California Finally Drops Prosecution Of Journo Who Exposed Planned Parenthood With Damning Videos
California on Monday agreed to finally end the prosecution of Center for Medical Progress journalists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, who released videos of Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of aborted baby parts and organs, which is illegal.
The controversial prosecution of Daleiden and Merritt was sparked by then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who was accused of weaponizing her office to bolster a “mega-sponsor” in Planned Parenthood. The journalists were formally charged under Harris’ successor with 15 felony counts for videotaping “confidential” communications.
“The agreement—a negotiated settlement with zero punishment—is in exchange for a new ‘no contest’ plea by Daleiden and Merritt on a single video recording charge. It involves no jail time, no fines, no admission of wrongdoing, and no probation,” a press release from CMP says. “The new ‘no contest’ plea—which cannot be used adversely—will be entered into judgment as a misdemeanor in 6 to 12 months, and then converted to a ‘not guilty’ plea, dismissed, and expunged.”
Daleiden, who’s the president of CMP, called the dismissal a “huge victory.”
“After enduring nine years of weaponized political prosecution, putting an end to the lawfare launched by Kamala Harris is a huge victory for my investigative reporting and for the public’s right to know the truth about Planned Parenthood’s sale of aborted baby body parts,” Daleiden said.
“Now we all must get to work to protect families and infants from the criminal abortion-industrial complex,” he added. “Taking the San Francisco case off the board allows me to focus fully on CMP’s mission to report on the injustices of taxpayer-funded experiments on aborted babies and continue to expand our groundbreaking investigative reporting.”
CMP noted that the undercover videos involved in the case sparked a massive $7.8 million settlement from two bioscience companies that admitted to illegally selling aborted fetuses from Planned Parenthood in Southern California. Their footage was also the subject of a “settlement with disgorgement of profits from the sale of aborted fetal organs in Arizona, and the disqualification of Planned Parenthood from state and federal funding in Texas for violations of medical standards and ethics documented on the undercover footage—where Planned Parenthood now faces a nearly $2 billion federal False Claims Act case from the disqualification.”