In California, Kamala Harris weaponized the DOJ to go after a journalist
In California, Kamala Harris weaponized the DOJ to go after a journalist
As she prepared to run for higher office, Harris held a secret meeting in Los Angeles with top Planned Parenthood executives
In the spring of 2022, after a draft opinion of an impending U.S. Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked, the Beverly Hills City Council leapt to pass unanimously a resolution backing abortion.
“This is something I wholeheartedly support with all my soul,” then-Mayor Lili Bosse said. The following month, on the day Roe was overturned, Beverly Hills officials illuminated the city plaza in pink lights in a show of support for abortion.
That same year, the congressional district that includes Beverly Hills, California’s 36th, voted nearly 80 percent to pass Proposition 1, which would enshrine abortion into California’s constitution. Two years earlier, Joe Biden carried Beverly Hills by 17 points.
As one of the wealthiest and most liberal cities in the country, Beverly Hills might be the de facto face of the Hollywood-adjacent, shout-your-abortion crowd, leagues more radical on abortion than the rest of the country and feverishly opposed to even the slightest restrictions, including up until the moment of birth.
That is, at least on paper.
Consider the odd case of the DuPont late-term abortion clinic set to open last fall at 8920 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. After spending millions on construction, and with city lawyers affirming that all “services” to be provided by the clinic were legal under California law, the lease was terminated last year, and DuPont was kicked out of town.
The Washington, D.C.-based DuPont clinic would not have been the only abortion provider in Beverly Hills—in fact, it even wouldn’t have been the only abortion clinic at 8920 Wilshire Boulevard—but it would have been the first in southern California offering abortions after 24 weeks.
Ahead of the clinic’s opening, pro-life groups met with Beverly Hills officials who, according to the tenor of internal emails, appeared uncharacteristically open to discussion. It was after that the landlord cancelled the lease.
Once they learned exactly what would go on inside the clinic city leaders seemed to agree that the whole situation was far too gruesome to be associated with polite and tawny Beverly Hills. A lawsuit by DuPont alleges the city pressured the landlord to cancel the lease; the city denies this.
NIMBYism, perhaps. But while most Americans support pro-abortion bromides when cloaked in velvety euphemisms like “reproductive rights,” average people become squeamish when they learn not only the particulars of abortion procedures, but the industrial scale in which they’re carried out in the U.S.
During the 2013 trial of Philadelphia abortionist and serial killer Kermit Gosnell a defense witness, who was also an abortion provider, was asked how many abortions he had performed in his career. The question was intended to establish his expertise and credibility.
Around 40,000, he answered frankly. The jury—which was intentionally comprised of entirely pro-choice citizens—audibly gasped, according to journalists in the room.
And then there’s the equally uncomfortable question of profit. Abortion is an industry, like any other. While that’s not a political statement—mere fact—it’s an icky thought no matter what your views. The business model is dependent on furtiveness enveloped in a thin and squeaky veneer—the same strategy the left might accuse of the fossil fuel industry or, at one time, Big Tobacco.
In 2015, journalist David Daleiden made headlines when he released a series of undercover videos exposing Planned Parenthood's alleged harvesting and trafficking of fetal body parts from late-term abortions—a crime in the U.S. and California. These videos, which depicted Planned Parenthood executives discussing the sale and procurement of fetal body parts, ignited a firestorm of controversy and led to calls for investigations into the organization’s practices.
The report led local law enforcement in Orange County, Calif. to shut down two Planned Parenthood business partners, who admitted guilt, for illegally trafficking human body parts.
But on the state level, rather than address the substantive claims raised by Daleiden's investigation, Kamala Harris, who was California's Attorney General at the time, launched an aggressive criminal investigation into Daleiden and his associates.
On April 5, 2016 Harris sent 11 California DOJ agents armed with AR-15s to raid Daleiden’s one-bedroom apartment, alleging that his undercover operations violated California’s video recording law.
Countless reporters in California have used secret recordings to expose everything from retail scams, to medical malpractice, to animal abuse, but Daleiden was the first person in the law’s 60-year history ever to be prosecuted for newsgathering.
The timing of Harris's actions is particularly suspect. Two weeks before the raid—when Harris was positioning herself for a higher political profile, ultimately leading to her successful bid for the U.S. Senate in 2016—Harris held a secret meeting in Los Angeles with several top Planned Parenthood executives to discuss their legislative agenda. According to the official DOJ investigation report, Planned Parenthood’s top lawyer instructed Harris’s DOJ to confiscate any video in Daleiden’s possession and to hand it over to Planned Parenthood.
The case against Daleiden has since evolved into a protracted legal battle. In 2017, a California judge ruled against Daleiden, ordering him to pay significant damages to Planned Parenthood. Daleiden is now suing Harris and Planned Parenthood for conspiracy to violate his First Amendment rights.
The case exemplifies a broader trend in the Democrat Party to legally target individuals who challenge established narratives or powerful interests and reflects a troubling reality where the justice system can be weaponized to suppress dissent and intimidate whistleblowers. This pattern achieved most prominence as Harris climbed her way to the vice presidency and the Biden-Harris White House then set their sights on relentless legal persecution of Republican challenger Donald Trump.
The implications for civil liberties are profound, should Harris be anointed president. Despite the gravity of these issues, mainstream media—those whose jobs are dependent on and specifically protected by the First Amendment—remains silent, a fact attributed to a media landscape increasingly aligned with progressive causes, one which prioritizes political solidarity over journalistic integrity. Here, abuses of power persist unchecked and further endanger the principles of a fair and just society as diminishing few people are willing to call it out.
Freedom of (certain) press. Thank you for another great article. The information about the Beverly Hills late-term abortion clinic was particularly enlightening.
Great article.....Brilliant