Democrats unsuccessfully tried to chuck a series of documents released at a House panel investigating the price of aborted fetal tissue, saying they are false and “made out of whole cloth.”
The House Select Panel on Infant Lives held a hearing Wednesday on the sale and pricing of fetal tissue. The panel voted 8-5 to keep a series of documents in the hearing over Democratic objections to their origin and validity.
The panel introduced invoices and marketing brochures that Republicans on the panel say prove that several abortion clinics may have violated federal law that prohibits profiting from the sale of aborted fetal tissue.
At the onset of the hearing, Rep. Diana Degette, D-Colo., questioned where the panel got the documents and the conclusions they derived from them.
“The conclusions drawn and frankly stated as fact are false,” Degette said. “There were other documents that were sourced to a procurement business which had nothing to do with the topic of this hearing.”
Degette suggested that the documents were from David Daleiden, an activist who made a series of undercover videos that show Planned Parenthood officials discussing the harvesting and donation of aborted fetal tissue.
Daleiden has since been indicted by a Texas grand jury for federal charges related to the videos.
Republicans responded that the documents were from the committee’s normal investigative work. Documents came through whistleblowers, subpoenas, former employees and Freedom of Information Act requests, said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., the panel chairwoman.
The exhibits contain several screenshots from a procurement business discussing the financial profits from global biomedical research. The name is redacted. However, the website looks similar to that of StemExpress, a California biotech firm that was part of Daleiden’s investigation.
StemExpress said that identifying information is included in some of the screenshots. That was despite assurances from committee staff that the committee wasn’t concerned with “naming names,” according to StemExpress’ lawyer in a letter to the committee.
The lawyer added that the committee may have repurposed unauthenticated and stolen documents obtained by Daleiden and his organization, the Center for Medical Progress. The activist admitted under aoth that he used the password of a former StemExpress employee to gain access to the company’s e-mail system to “steal electronic documents,” the letter said.
“While some of these illegally obtained documents are posted to the [Center for Medical Progress] website, some of the majority’s exhibits have never appeared publicly, suggesting that perhaps the select panel may be receiving so-called ‘evidence’ directly from Mr. Daleiden and/or his associates,” the letter added.
StemExpress’ attorney asked for the exhibits to be rescinded or to allow StemExpress personnel to review them. The attorney said that no personnel have been asked to verify the authenticity of the documents.
