freakout
By Cheryl Sullenger
Washington, D.C. — Yesterday, Rep. Marsha Blackburn issued a press release calling out Cate Dyer, CEO of StemExpress, for failing to comply with Congressional subpoenas issued as a result of an investigation by the Select Panel on Infant Lives into the illegal sale of aborted baby body parts.
Blackburn, who chairs the Select Panel, also released a five-page letter to Dyer, complete with ten pages of attachments that document her lack of compliance with the subpoenas and calling on Dyer to cooperate.
Dyer has until the “close of business on May 12, 2016,” to fully comply with the subpoenas.
“Failure to comply will leave the Panel with no choice but to pursue all means necessary to compel compliance,” the letter stated.
StemExpress, an organ procurement company, was featured in undercover video exposés released by the Center for Medical Progress as that provided financial incentives to abortion businesses, including Planned Parenthood, in exchange for allowing their technicians into the abortion facilities to harvest sought-after fetal organs, which were then resold to commercial and medical research laboratories.
Shortly after the videos implicated StemExpress, the business disassociated from Planned Parenthood.
However, the videos prompted the creation of the Select Panel on Infant Lives, which has been tasked with investigating whether laws were broken in the trafficking of aborted baby remains. It is illegal to sell such remains for profit. It is also illegal to alter abortion procedures in order to obtain organs that are more suitable for research purposes.
“Over the last several months, we have made numerous attempts to acquire business and accounting documents from StemExpress that are necessary to complete our work at the Select Investigative Panel,” Blackburn wrote in the letter. “All of these requests have been met with verbal and written objections from your attorneys. In light of recent public comments you have made and the consensus reached by witnesses at our April 20 hearing on The Pricing of Fetal Tissue that a complete review of StemExpress business and accounting documents was necessary, I am writing to personally request you turn this information over to our investigators.”
Blackburn noted that at a hearing held on April 20, 2016, the majority of witnesses agreed that in order to “get to the bottom of StemExpress involvement in the fetal tissue industry,” financial records from the company must be examined.
Although Dyer claims that her company has turned over 2,000 pages of documents to the Select Panel, Blackburn reminded her that there were 14 categories of financial documents that had not been submitted, including accounting records, billing invoices, tax returns and back statements from 2010-2015.
Just for emphasis, Blackburn included a 6-page chart titled “StemExpress Production Log” that shows no compliance in 29 categories of requested documents. The chart showed whole or partial compliance in just 6 categories.
Blackburn also addressed objections to releasing the financial records raised by StemExpress’ attorneys.
“Having reviewed all of these written and verbal objections, I find all of StemExpress’ objections to the subpoena to be invalid and without legal merit,” she wrote.
“It is obvious that Dyer is stonewalling and has a lot to hide,” said Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, who also served as a founding member of the Center for Medical Progress. “I applaud Rep. Marsha Blackburn and the Select Committee for their thorough investigation and their tenacity to cut through the smoke and mirrors to get to the truth. I have believed since the beginning that Planned Parenthood and their partners at StemExpress have broken the law by trafficking in aborted baby remains, and that they would fight like wild animals to hide their crimes. We are seeing that fight played out now. We can only hope that the rule of law prevails.”
Read Blackburn’s letter to Dyer