Houston, Texas — A federal judge has delayed the Department of Justice’s criminal trial against Dr. Eithan Haim until February, two months after it was set to begin.
Haim is the surgeon-turned-whistleblower who exposed Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) last year for continuing to transition minors after hospital leadership announced it would shut down the transgender medical program.
U.S. District judge David Hittner scheduled the final pre-trial conference for February 6 and jury selection for February 10, with the trial most likely starting the latter date, presuming all jurors are selected. The Reagan-appointed judge ruled that he would continue the hearing without prejudice, meaning the trial is postponed.
The decision came Tuesday afternoon during a motion hearing in which Hittner was considering the government’s motion for a gag order against the defendant and his attorneys.
Hittner did not impose a gag order at this time, but the judge said he “will not hesitate” to reconsider one. Hittner noted he has never issued a gag order in his decades-long history as a federal judge.
The DOJ wanted to silence Haim and his legal team, keeping them from taking to social media to criticize the federal prosecutors and complain about what they see as an unfair case. The prosecutors claimed the social-media posts constituted “online bullying” and contained “inflammatory language,” while the defense lawyers cited Haim’s First Amendment rights in arguing that he can post about the legal proceedings.
Haim’s lawyers, who were hoping the case would be dismissed entirely, declined to comment about the outcome of the motion hearing. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas could not be reached for comment.
From the beginning, Haim’s lawyers have rigorously disputed the DOJ’s case, asserting that it contains numerous legal and factual errors. The original four-count indictment, filed in May and unsealed in June, accuses Haim of obtaining and disclosing individually identifiable health information belonging to pediatric patients undergoing so-called “gender-affirming care.” The information is protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
However, Haim had carefully redacted each patient’s personal identifiers when conservative journalist Christopher Rufo published the medical documents in May 2023. The whistleblower maintains he did not violate HIPAA.
Still, the DOJ alleges Haim accessed the patient information “without authorization” and under “false pretenses.”
As a surgical resident at Baylor College of Medicine at the time, Haim was given access to TCH’s electronic records. While Baylor and TCH are affiliated, the DOJ says because his residency rotations at TCH ended in January 2021, Haim lacked authorization to review the records of patients not under his care. Moreover, he reactivated his log-in credentials under the “false pretenses” of using the information to treat his own patients, according to the DOJ.
Haim also allegedly acted with “malicious harm” toward TCH, its physicians, and pediatric patients by obtaining individually identifiable health information and disclosing it to Rufo.
Prosecutors followed up with two superseding indictments, charging Haim with obtaining and simply using the medical documents under “false pretenses” and acting with “malicious harm” toward TCH and its physicians. Haim no longer is being accused of harming the pediatric patients, who functioned as the reason for the federal indictment in the first place.
In fact, the DOJ arguably harmed the patients more by disclosing their actual initials in each of the three indictments.
The DOJ’s case has also allegedly been replete with professional misconduct. Tina Ansari, assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas, was taken off the case over apparent conflicts of interest. Her relatives exhibited “substantial financial and political ties” to TCH and Baylor, Haim’s lawyers wrote in a November 13 letter to the DOJ.
For example, the Ansari family runs a coffee-roaster business that serves Houston’s extensive hospital system. Furthermore, her brother and aunt co-sponsored fundraising events for TCH this year while Ansari was attached to the case. These relationships called Ansari’s impartiality into question.
Ansari withdrew herself as legal counsel from the second superseding indictment, which largely remains the same as the first superseding indictment, last month without explanation. She was replaced by two fellow assistant U.S. attorneys.
The former lead prosecutor also faced a brief suspension from the State Bar of Texas for failing to pay her dues while she continued representing the government in Haim’s prosecution. Her law license expired September 1, but her license was reactivated September 19 after she paid the outstanding bar dues. The licensing issue was not taken up by the Houston judge.
Haim has pleaded not guilty to the charges. The defendant faces up to ten years in federal prison and a $250,000 maximum fine for the alleged HIPAA violations.