David Daleiden’s fight continues

Peter Breen was in his office after an Illinois House of Representatives committee hearing on April 5, 2016, when he received a call from his client David Daleiden. Breen—then a state representative and an attorney for the Thomas More Society—often took calls from the pro-life activist between legislative meetings, but this one was particularly memorable.

“He said, ‘There are 11 California Department of Justice agents tossing my apartment’—taking all of his stuff,” Breen recalls. An agent even demanded Daleiden hand over the phone he had used to call his lawyer. “It was surreal,” Breen said.

The summer before, Daleiden and his organization, the Center for Medical Progress, released footage of Planned Parenthood executives discussing the strategic removal and sale of aborted baby body parts. The videos sparked several state investigations of Planned Parenthood’s practices, and abortion groups responded by filing multiple lawsuits to silence Daleiden. The state’s then–Attorney General Kamala Harris ordered the April raid. Officials took a laptop and multiple hard drives containing hundreds of hours of video footage from Daleiden’s apartment. Almost five years later, the Center for Medical Progress has not released the remaining footage. His lawyers continue to fight multiple court battles, including lawsuits Daleiden filed against Planned Parenthood and the California government.

Within weeks of the abortion industry filing the first lawsuits against him in 2015, Daleiden called the Thomas More Society to help with his defense. Breen has served as the group’s primary attorney on Daleiden’s case since leaving the Illinois legislature in 2019. He spends most of his time on Daleiden’s cases: researching, drafting case briefings, taking calls from other attorneys. He attends hearings virtually from the basement of his 1,200-square-foot home that he shares with his wife and two toddlers.

On Wednesday, he called in for the case stemming from Daleiden’s lawsuit against Vice President Kamala Harris, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, and abortion groups. Daleiden claims those parties conspired to silence him by selectively enforcing California’s law against secretly recording video footage—a law that Breen says the state attorney general has never prosecuted any journalist for violating. The defendants moved to dismiss the lawsuit, saying Harris is protected by rules shielding prosecutors from being sued for filing lawsuits. They also said too much time has passed since Daleiden gathered evidence of the alleged selective prosecution.

Breen said the judge presiding over the hearing, U.S. District Judge William Orrick, indicated he’ll likely hit pause until after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hears the criminal case against Daleiden. The activist faces multiple felony counts for undercover taping and creating a fake ID. If found guilty, Daleiden could serve almost a decade in San Quentin State Prison.

Daleiden also faces a $16 million fine in a related civil case: Planned Parenthood staff members claim he manipulated the secretly recorded videos and that public release of the recordings led to harassment and threats against them and abortion facilities. Judge Orrick also presided over this case and barred Daleiden’s team from showing the incriminating video footage to the jury. He issued a temporary injunction in a third case barring Daleiden from publicly releasing the videos. In February, Orrick indicated he might permanently block them without holding another trial.

If Daleiden has to pay the $16 million, Breen said it would be a death knell for undercover journalism in the United States. Attorneys general in 20 states, as well as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, have filed briefs in support of Daleiden due to the threat the case poses to First Amendment rights.

“The Planned Parenthood lawyers tried to compare David Daleiden to the terrorists who blew up the world trade centers on 9/11,” he said. “The criminals here were Planned Parenthood and its staff and the fetal tissue businesses that they were selling human body parts to for profit.”