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House Committee Wants Unedited Planned Parenthood Attack Videos

Planned Parenthood and pro-choice legislators have already called for the anti-choice group to release its full, unedited videos, but this request comes from a Republican who has a different rationale for asking for the full videos.

Planned Parenthood and pro-choice legislators have already called for the anti-choice group to release its full, unedited videos, but this request comes from a Republican who has a different rationale for asking for the full videos. Shutterstock

See more of our coverage on the misleading Center for Medical Progress videos here.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform issued a subpoena this week to the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) for all of the unedited video footage in the front group’s possession relating to the acquisition, preparation, and sale of fetal tissue.

It’s a call that House Democrats and Planned Parenthood have also made, in light of a recent report that found major edits even in the supposedly unedited videos that CMP released to the public.

The report found the videos “lack credibility” as evidence because of these edits, and pro-choice legislators have said that investigations in Congress can’t possibly be fair or accurate unless committees have access to the full videos.

But this request comes from a Republican, committee chair Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), who has a different rationale for asking CMP for the full videos.

“Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation want to hide their activities from the American people,” Chaffetz said in a statement. “This subpoena is a demand for transparency.”

Chaffetz’s statement refers to a lawsuit filed by the National Abortion Federation (NAF) that is keeping CMP videos of NAF’s annual meetings out of the public domain. NAF says that these videos were taken illegally.

The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), took issue with Chaffetz’s characterization.

“David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress are the ones who hid their activities—they selectively edited their videos, they cut out portions to mislead the American people, and they have not provided a single document in response to our request for information relating to multiple allegations of illegal activity,” Cummings said in a statement. “In contrast, Planned Parenthood has already provided multiple briefings to Congress, produced thousands of pages of documents, and cooperated at every stage of the investigation.”

Chaffetz’s motives may be to try to catch Planned Parenthood in a lie, but the women’s health organization is pleased with his request.

“We’ve called for the full, untouched, unedited source video footage to be released, and we’re glad the committee is asking for this as well, because it will only show how heavily edited and deceptive these videos are,” Eric Ferrero, vice president of communications at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement.