Hillary Clinton is siding with Planned Parenthood over a scandal involving a series of secretly recorded videos, despite not having actually seen the undercover tapes in question.
“I think that she said that she’s seen images or pictures, but she hasn’t seen the videos,” Karen Finney said Wednesday during an interview with MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts.
Finney reiterated Clinton’s support for the nation’s largest provider of abortions.
The pro-life activist group behind the undercover videos, the Center for Medical Progress, has so far released five secretly recorded tapes. The tapes are the result of a three-year-long sting investigation into Planned Parenthood’s practices.
Finney, a longtime aide to the Democratic frontrunner and former Media Matters for America consultant, spent the remainder of her interview Wednesday avoiding Roberts’ questions about how Clinton can say she supports Planned Parenthood without also being fully informed as to why there’s even a scandal in the first place.
“[Y]ou make yourself vulnerable and Hillary Clinton makes herself vulnerable, President Obama makes himself vulnerable, Josh Earnest makes himself vulnerable if you don’t look at these videos in full context, but then come out in defense of them,” Roberts said.
Planned Parenthood and its supporters have scrambled to respond to the steady drip of undercover footage from the Center for Medical Progress, claiming repeatedly in prepared statements that the videos have been “selectively edited.”
However, contrary to this oft-repeated defense, the pro-life group has made all of its raw, unedited footage available online. The Center for Medical Progress has also released full video transcripts.
The first undercover tape released by the group shows a Planned Parenthood executive discussing “doing a little better than” breaking even for donating organs salvaged from the remains of aborted children.
Another video shows an executive with the group negotiating compensation for specific organs, including hearts, kidneys and livers, joking at one point, “It has been years since I talked about compensation [for fetal organs] … so let me just figure out what others are getting.”
“If this is in the ballpark, it’s fine. If it’s still low, then we can bump it up. I want a Lamborghini,” she said.
Separate videos show Planned Parenthood affiliates seemingly discussing performing partial birth abortions so as to extract specific organs undamaged.
The sale of aborted fetal tissue for profit is illegal under federal law. It is also illegal to perform partial birth abortions.
Clinton initially referred to the content of the undercover videos as “disturbing.”
“I have seen pictures from them and obviously find them disturbing,” Clinton said late July in an interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader.
However, it took less than 48 hours for the former secretary of state to change her tone on the videos.
“Proud to stand [with] Planned Parenthood and for access to quality, affordable healthcare for women, men & young people,” the Democratic presidential candidate said in a tweet, throwing her support behind the embattled abortion provider.
Clinton is not alone in voicing support for Planned Parenthood despite not having seen the secretly recorded videos.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said last week that the Obama administration supports Planned Parenthood, adding later that he hasn’t actually watched the tapes.
“I haven’t seen the videos. I can’t render my own judgment on that. People who have looked at the video have raised significant concerns about that, and I think anybody would question the source,” Earnest said in a CNN interview. “I think that’s legitimate.”
Like Planned Parenthood and its supporters in both the press and Congress, Earnest focused his attention on the Center for Medical Progress, rather than on the content of their videos.
“There’s no denying the fact that the organization that is clearly anti-Planned Parenthood that put out the videos put them out not because of news value but because of shock value,” Earnest said Monday on CNN. “I haven’t seen the videos, but even based on the news coverage, the videos are shocking. ”
“Those who have taken a look at the videos have raised concerns about whether or not those videos are authentic, about whether or not they have been selectively edited in a way to misconstrue or even distort or mislead about what’s it that Planned Parenthood does,” he added.
(h/t WFB)
