Washington D.C., Jan 27, 2016 / 17:53 pm
The Planned Parenthood investigators indicted by a Houston grand jury on Monday were not breaking the law as they are undercover journalists, maintains the lawyer for the lead investigator, David Daleiden.
Daleiden's use of a false identification, linked to his undercover report on Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in Houston, is "standard undercover technique" and is allowed under Texas law, Peter Breen of the Thomas More Society told CNA.
Daleiden, the project lead for the "citizen journalist" team Center for Medical Progress, and his fellow worker Sandra Merritt, were indicted Jan. 25 by a grand jury for "tampering with a government record." Additionally, Daleiden was indicted for the purchase or sale of human organs, a misdemeanor charge.
Last summer, the Center for Medical Progress had released a series of videos of secretly-taped conversations with Planned Parenthood officials as part of its investigative report "Human Capital." The report focused on Planned Parenthood's role in its clinics offering fetal tissue of aborted babies to harvesters for compensation.