Crony stonewall crumbles: Court order prompts release of Planned Parenthood grant application in NH

CONCORD, N.H. — Planned Parenthood of Northern New England’s federal grant application and approval notice became public Monday on the heels of a federal court order that required the Obama administration to stop stalling in releasing records as part of a lawsuit over illegal funding of the affiliate. An Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney filed the suit on behalf of New Hampshire Right to Life in December of last year.

By law, the administration was required to release the documents more than 125 days ago. By comparison, the administration reviewed and awarded the $1 million grant to Planned Parenthood in less than five days. The court order requires all requested documents to be released by April 1. Planned Parenthood protested the release of the grant application but failed in its efforts to keep it secret.

“Americans deserve to know how the federal government is spending their hard-earned tax money and if that money is being funneled to groups that are misusing it,” said Michael Tierney, one of nearly 2,100 attorneys in the ADF alliance. “The documents that the court has ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to produce are critical to the further scrutiny of this illegal funding, which the Obama administration provided against the wishes of the state and without the normal competitive bidding process.”

The Obama administration provided funding to Planned Parenthood of Northern New England affiliates in New Hampshire even though the state’s Executive Council voted to reject the funding and instead asked that the funding be given to health centers that do not focus on providing abortions. New Hampshire Right to Life filed a routine Freedom of Information Act request for documents related to the administration’s decision in an effort to analyze whether HHS followed its own regulations in awarding the grant to Planned Parenthood without the usual competitive bidding process, but HHS stalled in producing the documents.

Tierney, an ADF-allied attorney with the Manchester firm Wadleigh, Starr & Peters, PLLC, then requested a court order to compel HHS to release the documents in accordance with the law. The U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire issued the order on Feb. 24. ADF is providing funding for the case, New Hampshire Right to Life v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“Planned Parenthood is already being investigated by Congress and is the subject of other litigation over potential fraud in the use of taxpayer dollars,” said ADF Litigation Counsel Catherine Glenn Foster. “It is a shame to see more money from American wallets go to Planned Parenthood as part of an illegal funding process that the state of New Hampshire didn’t even want.”

Last week, a federal court unsealed an ADF lawsuit filed against a Texas Planned Parenthood affiliate over “repeated false, fraudulent, and ineligible claims for Medicaid reimbursements.” On Feb. 7, ADF and the Susan B. Anthony List publicly released an ADF report to Congress that identified nearly $100 million in waste, abuse, and potential fraud committed by other Planned Parenthood affiliates and other service providers. Rep. Cliff Stearns of Florida is currently leading a congressional investigation into the handling of federal funding by Planned Parenthood.