Government watchdog Judicial Watch on Thursday revealed that the federal government was neck-deep in the scandal involving the sale of the body parts of unborn babies killed in abortions.

The issue has been in the news for the last few years, ever since the Center for Medical Progress sent undercover investigators into meetings with Planned Parenthood and other abortionists, who revealed their techniques for saving the various organs that researchers wanted, and then the sales of those organs.

Committees in both houses of Congress ended up investigating – and recommending to the Department of Justice that the cases be reviewed for possible charges. At least two companies that had been buying the unborn baby body parts from abortionists and reselling them were forced out of business and to pay huge penalties.

Now, Judicial Watch confirmed it has gotten 676 pages of records from the National Institutes of Health showing the agency paid thousands of tax dollars to a California company for organs from aborted human fetuses.

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The project was working on "humanized mice" for HIV research.

"The records show that NIH paid at least $18,100 between December 2016 and August 2018 to Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR) for livers and thymuses from second trimester aborted fetuses. They include at least 26 such purchases from ABR by Dr. Kim Hasenkrug, senior investigator at the NIH lab in Hamilton, Montana," Judicial Watch said.

The purchase orders over the years 2016-2018 showed, "These tissues, liver and thymus, are required [by] Ron Messer for ongoing studies of HIV in the Hasenkrug Lab. Our mice will be ready for reconstitution soon."

Payments were made by credit card.

Judicial Watch said it got the records through a March 2019 lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services for all contracts and related documentation between the FDA and Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR) for the provision of human fetal tissue to be used in humanized mice research.

"These records detailing the federal government's purchases of organs of aborted fetuses are the most disturbing I've ever seen in all my time at Judicial Watch," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "Every responsible official in government – from President Trump to HHS Secretary Azar should investigate and stop the trafficking of organs of aborted unborn human beings for taxpayer-funded Frankenstein-type experimentation."

Judicial Watch said ABR was one of those companies "the subject of criminal referrals" from House and Senate committees whose members investigated.

"Federal law regulates the purchase and acceptance of human fetal tissue for research purposes. It is unlawful to knowingly transfer fetal tissue for profit. According to the records, agency officials concluded in March 2018 that: 'Federal regulations for the protection of human subjects do not apply to above named activity,'" Judicial Watch said.

The ABR had described itself as a "non-profit corporate foundation" that is "devoted to providing services in connection with the procurement of human organs and tissues for medical and scientific research."

Hasenkrug had confirmed in a research application that "The material for this research is obtained from natural or induced abortions from females in California."

The report noted, "On December 21, 2016, NIH's Rocky Mountain Labs was billed $680 for a second trimester thymus and liver, which were paid for by credit card on January 10, 2017. The 'justification' states: 'These tissues, liver and thymus, are required [by] Ron Messer for ongoing studies of HIV in Hasenkrug Lab. Our mice will be ready for reconstitution soon.'"

The report lists dozens of additional purchases.

WND reported just weeks ago one of the abortionists caught in that 2015 undercover video report in which Planned Parenthood and other abortionists boasted about and negotiated over pay for the body parts of unborn babies is being sued for describing those videos as fake.

In fact, a federal appeals court previously had ruled that there wasn't evidence of deception in the videos released by the Center for Medical Progress.

The organization's investigators went undercover into various abortion businesses and business conventions, capturing on video abortionists' statements about their sales of body parts.

One infamously said she wanted higher pay for the body parts because "I want a Lamborghini."

One of those caught, Savita Ginde, now a former Planned Parenthood abortion business operator, has published a book, and made speeches, condemning the undercover videos as faked and dubbed.

So the CMP is suing her for defamation.

The complaint has been filed in Jefferson County District Court in Golden, Colorado, by the law firm of Andrew Contiguglia of Denver.

The CMP announced: "As part of the video series release in July 2015, CMP published undercover footage of its meeting with Dr. Ginde, then the Chief Medical Officer of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, where CMP undercover investigators posed as representatives of a biotech company seeking to purchase and re-sell human fetal organs and tissues, modeling themselves after real-life fetal tissue wholesaler companies like StemExpress, Advanced Bioscience Resources, and DaVinci Biosciences, who partnered with various Planned Parenthood facilities. DaVinci was shut down by a southern California District Attorney on account of CMP’s undercover reporting.

"In the footage, Dr. Ginde can be seen responding to CMP project lead David Daleiden’s comparison of a flat fee per fetus versus per-organ pricing for aborted fetal remains, stating, 'I think a per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it.' Dr. Ginde also describes on the footage how frequently a fetus may be delivered intact for organ harvesting: 'If someone delivers before we are able to see them for a procedure, then we are intact,' and that, 'Intact is probably less than 10 percent.'"

CMP confirmed Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains had been selling aborted fetal tissue to Colorado State University for $160 per specimen.

CMP explained at the end of 2018, Ginde published a memoir and made speeches, "in which she falsely claims that the undercover footage is 'dubbed', 'spliced and diced', and even 'fabricated' and 'fake', and that it does not reflect her actual statements."

The problem is that in federal court just weeks ago, "Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains and Planned Parenthood Federation of America stipulated that 'the words used by [Planned Parenthood's] personnel and the [CMP investigators] in the video recorded by the [investigators] were spoken by those persons.'"

"I welcome Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, current and former, speaking honestly and publicly about their work, especially as it regards fetal experimentation and organ harvesting," Daleiden said in a statement released by his organization. "This is the reason CMP's undercover footage continues to have such a profound impact on the public conscience. But anyone who tries to attack our undercover reporting by making false statements about our work should expect to make a public correction or be held accountable in a court of law."

First Amendment lawyer Harmeet Dhillon of the Dhillon Law Group, who filed the complaint on behalf of Daleiden and CMP, noted, "The First Amendment protects the rights of every American, including Dr. Ginde, to disagree with my clients and express their own views publicly – –but when someone makes demonstrably false statements and refuses to correct them, as Dr. Ginde repeatedly did in multiple forums, our clients have the right to set the record straight in court, and we look forward to our day in court against Dr. Ginde."

In a commentary in the Washington Examiner, Samantha Kamman explained, "There is no evidence that Ginde’s words in the videos were anything but her own."

She noted that the videos caught Ginde "agreeing to a cumulative payment for each harvested body part and suggesting ways to avoid legal consequences."

And, she noted, "Ginde’s claim that CMP fabricated facts and added misleading content to their videos is easy to disprove. The accuracy of the recordings was even acknowledged by Planned Parenthood during their recently concluded lawsuit against the independent journalist group."

The commentary continued, "Interestingly, Ginde admitted in her book that she 'never fully watched any of [the] videos and had no intention of ever doing so.' Despite this, Ginde proclaimed Daleiden to be a pusher of 'propaganda' and a 'man without honor,' and her statements purposefully misrepresented the character of Daleiden. Unfortunately, Ginde's labeling of the videos as 'fake' made it easy for media outlets to decry the recordings as having been 'heavily edited,' an accusation that was later refuted by an investigation by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals."

Here are two of the videos released by CMP:

See a CMP video about Planned Parenthood skirting federal law:

The "Lamborghini" executive:

Paying attention to who's in the room when infants are born alive:

Altering abortion procedures:

Selling body parts a "valid exchange":