Remember the Select Planned Parenthood Committee? That's still a thing.
The sham committee that was created in response to a sham video continued its witch hunt yesterday by moving to hold a fetal tissue research firm in contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena, prompting Democrats to walk out of the committee hearing.
Committee chairwoman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has subpoenaed fetal tissue research firm StemExpress for personal, identifying information about their employees and even customers.
Refusing to participate in what ranking member Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) called an “illegitimate and unsanctioned effort,” Democrats on the committee walked out before Wednesday’s vote.
“We refuse to sanction or endorse this exercise by continuing to participate,” she said before leading the walk-out.
To their credit, StemExpress lawyers say the company will not comply with Blackburn's demands because there's no virtually guarantee that information the company hands over to House Republicans will remain confidential.
They're absolutely right. The GOP-led committee has already publicly released the names and addresses of industry researchers at least once. Moreover, as we've seen over several years worth of chicken fucking by the Oversight and Benghazi Committees, there's no guarantee they won't selectively leak misinformation about researchers and employees.
The Planned Parenthood Committee is a committee searching for justification for its own existence. The committee was created in response to a doctored video that accused Planned Parenthood of selling fetus body parts. The people responsible for creating the video were actually convicted for it. More than a dozen investigations conducted by state health departments found zero evidence of wrongdoing at Planned Parenthood clinics.
With the end of the current session of Congress quickly approaching, the Select Planned Parenthood Committee does not have a great of deal of time left to do whatever it is they hope to do.
Meanwhile, we're 8 days away from a possible government shutdown.