A pro-abortion judge with ties to Planned Parenthood has “reluctantly” admitted that a pro-life journalist might not actually have violated an injunction against him when he shared video footage from a congressional hearing.
Earlier this month, the National Abortion Federation (NAF) asked Judge William Orrick to issue an injunction against pro-life journalist David Daleiden for reposting a subpoenaed video on X (formerly known as Twitter) from a congressional hearing. Orrick agreed, and ordered Daleiden to remove the video; Daleiden, project lead for the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) immediately hit back after NAF filed a motion asking for him to be held in contempt of court, pointing out that airing footage from a congressional hearing is allowed.
🚨BREAKING: @NatAbortionFed filed a motion to hold @daviddaleiden in contempt of court for reposting videos already released into the public record by Congress. Read our response:
"Despite conceding nine years ago that Congress could place the materials at issue in this case… pic.twitter.com/a8Em4wzzqV
— Center for Medical Progress (@CtrMedProgress) April 12, 2024
Daleiden testified at a hearing led by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on the issue of trafficking fetal body parts; during the hearing, several previously-unaired CMP videos were shown. Daleiden shared the footage, and though no names were included, and the videos themselves largely couldn’t be seen, you could hear what was being said, including statements like:
“I mean, we could pay you $1000 up to $1500 for a liver because that’s in such high demand…”
“But I think financial incentive from you guys to people we have to get this approved from will be very happy about it.”
“An eyeball just fell down into my lap, and that’s gross.” [laughter]
Other footage shared implicated Planned Parenthood:
Judge Orrick—who ran a @PPFA clinic in SF—censored this footage of @PPGulfCoast suggesting ripping the legs off a living baby to hide criminal partial-birth abortions to sell more body parts.
BTW, she used to work at Planned Parenthood San Francisco. 🤔https://t.co/DB4YwIUzDf
— David Daleiden (@daviddaleiden) April 3, 2024
In their response, CMP pointed out that sharing congressional footage does not violate the injunction.
“Despite conceding nine years ago that Congress could place the materials at issue in this case beyond the reach of any injunction, NAF now argues that Defendants should be found in contempt for doing what anyone with internet access can do: share and comment on video recordings released by Congress,” the group wrote. “Such an order would be without precedent in American law.”
And, according to Courthouse News Service, Orrick has agreed with Daleiden — although he didn’t seem to want to.
“Senior U.S. District Judge William Orrick did not issue a ruling in the case, but he said he was reluctantly leaning toward Daleiden’s interpretation that he was allowed to repost clips of the nearly decade-old footage because it came from a public congressional hearing,” Courthouse News reporter Michael Gennaro wrote.
For his part, Orrick made his distaste for Daleiden’s actions clear.
“I remain concerned about the personal safety issues that I’ve expressed throughout this litigation, and I don’t think time has assuaged my concern with respect to that. That said, I’m not aware of any control or authority that I have with respect to congressional conduct,” he wrote, adding, “I don’t believe I can stop Mr. Daleiden from identifying them because he has obtained the information about who those folks were independently of the videos and the circumstances that resulted in the permanent injunction in the first place.”
Orrick did add that Daleiden could not publish any videos that weren’t played in a congressional hearing, and that he should ask permission before exercising his legal rights. “It is far better, particularly in this case, if the defendant would seek authority or permission or provide notice or do something ahead of having fire drills as we did in this case,” Orrick said.
As pointed out by Daleiden on X, Orrick has strong ties to Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry.
Orrick founded a Planned Parenthood referral facility and continues to donate money to the abortion corporation. He has also maligned Daleiden and CMP as “domestic terrorists,” but has refused multiple calls to recuse himself from cases relating to Planned Parenthood and Daleiden.
This behavior earned the judge criticism from the Wall Street Journal, which pointed out that he violated U.S. law and judicial ethics by overseeing court cases in which he had a financial interest.
