“Follow the Money” – The Planned Parenthood Videos, “Fake News,” Congress, and the new DOJ (Part 1)

 

Recently, the topic of “fake news” has garnered enormous attention in the national media, with some on the political left going so far as to attribute the outcome of the 2016 presidential election to it.

President Obama has described “fake news” (here) as “active misinformation [that is] packaged very well and it looks the same when you see it on a Facebook page or you turn on your television.”

No doubt, bogus news stories made up out of whole cloth – such as the horrendous story that Hilary Clinton and John Podesta operated a vast child molestation and sex-trafficking network out of a popular D.C. area pizzeria (see here) – can both hurt the individuals who are maligned, and poison our national politics.

Still, as Mollie Hemingway has pointed out (here), the public’s is not so much concerned about stories that are wholly fabricated, which have always existed and always will. Rather, citing polling data, Hemingway notes that the public’s “concerns about fake news are really concerns about the spread of false information – something that just as well describes mainstream media as sites that more overtly craft fake news.”

With all this talk of “fake news” and its significance, it is easy to overlook the biggest fake news story of the last year-and-a-half, namely, the widely publicized claim that the undercover videos obtained by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) showing Planned Parenthood officials negotiating and otherwise discussing the sale of human tissue and organs from recently aborted children were “doctored” or “deceptively edited” and so untrustworthy, and undeserving of the public’s attention. By uncritically repeating this abortion industry talking-point, the media parroted the worst kind of “fake news” and failed the American people abysmally. At the same time, it justified it own lack of interest in a story of enormous importance.

This lack of interest by the media (although perhaps instinctive) was not immediate as initially the videos caused a huge sensation. Indeed, because of their availability on social media, they could not be entirely ignored. Questioned shortly after the first two videos were released, Cecile Richards appeared with George Stephanopoulos on This Week (here) and insisted that Planned Parenthood had “broken no laws” and that the videos were “highly selectively edited” and “sensationalized,” designed to “impugn and smear the name of Planned Parenthood.” Richards further insisted that certain statements captured on video – showing Planned Parenthood officials haggling over the price to be paid for human tissues and organs and admitting that they alter abortion procedures to obtain more intact specimens – were “completely taken out of context.” Although she could not identity the context that would make those statement licit.

Planned Parenthood repeated this blanket allegation (that that the videos were “highly edited,” “deceptively edited” with statements “taken out of context”) again and again – an allegation that was allowed to stand without any serious questioning from the media.

Thus, a full year after publication of the first video, Salon’s Amanda Marcotte (here) dismissed the videos as a “right-wing hoax” pandering a “self-evidently idiotic conspiracy theory” and “lurid urban legend.”

Others were less colorful in their retort. MSNBC’s Joy Reid (here) could only stammer: "That story was false. That story was false. That story was absolutely false. It was a false story . . . that story was false, so that's not a factor."

Whereas George Stephanopoulos (here) blandly murmured "There was never any proof of selling fetal parts."

Of course, there was ample proof to be had, if only Stephanopoulos and his colleagues in the fourth estate had been willing to exercise a modicum of the curiosity that all journalists are thought to possess and investigated the matter. But they did not, choosing instead to carry water for Planned Parenthood by ignoring or mischaracterizing the questions raised and the facts brought to light by the videos. (Fortunately, as noted below, committees in both the Senate and the House did investigate the matter, resulting in a host of criminal referrals to the FBI and other law enforcement organizations. Sadly, even the fact of these referrals and the contents of the committee reports have managed to escape the notice of the mainstream media).

What is particularly infuriating in all this is that some of those in the media who repeated the bare accusation of “deceptive editing” against CMP have themselves engaged in the most brazen, deceptive editing imaginable – a charge leveled and proven by some of their fellow journalists (see, for example, here, here, and here).

CMP released the videos in two formats – a shorter version and a full-length version on YouTube. The shorter versions of the videos are indeed edited – just like any interview or investigative video aired on a broadcast news program. Moreover, to see the full context in which the damning quotes from the Planned Parenthood officials occurred, CMP made the full, unedited version of each video available contemporaneous with the edited version. This fuller context does not alter the meaning of what the Planned Parenthood officials said. If anything, it shows these individuals in an even worse light. Both versions of all the videos, together with transcripts of the videos, are available on CMP’s website (here).

Shortly after Richards' embarrassing appearance on This Week, after only two videos had been released, Planned Parenthood hired the public relations firm SKD Knickerbocker which, as Hemingway reported in The Federalisit (here and here), “sent out a memo to journalists trying to keep them from reporting on the undercover videos, on the grounds that they were obtained under false identification and violated patient privacy.” (A copy of the memo is available here and here).

Whether the media responded directly to Planned Parenthood’s entreaties or out of a baked-in predisposition to favor the “pro-choice” cause, the response was overwhelming. Despite the release of several subsequent videos, confirming what the initial videos showed and adding new damning information, the mainstream media responded by ignoring them – a case study in abject disinterest. (See here and here). What would have surely been a front-page above-the-flap story for weeks or even months had the subject not been Planned Parenthood, became a non-story, something that didn’t happen because it wasn’t acknowledged to have happened by those who see it as their job to dictate the national conversation. Not only did they not cover the videos, they also failed to cover the public’s response to the videos -- thousands and thousands of Americans protesting against Planned Parenthood in rallies across the country.

What did garner enormous attention in the media was a report commissioned by Planned Parenthood on the authenticity of the videos. Planned Parenthood retained Fusion GPS, a firm that does opposition research for the Democratic Party, and on August 25, 2015, it issued its report (available here). Although Fusion GPS “found no evidence that CMP inserted dialogue not spoken by Planned Parenthood staff” and that its review “did not reveal widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation, but we did identify cuts, skips, missing tape, and changes in camera angle.” Nevertheless, it dutifully concluded “that CMP edited content out of the alleged ‘full footage’ videos, and heavily edited the short videos so as to misrepresent statements made by Planned Parenthood representatives.”

This was sufficient for the media to declare the videos “altered” and “manipulated.”

Indeed, the media devoted as much or more attention to the Fusion GPS report – to the breathless claim that the videos had been discredited – than to the videos themselves (here).

Alliance Defending Freedom commissioned Coalfire Systems, Inc., an independent firm specializing in digital forensic analysis, to review the videos. Coalfire examined not only the short edited versions, and the full length versions available on YouTube, but the original raw video footage and audio recordings captured by CMP investigators. Moreover, Coalfire examined not only the four videos that Fusion GPS reviewed, but subsequently issued videos, and the original source material. In its Nov. 5, 2015 report (here), Coalfire refuted Planned Parenthood’s talking points, concluding that “the video recordings are authentic and show no evidence of manipulation or editing. This conclusion is supported by the consistency of the video file date and time stamps, the video timecode, as well as the folder and file naming scheme. The uniformity between the footage from the cameras from the two Investigators also support the evidence that the video recordings are authentic.”

In reviewing the raw footage Coalfire further found that the “edits made to [the published] videos were applied to eliminate non-pertinent footage, including ‘commuting,’ ‘waiting,’ ‘adjusting recording equipment,’ ‘meals,’ or ‘restroom breaks,’ lacking pertinent conversation. Any discrepancies in the chronology of the timecodes are consistent with the intentional removal of this non-pertinent footage as described in this report.”

It would have been easy for anyone to miss the story of Coalfire’s report in the media for the simple fact that the press did not report on it. As Mollie Hemingway notes, although a host of reporters “tripped over themselves to publicize the Democrat opposition firm’s report” they managed to ignore the Coalfire report in its entirety (here).

Of course, the story surrounding the videos didn’t end there. The media did report when the Department of Justice announced that it would be investigating the Center for Medical Progress (here), and when the Attorney General of California raided the apartment of David Daleiden (the head of CMP) (here), and when Daleiden and his fellow CMP investigator Sandra Merritt were indicted in Houston (here). The charges in Texas were subsequently dismissed, ostensibly on a technicality (here).

The media also widely reported that Planned Parenthood had been “exonerated” of wrong doing in twelve state-level investigations (here). What has not been reported is whether these “investigations” were in fact serious inquiries – with a grand jury impaneled, documents subpoenaed, warrants issued, and witnesses compelled to appear and testify or exercise their 5^th Amendment rights. Or were these faux investigations, with an exchange of letters between friends, satisfying the pro forma requirements, and accompanied by the voluntary production of documents generated for the occasion?

It is “fake news” of the most pernicious kind to repeat the patently false allegation that the videos were “doctored,” or “highly edited,” or “deceptively edited” and as such unworthy of attention. It is “fake news” of the worst sort to suggest that the videos do not show what they plainly do show, namely, Planned Parenthood officials and others involved in the abortion industry discussing how aborted baby parts might be sold while evading the law that prohibits such transactions.

It is “fake news” of another sort to suggest that the rule of law has been satisfied when no real investigation has been conducted.

Notwithstanding the protests and obfuscations of Planned Parenthood’s defenders, the Judiciary Committee in the Senate (here) and a Select Committee in the House (here) conducted real investigations into the market in aborted baby parts revealed in the videos. What they uncovered (though unreported in the press) is truly disturbing. Each committee made criminal referrals to the Department of Justice.

Donald Trump is someone whom, I fear, has more faith in “the art of the deal” than in “the rule of law.” Still, each new beginning is a time for hope, and it is my hope that the new Department of Justice will take these matters up in earnest.

To do so, the DOJ must follow the path that other successful investigations of deep seated corruption have followed.  They must “follow the money.”  The place to begin this task is with the content of the videos themselves and with the Congressional reports. (More to follow in Part 2 of this post).