Cate Dyer, owner of StemExpress, a fetal parts procurement business, became infamous in the Planned Parenthood videos which exposed the abortion chain’s alleged sale of aborted fetal body parts. Dyer has repeatedly refused to comply with congressional subpoenas, and now that committee is seeking to hold her and her company in contempt of Congress. A report Tuesday said:
Chairman Marsha Blackburn today announced that on Wednesday, September 21, 2016, the Select Investigative Panel will hold a business meeting to consider a report recommending that the U.S. House of Representatives find StemExpress and its Chief Executive Officer, Catherine Spears Dyer, in contempt of Congress. Separately, the Panel will consider a resolution authorizing the Chair to release the May 11, 2016, deposition conducted as part of the Panel’s investigation into the University of New Mexico. The markup will begin at 2:00pm Eastern Time in HVC-210 at the United States Capitol.
The Washington Post noted: “Should the Select Investigative Panel proceed at a scheduled Wednesday meeting, it would be the first congressional contempt proceeding pursued since the House voted to sanction former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner in 2014.”
The report states:
To date, the Panel has never received a single accounting record from StemExpress, no names of key personnel have been provided by Ms. Dyer so that the Panel might conduct interviews, and the cost estimates have been ambiguous and inadequate, The Panel wrote a letter to Ms. Dyer that included a chart of the missing items in an attempt to secure compliance with the congressional subpoenas. In a response letter, former counsel for StemExpress and Ms. Dyer disputed the Panel’s attempt to clarify what was missing.
Having exhausted its efforts to obtain compliance from the subpoena recipients, Chairman Blackburn recommends that StemExpress, LLC, and Catherine Spears Dyer be held in contempt for their willful failure to fully comply with the Panel’s subpoenas issued to them. (Page 7)
Despite this, Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), one of the Democrat panel members who has received more than $64,000 in campaign funding from Planned Parenthood, told the Post that StemExpress has “compli[ed]” with Blackburn’s subpoenas. Dyer was captured on undercover video by the Center for Medical Progress discussing the profit of the sale of aborted baby parts.
Live Action News has reported extensively on StemExpress and its ties to Planned Parenthood and profiting from the sale of fetal parts. She has made jokes about shipping whole baby heads. The potential profit that StemExpress has made from its fetal parts procurement business is unknown, but estimated to be lucrative. However, since Dyer won’t comply with the subpoenas on the organization’s financial records, no one knows the extent of such profit. Now Dyer and StemExpress may be held in contempt for these refusals.
Should the House find StemExpress or Dyer in contempt, it is unclear whether any sanctions would result. The GOP report anticipates referring the matter to the Justice Department, but prosecutors have not pursued charges against the two executive branch officials found in contempt during the Obama administration, Lerner and former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr.
The Panel will also vote on a resolution “authorizing Chair Blackburn to release the deposition transcript of the May 11, 2016, deposition of Dr. Eve Espey.” Espey is with the University of New Mexico, and the school has been heavily implicated by the Panel in its role in fetal parts research; she has been revealed to be one of the doctors who helped bring abortion to the public university, which she and a fellow doctor, Larry Leeman, detailed in an article about the process. The Panel has sought documents from the university as well, and tomorrow’s meeting may bring the university back into the forefront if Espey’s deposition is released.
Further information on the proceedings and a link to watch the hearing live are available here.
