The California Department of Justice agent who was present during the raid on David Daleiden’s home in 2016 testified Tuesday that Obama-era Attorney General Loretta Lynch requested the investigation of the undercover video journalist and his colleague in the wake of their video exposé of Planned Parenthood’s fetal tissue trafficking practices, reported LifeSiteNews.
Special agent Brian Cardwell testified in San Francisco during the preliminary hearing in the criminal case against Daleiden and his colleague, Sandra Merritt, that Lynch sent a letter to former California Attorney General Kamala Harris, now a U.S. senator and a Democrat candidate for president, requesting that the two undercover journalists of Center for Medical Progress (CMP) be investigated.
Harris, who received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Planned Parenthood, authorized the raid and seizure of Daleiden’s personal property, including his laptop. Subsequently, she initiated the criminal prosecution against both journalists.
The CMP series created a firestorm in the nation as it showed Planned Parenthood officials and their partners in the biomedical procurement industry speaking casually, even over lunch in a public restaurant, about how to abort babies in such a manner as to maximize profits from the harvesting of their body parts.
“We’ve always said it was a political prosecution, but hearing that Loretta Lynch was the one that instigated it, that’s a huge, huge factor,” Thomas More Society’s Peter Breen, one of the attorneys representing Daleiden, told pro-life media LifeSiteNews.
“We’ve talked earlier during this case about a meeting that the heads of Planned Parenthoods had, with Kamala Harris in her office right around the time that Attorney General Harris was approving a search warrant [on] David’s apartment,” Breen said.
“Something stinks here in San Francisco and it’s political and goes to the highest levels,” Breen added.
According to the report, Cardwell brought up Lynch’s letter when California Deputy Attorney General Johnette Jauron asked the agent about the initiation of the criminal proceedings against the two video journalists.
“I believe there was a letter sent by Loretta Lynch to Kamala Harris requesting an investigation,” he said.
Brentwood Ferreira, another attorney for Daleiden, cross-examined Cardwell on the issue of the letter because the video journalist’s lawyers had not received a copy of it from the attorney general.
Cardwell said he saw the letter in January, when the attorney general’s office provided a copy for the record.
During cross-examination, Cardwell also told Ferreira that Beth Parker, primary attorney for Planned Parenthood in California, pressed Department of Justice agents to seize Daleiden’s documents and recording equipment.
“As far as I’m concerned, Harris probably solicited the letter anyway to take heat off Planned Parenthood,” Ferreira told LifeSiteNews, “because Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation were the true engines of this prosecution.”
Planned Parenthood lawyer Parker “brought all this stuff over to Jill Habig who was political assistant to Kamala Harris,” he said, adding that the criminal prosecution of Daleiden “is a complete violation of the First Amendment.”
In September 2016, emails obtained by the Washington Times showed that Harris’s office collaborated with Planned Parenthood to produce legislation that targeted Daleiden.
The emails, according to the Times, were accessed through a public records request, and revealed conversations between officials of Harris’s office and Planned Parenthood regarding legislation that would criminalize undercover journalists for publishing and distributing recordings of private communications with abortion providers.
The Times reported:
The documents are another indication of Ms. Harris‘ close relationship with Planned Parenthood and call into question the impartiality of her ongoing investigation of Mr. Daleiden, legal experts said.
The emails show Beth Parker, chief legal counsel for Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, sending multiple drafts of AB 1671 to Jill Habig, who was at the time special counsel to the attorney general.
“Attached is the language for AB 1671, proposed amendments to Penal Code section 632,” Ms. Parker wrote in an email marked March 8. “I look forward to your thoughts about this.”
Ms. Parker sent a revised draft of the legislation to Ms. Habig on March 16. “Here’s the rewrite of the video tape bill,” she wrote. “Let me know what you think.”
Habig later became deputy manager of Harris’s U.S. Senate campaign, the website of which featured a petition asking voters to support and protect Planned Parenthood’s federal funding.