Judiciary Committee Recommends FBI Investigation of Planned Parenthood

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee recently learned that the FBI confirmed that it received the criminal investigation referrals of Planned Parenthood and other groups involved in the aborted baby body parts trade, according to Breitbart News. The FBI's assistant director of the Office of Congressional Affairs, Gregory Brower, sent a letter to the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley, informing him the FBI received the committee's criminal referrals of Planned Parenthood and that it is reviewing its recommendations. The letter, dated June 19, 2017, was never publicized by the Judiciary Committee. In the letter, Brower apologizes to Grassley "for the delay in responding to your inquiry" and indicates receipt of the chairman's letter, dated April 24, to both former FBI Director James Comey and Attorney General Jeff Sessions "concerning criminal referrals you made on December 13, 2016, to the FBI and Department of Justice."

The Senate committee and the U.S. House Select Panel on Infant Lives both opened investigations into the abortion industry after the Center for Medical Progress first exposed its baby body parts trade in 2015. Late last year, both committees concluded their investigations by recommending that the FBI investigate and potentially file criminal charges against Planned Parenthood. Liberty Counsel represents Sandra Merritt, one of the two journalists with the Center for Medical Progress, whose courageous undercover work exposed Planned Parenthood's barbaric practices of harvesting organs from babies and selling them to StemExpress and other organ procurement organizations for extreme profit. The videos show Planned Parenthood officials selling the body parts of aborted babies, flippantly negotiating prices and criminal abortion methods to sell aborted baby hearts, lungs, livers and brains. According to Breitbart, Grassley wrote to Sessions and Comey in April: "I am writing to inquire about the actions the Department of Justice and the FBI have taken in response to criminal referrals I made late last year. After a lengthy and detailed investigation by the Committee into paid fetal tissue transfers, I wrote to Attorney General Lynch and Director Comey on December 13, 2017, to refer eight organizations for investigation and potential prosecution for violations of the law that bans the buying or selling of human fetal tissue, 42 U.S.C. § 289g-2, and the criminal conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. § 371. The organizations referred were:

---

• The Planned Parenthood Federation of America;
• Planned Parenthood Mar Monte;
• Planned Parenthood Los Angeles;
• Planned Parenthood Northern California;
• Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest;
• StemExpress, LLC;
• Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc.; and
• Novogenix Laboratories, LLC."

Grassley also asked Sessions and Comey for "written confirmation by May 8, 2017, that the relevant Justice Department and FBI personnel have reviewed or will review the referral and report in full in order." Based on its findings, the Judiciary Committee's Majority Staff Report concluded that Planned Parenthood's partners in the biomedical procurement industry paid the abortion chain's affiliates for the body parts of aborted babies "and then sold the fetal tissue to their respective customers at substantially higher prices than their documented costs." Grassley said, "I don't take lightly making a criminal referral. But, the seeming disregard for the law by these entities has been fueled by decades of utter failure by the Justice Department to enforce it. And, unless there is a renewed commitment by everyone involved against commercializing the trade in aborted fetal body parts for profit, then the problem is likely to continue." "The time is well overdue for the FBI to conduct an investigation of Planned Parenthood and other companies that profit from aborted baby body parts," said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. "These companies are making outrageous profits from killing babies. Our client, Sandra Merritt, was one of the journalists who blew the whistle on Planned Parenthood's corrupt practice of harvesting baby parts and greedily selling them. She revealed the horrible truth that Planned Parenthood wants to bury. The time for butchering precious babies and profiting from this human genocide must end and the FBI needs to proceed with this investigation immediately," said Staver.