TOPEKA, Kan. – Two abortion clinics asked the state's highest court Monday to investigate Attorney General Phill Kline and FOX News' Bill O'Reilly over O'Reilly's statements that he had information from Kansas abortion records.
A Kline spokeswoman called the move "a political ploy."
The clinics' attorneys want the Kansas Supreme Court to seize records that Kline, an outspoken abortion opponent, obtained on 90 of the clinics' patients. Kline received edited versions of the records from a district judge on Oct. 24 after arguing he wanted to review the records for evidence of possible crimes including rape and illegal abortions.
The attorneys asked the court to appoint a special prosecutor to determine if O'Reilly's information came from the records turned over to Kline.
O'Reilly said Friday on his show "The O'Reilly Factor" that an inside source gave him information that a doctor at one of the clinics, George Tiller, had performed late-term abortions because patients were depressed. O'Reilly deemed it "executing babies."
Kline spokeswoman Sherriene Jones has said the attorney general doesn't know how O'Reilly obtained the information.
David Tabacoff, executive producer of "The O'Reilly Factor," issued a statement saying, "We stand by our story."
The two clinics requesting the investigation are Tiller's Wichita clinic and a Planned Parenthood-run clinic in Overland Park. Tiller, one of the few U.S. doctors to perform late-term abortions, has been targeted by protesters for years, his clinic was bombed in 1985 and he was shot by a protester in 1993.
The clinics' request for an investigation was the second in a week targeting the attorney general. On Wednesday, former Attorney General Bob Stephan, a Republican like Kline, asked the state Governmental Ethics Commission to examine Kline's fundraising and activities involving churches. Kline is running for a second term.
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