The committee tasked with investigating Planned Parenthood's illegal fetal-tissue trafficking presses forward.
The House Select Panel on Infant Lives — formed last year to investigate Planned Parenthood’s alleged illegal fetal-tissue trafficking as revealed by the Center for Medical Progress’s (CMP) undercover video campaign last summer — voted yesterday to hold biotech firm StemExpress in contempt of Congress. In July, the panel released an interim report on its findings, uncovering extensive evidence that Planned Parenthood affiliates broke several federal laws when they engaged in the sale of fetal tissue with a number of biotech firms, the most prominent of which was StemExpress.
As NRO reported this summer, at the time of the interim report StemExpress had yet to comply with the panel’s request for documents related to fetal-tissue transfers, leading the panel to issue a subpoena. Now, over two months later, the group has still refused to comply. At yesterday’s panel meeting, the Democratic and Republican committee members debated whether or not they had the legal authority to hold StemExpress in contempt, an argument that ended only when all six Democrats left in protest. The eight Republican members then voted unanimously to hold StemExpress and its CEO, Catherine Spears Dyer, in contempt.
The panel’s chairman, Republican Marsha Blackburn, issued the following statement after the vote:
Nearly one year ago our Panel was established and given the important task of investigating very disturbing allegations that some abortion clinics and middleman procurement organizations, including StemExpresss, were violating federal law by profiting from the sale of human fetal tissue. In order to determine if these entities were in violation of federal law or if the relevant statute needs to be updated, our Panel must review all accounting and banking records. Nine months is enough time for an entity to produce accounting documents. It is our hope that by approving this report today, StemExpress and its CEO, Cate Dyer, will begin to take our investigation seriously. It’s time for them to turn over the records we need to complete our investigation. A subpoena is not a suggestion. It is a lawful order that must be complied with. If StemExpress continues to obstruct, then we will work with House leadership to determine the necessary next steps.
In light of this vote, the House parliamentarian will determine whether the panel’s recommendation will go before the entire Energy and Commerce Committee or directly to the House floor for a full vote. If the House also votes to hold the group and its CEO in contempt of Congress, it would be for the first time it has done so since 2014, when it did so for former IRS higher-up Lois Lerner.
Meanwhile, both Planned Parenthood and its Democratic defenders in Congress have waged an extensive campaign to deny the evidence shown by the CMP videos and confirmed by the panel. Though the abortion group continues to maintain that the videos amounted to nothing more than a smear campaign and a “witch hunt,” the evidence appears to indicate otherwise. StemExpress’s refusal to comply with congressional subpoenas is merely the latest example of shady behavior on the part of Planned Parenthood and its allies. If there really isn’t any evidence of illegal activity, surely StemExpress would see no harm in offering the documentation to prove it.