Rubio launches dubious (ie, lying) attack against Planned Parenthood after indictments
Rubio launches dubious attack against Planned Parenthood after indictments
Republican on the defensive after Texas grand jury investigating Planned Parenthood decided to indict anti-abortion activists who prompted the inquiry
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Marco Rubio at Marshalltown Community College in Iowa on Tuesday. Photograph: Aaron P Bernstein/Reuters
Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio sought to raise questions on Tuesday about the indictment of two anti-abortion activists by drawing a dubious connection between a member of the prosecutor’s office and Planned Parenthood. “I think it’s pretty outrageous that Planned Parenthood was investigated by some lawyer or district attorney who apparently, according to some news reports, has actually been a board member of Planned Parenthood and donated to them,” Rubio said, responding to a voter question about abortion at an Iowa town hall. “They investigated Planned Parenthood and they said: ‘We found they did nothing wrong,” he added. “But we’re going to indict the people who filmed them talking about these things.’ That’s outrageous.”
Rubio’s comments referred to a Texas grand jury that concluded its investigation of Planned Parenthood by indicting not the women’s healthcare provider, but two of the anti-abortion activists who prompted the criminal inquiry. The activists, David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, used false identities to film secret videos that accused Planned Parenthood employees of selling fetal tissue in violation of the law. Planned Parenthood of the Gulf Coast was cleared of any wrongdoing.
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Rubio’s attack was likely referring to a Harris County prosecutor in the criminal family law division, Lauren Reeder. Reeder was a member of the Planned Parenthood of the Gulf Coast board of directors at the time of the county’s investigation, a connection that the anti-abortion website LifeNews.com has sought to highlight.
But Reeder was not, as Rubio stated, the district attorney who handed down Monday’s indictments, nor was she involved in the broader investigation. According to news reports from the time, Reeder disclosed that she was a Planned Parenthood board member shortly after Harris County began its investigation in August. The district attorney, Devon Anderson, made Reeder’s affiliation public and stated that Reeder would not have any involvement in the investigation.
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http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/26/marco-rubio-launches-dubious-attack-planned-parenthood-indictments
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