[VIDEO] Lawmakers Knew About Planned Parenthood Video Weeks Ago (Video)

When an undercover video of a Planned Parenthood executive casually discussing the harvesting of fetal tissue and organs went viral Tuesday, House Republicans took notice, with party leaders calling for investigations just one day later. Speaker John A. Boehner and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy issued terse statements, the Judiciary and Energy and Commerce committees announced hearings and Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Kan., called for a Justice Department probe into whether the nation’s largest abortion provider broke the law in supplying the tissue to medical research firms.

All in all, it was a furious, news-cycle dominating flurry of Capitol Hill reaction — to a video that at least two top Republicans said they first saw weeks ago.

Boehner Calls Planned Parenthood Video ‘Disgusting’

Rep. Tim Murphy, a member of the House Pro-Life Caucus and chairman of the Energy and Commerce subcommittee looking into the video, said at a Wednesday news conference he’d seen the clip weeks before. Asked afterward why he and others waited until this week to take action, Murphy struggled for an answer before abruptly ending the interview with CQ Roll Call, saying he should not be quoted and remarking, “This interview didn’t happen.”

Here’s an excerpt from CQ Roll Call’s hallway chat with Murphy:

CQ Roll Call: “So, what I wondered was, what’s happened in those few weeks? Why is it coming out now and not earlier?”

Murphy: “Um, I don’t know why. All I know is I saw it and he said he was going to post it eventually, so that’s all I know.”

Murphy spokeswoman Gretchen Andersen told CQ Roll Call on Thursday the congressman had a responsibility to do “due diligence” before starting an investigation.

Another Pro-Life Caucus and Judiciary committee member, GOP Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona, said Wednesday he had also seen the video about a month ago.

Asked why steps weren’t taken immediately after he viewed the video, Franks said in an email, “The hope was to have as much information as possible so that the authorities could be notified effectively before the media.”

The video, shot a year ago by the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress, shows an interview with a Planned Parenthood executive who discusses, between bites of salad and sips of red wine, the costs charged to researchers for organs taken from fetuses.

Officials at Planned Parenthood contend the video was edited to create the appearance of the start of a financial transaction. Planned Parenthood also said it only donates fetal organs and tissue when the mother has explicitly given consent, in accordance with the law.

The Center for Medical Progress did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Via: Roll Call

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EXCLUSIVE — KEVIN MCCARTHY PRESSURED BY REPUBLICAN CONFERENCE: WHAT’S THE RUSH ON OBAMATRADE PLANS WITH ITS ‘GLOBAL GOVERNANCE’ HIDDEN INSIDE?

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA)

67%

 is pressuring House GOP leadership, particularly Majority Leader 

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)

47%

, to delay plans to muscle Obamatrade through the House of Representatives quickly. In in a letter to McCarthy obtained exclusively by Breitbart News, he’s asking leadership to slow down and consider the ramifications of what it is doing.

“I write to you today to request that you delay any vote on fast-track authority for the Executive until the President has made public all text and information pertaining to the new economic union known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Commission, as well the ‘Living Agreement’ authority,” Hunter wrote to McCarthy, his fellow California Republican. “My concern is that this allows the President and the members of the union to change the agreement and its membership following adoption.”

Hunter’s concern is well founded.

Despite claims from some Obamatrade proponents to the contrary, if Congress approves Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) which would fast-track and all but ensure the approval of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) Pacific Rim trade deal, the “Living Agreement” inside the TPP would allow President Obama and the other TPP nations to add China or any other country for that matter to the deal without seeking approval from Congress.

China, President Obama confirmed last week, has been in talks with top Obama administration officials already and is interested in becoming part of TPP. If the House approves TPA as the Senate did—thereby ensuring that TPP will approved—then that technically means, despite anything proponents of this deal say, it would be empowering China and undermining the United States.

Hunter’s letter continues by noting that the TPP Commission would create a new global governance, ceding U.S. sovereignty to foreign and global interests, something 

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

80%

 first revealed in a letter to President Barack Obama last week

Via: Breitbart

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GOP Calls on AG to Prosecute Lois Lerner in IRS Scandal

(Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images)

Republican lawmakers are petitioning the new attorney general, Loretta Lynch, to criminally prosecute former IRS official Lois Lerner over the agency's targeting scandal, having failed to convince her predecessor to do so.

According to The Hill, 24 Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee sent a letter to Lynch asking for her to take up the panel's 2014 request to charge Lerner for possible crimes. 

Special: Ted Cruz Discloses the Key to Winning in 2016 – Click Here

The allegations include using her position at the agency to pursue heightened scrutiny of conservative groups; obstructing investigations by giving misleading information; and disclosing confidential taxpayer information, The Hill said.

Before former Attorney General Eric Holder stepped down from his post, House Speaker John Boehner was informed by the department that Lerner would not be prosecuted for refusing to testify at a congressional hearing.

The letter, which was circulated by the committee's chairman, Paul Ryan, also prompted statements of support from Boehner and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

"The American people deserve the truth as to how the IRS was used as a political tool to target and harass Americans for their beliefs. … It is outrageous that despite having evidence right at their fingertips, the DOJ has refused to investigate potential criminal acts taken by Lois Lerner at the IRS," Boehner said in a stat

Via: Newsmax

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EXCLUSIVE: THIRD HOUSE GOP LEADER CONFIRMS SENATE AMNESTY BILL DEAD

House Majority Whip Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has joined with Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Speaker John Boehner in publicly opposing any conference committee negotiations with the Senate on immigration legislation.

“Whip McCarthy agrees with the Speaker,” McCarthy spokesman Mike Long told Breitbart News Wednesday afternoon. “The House will work its will and we will do so in a more thoughtful, deliberate, step-by-step approach to address our broken immigration system, focusing first on securing the border.”

On Wednesday morning, Boehner said at a press conference that there will never be any House negotiations with the Senate on the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill, effectively killing it after months of unease about its future from all sides. 

Shortly thereafter, Cantor joined Boehner. Now, with McCarthy in public opposition to any conference committee, it means all three members of House GOP leadership are united against any such conference committee efforts to save the Senate bill.

Via: Breitbart

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Boehner Announces Short-Term Debt Deal, Claims GOP Is Meeting Obama ‘Halfway’

In a short press conference Thursday morning, one week before the October 17th debt ceiling deadline, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced a possible short-term deal the raise the debt ceiling and avoid default. The deal, which the House could vote on today, would only raise the debt limit through November 22nd, at which point another deal would be needed to raise it again.

Boehner began by castigating President Obama and the Democrats for refusing to “talk” over the last 10 days since the government shutdown began. “We tried to offer bills that would reopen parts of the government,” he said, “only to have them rejected by our counterparts over in the United States Senate.”

“So what we want to do,” he continued, “is to offer the president today the ability to move, a temporary increase in the debt ceiling, an agreement to go to conference on the budget, for his willingness to set down and discuss with us a way forward to reopen the government and to start to deal with America’s pressing problems.”

“I would hope that the president will look at this as an opportunity and a good-faith effort on our part to move halfway,” Boehner concluded, “halfway to what he has demanded in order to have these conversations begin.” Notably, as in Rep. Paul Ryan’s recent op-ed, there was no mention of the Affordable Care Act, which set off the budget stalemate and eventual government shutdown.

Following comments by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, Boehner took a few questions from the press, maintaining that he doesn’t want to “put anything on the table” or “take anything off the table” before the next round of negotiations begins. But once reporters started asking about hypothetical scenarios, Boehner delivered his standard rebuttal: “If ands and buts were candy and nuts, every day would be Christmas.”

Watch video below, via Fox News:

Via Mediaite.com

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