Kamala Harris has a David Daleiden problem
By: Kurt Mahlburg, originally published August 16, 2024, Mercator.net
Since Kamala Harris wrested the Democratic Party’s nomination from the grip of Joe Biden late last month, the legacy media machine has been working overtime to rebrand her into an American saviour.
Her marketers have several large hurdles to overcome, not least that the Harris-Walz ticket is the most stridently left-wing outfit ever offered to the American public.
To highlight just the contentious issue of abortion, Harris has called for Roe to be codified federally, and is the only sitting vice president to have toured an abortion mill. For his part, Tim Walz, as Governor of Minnesota, has delivered his state the most radical abortion laws in the US, with foeticide legal at all stages of pregnancy in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.
Perhaps no one has more effectively exposed Kamala’s enchantment with abortion as undercover journalist David Daleiden, of the Center for Medical Progress (CMP).
Undercover
In 2015, Daleiden and a colleague attended the National Abortion Federation’s commercial trade show in San Francisco while posing as laboratory wholesalers. As reported by Mercator at the time, Daleiden surreptitiously recorded conversations with a series of Planned Parenthood executives at the event who eagerly discussed the harvesting and exchange of fetal body parts. If the footage is to be believed, the babies in question were aborted late-term, with some delivered alive and mostly intact.
Instead of investigating Planned Parenthood for potential illegalities, Kamala Harris, then Attorney-General of California, launched an investigation against David Daleiden for recording confidential communications without permission, in supposed violation of the state’s Invasion of Privacy Act.
Daleiden faces eight felony charges and possible jail time in California, with his trial date set for December this year.
With Harris now at the top of the Democrat ticket, the Daleiden affair is once again trending on social media, demanding explanation from Kamala’s newsroom fan base.
AAP Factcheck came to the rescue late last week, giving a verdict of “false” to the claim that “Kamala Harris prosecuted two journalists for exposing that a US reproductive health organization was selling aborted fetal body parts.”
As is often the case with such screeds, however, the devil is in the details, and the “fact check” is itself crying out for scrutiny.
The first paragraph describes Daleiden and his colleague not as journalists but as “journalists” — scare quotes intact. Bias much?
The second paragraph makes the technically correct observation that “multiple investigations into the nonprofit, Planned Parenthood, found no evidence it sold fetal body parts for profit”. What it fails to disclose is that the fetal tissue trade is a legal grey area in the United States.
Planned Parenthood has indeed thus far evaded any legal guilt for buying or selling fetal tissue for profit. However, the multi-billion dollar organization luxuriously exploits a legal loophole that allows abortion providers to receive “reasonable payments” to offset the cost of acquiring, preserving, storing and transporting this valuable commodity.
The more abortions that are performed and bodies that are preserved, the more money an abortion provider can collect — and many providers offer bonuses to their technicians that are pegged to these metrics because of the financial windfalls involved.
All of this information, conveniently ignored by AAP Factcheck, is essential in comprehending the giddy glee of the women who made Daleiden’s acquaintance at that fateful trade show.
What else was AAP Factcheck hiding?
Vendetta
In the third paragraph, we read that “while Ms. Harris was California’s Attorney-General when a probe was announced into the actions of two anti-abortion activists, she had left the post by the time they were charged”.
Relevance? Zero. It was Kamala Harris as AG who opened the investigation against Daleiden, and her office’s legal pursuit of the whistleblower persisted until — and beyond — her election to the US Senate. Her investigation saw 11 armed agents raid Daleiden’s apartment armed with rifles and K-9 dogs in order to seize all of his undercover footage.
Consider a few other facts that AAP Factcheck failed to disclose, but that were covered by the New York Post:
- Daleiden’s case is one of the first times the California AG’s office has ever launched a stand-alone prosecution involving the state’s video-recording law, according to the defendant’s lawyers.
- Daleiden’s lawyers also contend that Kamala Harris singled Daleiden out to “do the bidding of Planned Parenthood”, who have contributed heavily to her campaigns for office. They believe it was “a selective prosecution for huge donors”.
- Planned Parenthood executives in California had arranged for in-person meetings with Kamala Harris about the videos, according to letters obtained from court documents.
- During her 2016 Senate bid, Harris enjoyed Planned Parenthood’s endorsement, all the while overseeing Daleiden’s investigation, including authorizing the raid on his home.
- Once Kamala Harris was elected to the Senate, she hired Lily Adams, the daughter of Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards, to be one of her top aides.
- Several months after the investigation was launched, the LA Times editorial board called the criminal charges against Daleiden a “disturbing overreach” by the AG’s office.
- When one of the Planned Parenthood executives recorded by Daleiden made a complaint to the Los Angeles Police Department, the LAPD refused to take the case, saying the taping had been done in a public place where many could hear the conversation.
Consider this vital context while watching the new video footage recently released by David Daleiden.
Kamala Harris might have the mainstream media’s might behind her, but the truth may not be as enthusiastic an ally.
It is doubtful that most Americans would be thrilled to learn about her cozy relationship with Planned Parenthood and her callous disregard for the harvesting and peddling of unborn baby body parts.
Whether they will ever be told about it is another matter entirely.
Kurt Mahlburg is a writer and author, and an emerging Australian voice on culture and the Christian faith.