Power

Congresswoman: Release Unedited Planned Parenthood Attack Videos to House Committee

Rep. Diana DeGette is calling on her colleague Tim Murphy, chair of a House committee that will investigate Planned Parenthood, to make sure his colleagues get the full story from the anti-choice tapes.

Rep. Diana DeGette is calling on her colleague Tim Murphy, chair of a House committee that will investigate Planned Parenthood, to make sure his colleagues get the full story from the anti-choice tapes. RepDianaDeGette / YouTube

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

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) on Monday renewed her call for the full, unedited videos taken by the anti-choice Center for Medical Progress (CMP) to be released to a House subcommittee investigating Planned Parenthood.

“While heavily edited video footage may be acceptable for YouTube, it is not fit for an Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigation hearing,” DeGette, a member of the committee and co-chair of the House Pro-Choice Caucus, said in a statement.

DeGette’s statement didn’t mention a new investigation’s findings that even the supposedly full, unedited videos from the anti-choice front group have been substantially altered.

Rather, DeGette is once again asking her colleague Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, to make sure that the committee gets the full story from the videos, including any exculpatory evidence in Planned Parenthood’s favor.

DeGette wrote a letter to Murphy four weeks ago asking for the release of any footage or other materials that he or other committee members may have received from CMP. She’s also asking Murphy to ask CMP to release to the committee “any and all” footage of employees of Planned Parenthood and its affiliates.

DeGette has reason to believe that Murphy might have access to CMP’s footage or connections to the anti-choice organization, since Murphy and other Republicans admitted to having seen the videos long before the public did.

Murphy has yet to reply to DeGette’s letter.

“Congresswoman DeGette is asking that all of the unedited footage be made available to members of the Committee, which may in turn require CMP to hand over more footage to Chairman Murphy,” DeGette’s spokesperson told Rewire. “She sees this, and others agree, as the only way in which a fair and balanced investigation of Planned Parenthood can take place in the Energy and Commerce Committee or anywhere else on the Hill.”

DeGette said in her letter that while she’s “disappointed” that the “clearly manipulated, deceptively edited” videos made Murphy decide to investigate Planned Parenthood at all, it’s important to include the unedited videos in any investigation that stems from CMP’s deceptive attack videos.

Some footage that was cut from the edited YouTube videos, DeGette noted, corroborates Planned Parenthood’s side of the story—like the ten times (nine of which were edited out) that Dr. Deborah Nucatola says Planned Parenthood doesn’t sell fetal tissue or profit from tissue donations.

“It is critically important that members of the Committee be given access to the full story, given the questions surrounding the reliability of the Center for Medical Progress and the legality of their practices, as well as the distinct possibility that hundreds or even thousands of hours or exculpatory video footage are otherwise unlikely to ever see the light of day,” DeGette wrote.

Four other House Democrats have called for the Department of Justice to investigate CMP, which has come under fire for its possibly illegal tactics.

No state-level investigations have found that Planned Parenthood broke any laws, and the Department of Health and Human Services has found no evidence of wrongdoing among government researchers.