Yesterday, attorneys general in 20 states asked the Supreme Court to remove the injunction from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals prohibiting David Daleiden from releasing the undercover footage he and other investigators with the Center for Medical Progress obtained.
Daleiden and his colleague, Sandra Merritt, are facing fifteen felony charges filed by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra for secretly filming people without their permission.
AP reported that Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed the friend-of-the-court brief on Tuesday, and was joined by the attorneys general from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin, KTAR News reports.
Daleiden has continued to fight the felony charges, maintaining that the law allows for the recording of private conversations if the purpose of the undercover reporting is to expose criminal activity.
Daleiden has maintained throughout the entire drawn-out legal battle that the only reason Attorney General Becerra is continuing to prosecute this case is because the videos are endangering Planned Parenthood (who has made several large donations to Becerra’s political campaigns).
As reported by National Review, Becerra charged Daleiden and Merritt “on the grounds that ostensibly business-related conversations among strangers held in restaurants and at conferences were in fact “confidential,” and so recording them without every participant’s consent violated California eavesdropping laws.” However, this is contradictory to previous action taken on similar cases and shows a remarkable double standard by Becerra.
Daleidan and Merritt are being viciously prosecuted for exposing truth, when Planned Parenthood should be held accountable and stripped of its federal funding.
Last Friday, exactly one week ago, I wrote: “Influential leaders must speak up and confront Becerra regarding his obvious bias, and urge for a dismissal of the charges against Daleiden and Merritt.”
It is very encouraging to see so many leaders step forward to protect David Daleiden and the CMP investigators for exposing the reality of what Planned Parenthood is and the reality of what abortion does.
When you have attorneys general from 20 states basically calling out attorney general Becerra for prosecuting Daleiden out of personal animosity and because he has this sort of buddy relationship with Planned Parenthood, you know that Becerra has overstepped his bounds in a gross and dereliction of justice.
