The organization behind the secretly taped videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood illegally selling fetal tissue is fighting in court to release as many as a dozen additional, never-before-seen tapes.
David Daleiden, who heads the organization known as the Center for Medical Progress, said in a phone call with reporters Thursday that the tapes he hopes to release are “the most damning and incriminating” yet.
Should the court rule in the organization’s favor, the videos could become public as early as October, just ahead of the midterm elections, during which abortion rights are set to be a prominent issue. Daleiden refers to himself as a citizen journalist; his organization is known as being anti-abortion and for calling for defunding Planned Parenthood.
The National Abortion Federation, which had sued Daleiden for illegally recording the videos, along with fraud, conspiracy, and invasion of privacy, has dropped seven of the 11 claims it previously waged. The Center for Medical Progress filed Wednesday three motions in a San Francisco federal court to dismiss the remaining motions and for the gag order to be lifted.
The original videos, released about three years ago, led to several states banning Planned Parenthood from receiving government funding and led to calls for similar action in Congress, where such efforts have failed so far. The Department of Justice under the Trump administration is reviewing documents lawmakers had assembled on the issue.
The dispute about the tapes began after the Center for Medical Progress released secretly taped video footage that appeared to show Planned Parenthood employees discussing the sale of fetal tissue for profit, a practice that is illegal. The organization misrepresented itself as a tissue-procurement company in the videos and also accused Planned Parenthood of altering how it performs abortions in order to gather more intact specimens.
More than 10 states have cleared Planned Parenthood of wrongdoing, and the organization has maintained that it never sold tissue. Planned Parenthood commissioned a study by Fusion GPS after the videos were released suggesting that the videos were heavily edited and manipulated. Fusion GPS is the same firm that commissioned the dossier about President Trump that was used by the FBI to secure Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants to spy on onetime Trump campaign official Carter Page.
Asked why he chose to hold videos that he said were more “damning” instead of releasing those first, Daleiden replied that the order of the videos was intended to help educate the public about the practice of donating fetal tissue.
A couple of Planned Parenthood clinics allow women to donate fetal tissue after an abortion, specimens that can be used for medical research. Planned Parenthood used to accept funds to cover the cost of storing and transporting the tissue but after the videos were released the organization announced it would swallow the costs.
