPP loan applications, and to what extent the parent organization, Planned Parenthood for America (PPFA), was involved in the application process for said loans.

Fox News’s Tucker Carlson Tonight revealed in May that affiliates of the abortion industry giant received $80 million in loans through the PPP coronavirus relief funds.

In response, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) led 27 of his Senate colleagues in a letter to Attorney General William Barr that called for the DOJ to investigate how Planned Parenthood applied for and obtained the funds.

The senators noted that, under the CARES Act, organizations such as the Planned Parenthood affiliates were prohibited from receiving PPP funds. The SBA also confirmed the affiliates were ineligible for the funds because the organization’s number of total employees exceeds the cap of 500 or less to obtain the loans.

Despite an order by the SBA to return the PPP funds, two Planned Parenthood affiliates in Texas have refused to surrender the loans.

In another letter, the GOP senators wrote to Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray, requesting an update into the investigation of Planned Parenthood’s organ harvesting and sale of fetal tissue practices that supposedly was launched in December 2017.

The senators cited the undercover investigation of the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) that exposed Planned Parenthood’s involvement in the sale of the body parts of babies aborted in some of the group’s clinics.

In July, CMP released unsealed video clips of the testimony of officials from Planned Parenthood and others in the abortion industry that revealed details of infants surviving abortion and either being left to die or having their organs harvested.

The senators wrote to Barr and Wray:

As we have seen from invoices from certain Planned Parenthood affiliates, biomedical companies paid thousands of dollars in exchange for fetal organs from abortions. Planned Parenthood and any biomedical companies involved must be held accountable for their lucrative and illegal activities involving the trafficking and sale of fetal tissue.

“We urge you to investigate not only the extent to which Planned Parenthood was involved in the sale of fetal tissue, but also the disturbing descriptions by Planned Parenthood workers of infants born alive who were left to die or killed through organ harvesting,” the lawmakers added.

In September 2017, Breitbart News reported the FBI’s assistant director of the Office of Congressional Affairs had sent a letter to former Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), informing him the agency was in receipt of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s criminal referrals of Planned Parenthood and its partners in the fetal tissue procurement industry.

“We can confirm the Criminal Investigative Division (CID) of FBI Headquarters received your referrals and sent them to the relevant FBI field offices for review and whatever action is deemed appropriate,” the FBI’s Gregory Brower wrote to Grassley in June 2017.

In his correspondence, Brower apologized to Grassley “for the delay in responding to your inquiry” and indicated receipt of the chairman’s letter, dated April 24, 2017, to both former FBI Director James Comey and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions “concerning criminal referrals you made on December 13, 2016, to the FBI and Department of Justice.”

Both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives conducted expansive investigations into Planned Parenthood and its partners in the biomedical procurement industry. The investigations concerned allegations of selling fetal body parts for a profit, which arose from CMP’s undercover video series exposé.

The sale or purchase of human fetal tissue is a felony punishable by up to ten years in prison or a fine of up to $500,000 (42 U.S.C. 289g-2).

The Senate Judiciary Committee referred Planned Parenthood to both the FBI and the Justice Department for investigation and possible criminal prosecution.

Based on its findings, the Judiciary Committee’s Majority Staff Report concluded that Planned Parenthood’s partners in the biomedical procurement industry paid the abortion chain’s affiliates for the body parts of aborted babies “and then sold the fetal tissue to their respective customers at substantially higher prices than their documented costs.”

In its latest annual report for 2018-2019, Planned Parenthood revealed the organization performed a record-high number of abortions while it also received record-high taxpayer funding.

Despite the fact that abortion rates in the United States have fallen to an all-time low, Planned Parenthood performed 345,672 abortions in 2018-2019, an increase of nearly 13,000 more abortions and four percent over the 332,757 the group performed during year 2017-2018.

In 2018-2019, the abortion vendor was also on the receiving end of $616.8 million in American taxpayer funds, a 9.4 percent increase from the $563.8 million it received in year 2017-2018.

“Government health services reimbursements and grants” remains the largest source of income for Planned Parenthood at 37 percent — largely from the Medicaid program — followed by “private contributions and bequests” at 36 percent.

In year 2018-2019, Planned Parenthood’s total revenue was more than $1.6 billion, and its net assets for the year were nearly $2 billion.

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