Videos manipulated

Report for Planned Parenthood finds sting videos manipulated

By Jennifer Haberkorn

A report commissioned by Planned Parenthood has found that the sting videos targeting its tissue donation practices contain intentionally deceptive edits, missing footage and inaccurately transcribed conversations. But there is no evidence that the anti-abortion group behind the attack made up dialogue.

The report by research firm Fusion GPS, which was obtained by POLITICO, attempts to undermine the videos’ political, legal, and journalistic value. The Center for Medical Progress claims that the eight tapes it has released show evidence that Planned Parenthood is making money by trafficking fetal tissue and organs.

The women’s health organization strongly denies those accusations and has repeatedly said the tapes are highly edited and misleading. The forensic report, which relied on video and transcription experts who were hired by Fusion GPS and not associated with Planned Parenthood, is the first comprehensive account of the videos’ discrepancies. It was sent to congressional leadership on Thursday to counter Hill investigations of Planned Parenthood’s work.

Planned Parenthood also told lawmakers that only two of the 59 Planned Parenthood affiliates are currently involved in fetal tissue research — and that there is no evidence any affiliate has broken federal or state laws.

“The attacks on us have the intended purpose of making it appear that fetal tissue research is an enormous focus of Planned Parenthood,” Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, wrote in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Harry Reid. “But the simple fact is that 99 percent of our health centers have no involvement in this work.”

Fusion GPS outlined 42 instances in which CMP edited out content from the short as well as so-called full versions of the tapes, several of which were secretly recorded. The company also identified instances in which context was eliminated, minutes of film were deleted and transcripts released by CMP did not match what was said on the tapes.

The report concludes that the degree of manipulation means the videos have no “evidentiary value” in a legal context, can’t be used in “official inquiries” and lack credulity as journalism. Those findings are a direct response to CMP’s arguments in court — while fighting efforts to prevent it from releasing more video — that it is protected by the First Amendment.

But the firm also wrote that it is impossible to characterize the extent to which the edits and cuts distort the meaning of the conversations depicted and that there was no “widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation.”

Even if the videos fall short of legal or journalistic standards, they’ve already made a substantial impact in Washington and some states. Some congressional Republicans are threatening to block any bill to fund the government next month if it includes taxpayer dollars for Planned Parenthood. Several governors are also seeking to defund the organization. Thursday’s report is unlikely to derail their efforts.

David Daleiden, who headed the Center for Medical Progress’s operation, called the report “a desperate, 11th-hour attempt to distract from the conversations and admissions that are documented really clearly on the video and in records.” He said he has about four videos that he still plans to release.

Fusion GPS found that at least two of the filmed interviews with Planned Parenthood officials are missing at least 30 minutes of content. It speculates that the cuts could include moments in which CMP activists, who were posing as representatives of a fictitious tissue procurement company, said things to lead the officials into damning statements.

For example, it concluded that a camera’s recording was paused at some point during filming inside a lab while a technician sorted through the tissue and organs of an aborted fetus.

Daleiden, who founded and leads CMP, told POLITICO that the footage missing from the tapes is “bathroom breaks” and conversations between the group’s members. He denied cutting anything substantial or any leading questions.

Fusion GPS also raises significant doubts about two phrases that Planned Parenthood technicians in one video appear to utter as they analyze tissue in a lab. Both phrases — “it’s a baby” and “another boy” — have been highlighted by CMP allies, who say they’re evidence of Planned Parenthood’s cavalier practices.

Fusion GPS concluded that the statement “it’s a baby” was not technically heard and that the technician’s words should have been deemed unintelligible: “In our view, CMP created the purported statement, “it’s a baby,’ either through transcription error or intentional fabrication.”

And it determined that the “another boy” comment was taken dramatically out of context and might have even been said in response to a question by the CMP operatives that was later cut from the tape. According to its report, the phrase would be out of place after statements from lab technicians engaged in a fairly technical discussion of identifying internal organs like the liver and thymus.

Fusion GPS says that the short versions of the videos, which have gotten significantly more attention than the longer versions, were distorted to misrepresent the full conversations. For example, one Planned Parenthood official made a reference to “diversifying the revenue stream” in regard to expanding patient services, but that was ultimately portrayed as collecting revenue from fetal tissue donations.

The firm also found several instances in which the transcripts that CMP released did not match up to the transcriptions done by an outside group for Fusion GPS.

Finally, it found evidence that the man representing the fake BioMax company in the videos is likely Daleiden. At one point in the tapes, his colleague accidentally calls him David, and he accidentally introduces himself as David before correcting himself.