Planned Parenthood filed a grant application requesting $1.5 million from left-wing billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Policy Center.
It sought the money in an attempt to stave off efforts to eliminate its taxpayer funding following the video scandal that exposed its alleged involvement in the illegal sale of aborted baby body parts.
A document uncovered by the Washington Free Beacon from the website DC Leaks shows the grant proposal title on the application submitted to Soros’ dark money group as “Urgent Response in Defense of Women’s Health – Planned Parenthood Action Fund,” and that the requested amount is “$1,500,000.”
Desperate to defend itself against what it called a “severe” attack that came “without warning,” Planned Parenthood provided “background” for the cash request as follows:
Over the last three weeks, Planned Parenthood has come under attack from anti- abortion extremists who have spent years laying the groundwork for a sophisticated smear campaign aimed at discrediting the organization and cutting off the public funding it currently receives for providing health care services. While Planned Parenthood has been attacked before, this latest attempt is unprecedented in its scale and scope. Opponents created a fake company, filed false tax documents, and used fraudulent government IDs to gain the trust of Planned Parenthood doctors and clinicians and try to entrap them, using secretly obtained and deceptively edited videos. One of the founders of this fake company is the head of Operation Rescue, the extremist organization whose members have been linked to clinic bombings and the murder of Dr. George Tiller.
Abortion opponents in Congress and in statehouses are using the deceptive videos to make the case for defunding Planned Parenthood, and more videos may yet be released. The U.S. Senate voted on a defunding proposal on Monday, but failed by five votes to stop a filibuster. Many Republicans in both chambers, however, have vowed to strike Planned Parenthood funding from the annual spending bills that will be negotiated in the fall, even threatening to shut down the government to get their way. At the same time, governors and state legislatures around the country are signaling similar battles to come over state funding.
Soros’ OSPC “social welfare” division helped Planned Parenthood, in what was called the “Fight Back Campaign,” to obtain the $1.5 million cash infusion to cover the abortion business’ legal, political lobbying, and grassroots mobilization effort. The organization – which receives over $500 million annually in taxpayer funds – says in the grant application that the “Fight Back Campaign” was expected to cost up to $8 million.
The Free Beacon reports, however, that whether the funds were actually handed over to Planned Parenthood is unclear since – although required to report its grants disbursed annually – OSPC’s most recent filing with the IRS lists grants only through 2014.
Nevertheless, the document shows OSPC claiming its campaign was successful. The section titled “Summary for Board Reports” reads:
This $1.5 million grant provided an infusion of 501(c)(4) funding to Planned Parenthood Action Fund (PPAF) as they were waging a critical defense against attacks to the reputation and credibility of Planned Parenthood and potential loss of federal funding. This emergency funding enabled PPAF to implement its multipronged Fight Back Campaign to mobilize grassroots and grasstops supporters and lobby Congress to counter attempts to defund Planned Parenthood at the federal and state levels, and to continue providing critical reproductive health care services across the country.
It is no secret that George Soros and his family have long been supporters of Planned Parenthood. In March, the billionaire’s son donated $1 million to Planned Parenthood Votes – a political advocacy arm of the nation’s largest abortion business. Jonathan Soros – the CEO of JS Capital Management LLC – made his contribution on February 22, according to FEC filings.
In January, Planned Parenthood Votes took in a total of $538,585.18 from only five donors. One donor – George Soros’ daughter, Andrea Soros Columbel, president of the Trace Foundation – an organization that supports the development of Tibetan culture – contributed $250,000 to the abortion business’ political arm. Soros Columbel is a member of the Open Society Global Board along with father George and Jonathan, and Alexander Soros.
Since the release of Center for Medical Progress’s (CMP) Planned Parenthood video series that stunned the nation, the abortion giant has been attempting to suppress further exposure and seeking cover from its media and political allies, especially Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, a longtime “friend” of the group. Planned Parenthood is spending $20 million to help elect Clinton, and has recently announced that it is registering people to vote at all of its clinics, on college campuses, and online as well.
Soon after the release of the video series, Harris County, Texas District Attorney Devon Anderson convened a grand jury – under suspicion of bias – that cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing in the exposé and, instead, indicted CMP project lead David Daleiden and his colleague Sandra Merritt.
Reacting to the indictment of Daleiden and Merritt, two pro-choice law professors wrote that the action amounted to “a stunning act of legal jujitsu” and was a “deeply disturbing” outcome both for the First Amendment and undercover citizen journalists attempting to expose corruption.
Subsequently, a judge dismissed all charges against Daleiden, though many media outlets hardly reported that news at all.
Meanwhile, congressional Democrats – whose party now fully embraces abortion-on-demand – have attempted to suppress any further release of damning information about Planned Parenthood’s practices by demanding a complete shutdown of an ongoing congressional investigation.
While Planned Parenthood has denied any wrongdoing, its president Cecile Richards also released a statement last October announcing it will no longer accept payments for aborted fetal tissue. The narrative put forward at that point was that the videos produced by CMP were “deceptively edited.”
Nevertheless, a Democrat opposition research firm named Fusion, hired by Planned Parenthood itself to review the videos, said that while its staff observed the videos had been edited – as most videos are – “the analysis did not reveal widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation.”
Additionally, Fusion noted, “[A]nalysts found no evidence that CMP inserted dialogue not spoken by Planned Parenthood staff.”
An analysis by Coalfire, a third-party forensics company hired by Alliance Defending Freedom, found that the videos were “not manipulated” and that they are “authentic.”
Planned Parenthood made another attempt recently to keep further information about the video exposé under wraps when the organization filed a lawsuit against the University of Washington in federal court to block the school from revealing information about the abortion business’ involvement in its fetal parts research program.
In addition, Planned Parenthood has been pushing a bill through the California state legislature that would punish undercover journalists for publishing and distributing recordings of private communication with a “health care provider.” Ironically, the bill – dubbed the “Planned Parenthood bill” – is strongly opposed by the ACLU, which otherwise regularly defends the abortion industry giant.