WASHINGTON — In Planned Parenthood’s first congressional appearance since being embarrassed by surreptitiously recorded videos, a House committee chairman insisted Tuesday that the organization does not need federal money and spends much of it on political activities.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, made the remarks to Cecile Richards, the group’s president, as she waited to testify before his House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Her appearance marked the group’s first public face-to-face encounter with Republicans since videos began emerging this summer showing the organization’s officials discussing how they provide fetal tissue for research.

Chaffetz lashed out at the organization for what he called “exorbitant” spending for salaries, travel, parties and lobbying.

“That’s money that’s not going to women’s health care,” said Chaffetz. He added, “It’s a political organization.”

The videos have made cutting Planned Parenthood’s federal money a top-tier priority for Republicans and conservatives.

In her prepared testimony, Richards said she is “proud” of its provision of fetal tissue for research but also sought to minimize the organ donations as a small part of its work.

Trying to take the offensive, Cecile Richards also criticized the Republicans who control Congress for not investigating David Daleiden and the other anti-abortion activists who made the recordings. Daleiden obtained them after posing as an executive of a phony firm that buys fetal tissue for scientists.

“It is clear that they acted fraudulently and unethically — and perhaps illegally,” Richards said in remarks prepared for her appearance Tuesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “Yet it is Planned Parenthood, not Mr. Daleiden, that is currently subject to four separate congressional investigations.”

Several Republican presidential hopefuls have condemned Planned Parenthood for the procedures. And conservatives’ demands that Congress cut the group’s federal payments — for which Republicans lack the votes to succeed — indirectly contributed to the GOP unrest that prompted House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to announce his resignation last week.

In her written remarks, Richards said just 1 percent of Planned Parenthood’s nearly 700 clinics obtain fetal tissue for researchers seeking disease cures. She said that work is just a “minuscule” part of her organization’s services, which include sexual disease testing and the provision of contraception and abortions.