The federal judge who issued a gag order on the undercover investigative team that wants to release more videos from its exposé of Planned Parenthood has long-standing ties to a family planning clinic tied to the abortion giant.
Judge Orrick
David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), who says he has “probably a dozen more” videos to release on Planned Parenthood’s role in selling aborted baby body parts for profit, pointed out Judge William Orrick’s bias in the proceedings.
“Judge Orrick, for his part is the founder of a Planned Parenthood clinic in northern California, in San Francisco,” he said in an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show.
Daleiden continued:
“He helped open and run and fund this Planned Parenthood clinic for many years before he was a judge.”
“And now he is somehow the judge who is sitting in judgment over these lawsuits brought by Planned Parenthood and their proxies at the National Abortion Federation, trying to shut down my freedom of speech, the freedom of speech of all pro-life Americans, and really of any citizen journalist.”
Tied In
A 2017 petition for writ of mandamus to remove Judge Orrick from the case filed by Daleiden’s lawyers further details the judge’s role in founding the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center. “GSFRC is a non-profit organization, incorporated by Judge Orrick, that assists Latino immigrant families,” the writ reads.”GSFRC provides a family planning clinic operated by Plaintiff PPSP [Planned Parenthood Shasta Pacific] on its premises.”
The writ describes how Judge Orrick actively worked with the clinic for years after its opening:
“After incorporating GSFRC Judge Orrick served as a board member and officer, Secretary of the Board, and then as an Emeritus Board Member through at least September 2015. GSFRC opened the PPSP clinic in 2001, following a needs assessment conducted while Judge Orrick was both Secretary of GSFRC’s Board and an attorney for the organization.”
Obama’s Judge
As The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway noted in 2015 when Judge Orrick imposed his gag order on CMP, the judge owes his current position to former president Barack Obama, who nominated him for the post in 2013.
Obama had good reason to favor Orrick. Hemingway reports the judge was “a major donor to and bundler for President Obama’s presidential campaign. He raised at least $200,000 for Obama and donated $30,800 to committees supporting him.”
In June 2017, another judge rejected an effort by CMP to have Judge Orrick removed, saying as part of his reasoning that Orrick had not been affiliated with Good Samaritan since 2006.
But according to CMP’s writ of mandamus, Judge Orrick continued to be tied to the clinic as recently as 2015, after he had issued his gag order:
“Defendants also learned that until at least September 2015 – i.e., after Judge Orrick entered the temporary restraining order in NAF v. CMP blocking Defendants from publishing further undercover videos of Planned Parenthood officials, including PPSP employees – Judge Orrick was still publicly affiliated with GSFRC. The organization named him as an Emeritus Board Member in materials disseminated to donors and the public.”
Stifling Effect
And so here we have the remarkable scenario where a federal judge nominated to the bench by a radically pro-abortion president for whom he bundled significant campaign dollars, and who has long-standing ties to a Planned Parenthood-affiliated clinic himself, blocks the general public from viewing an investigative reporter’s probe of illegal activities by the largest abortion organization in America.
“These are some of the most damning and incriminating videotapes that we ever recorded undercover and they’re being held back right now by this biased federal judge in San Francisco,” Daleiden told Carlson.
The ramifications for anyone who would seek to shine a light on powerful connected organizations in any field are enormous.
