Dr. Eithan Haim is set to go on trial in February for HIPAA violations after exposing trans procedures at Texas Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Eithan Haim is set to go on trial in February for blowing the whistle on transgender procedures performed on minors at Texas Children’s Hospital, but the surgeon could be vindicated by the incoming Trump Department of Justice before he even heads to court.
Haim became something of a hero to conservatives when he risked his surgical career — and his freedom — by revealing that Texas Children’s Hospital continued performing trans procedures on minors even after publicly announcing that they had discontinued the practice in response to a directive from the state attorney general.
While it would make political sense for President-elect Trump to order his Justice Department to drop the case, it would also represent justice under the law, according to legal experts who have been following the case.
Dhillon to the Rescue?
“This is an abusive, frivolous prosecution,” Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told National Review. “It should be dismissed with prejudice by the Justice Department as soon as the Trump team takes over the department.” To dismiss with prejudice means a legal claim is permanently dismissed.
President-elect Donald Trump recently nominated Pam Bondi as U.S. attorney general and Harmeet Dhillon as assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. Dhillon is among those conservative legal experts who have been tracking Haim’s case. Her law firm, along with the Babylon Bee‘s sister website Not the Bee, filed a motion to intervene on the defendant’s behalf last month. The request also sought to unseal critical documents filed by the prosecution.
U.S. District judge David Hittner, who is presiding over the case in the Southern District of Texas, denied their motion to intervene but unsealed all four documents as requested.
Two of the court filings featured social-media posts made by Haim and defense attorney Marcella Burke that the DOJ claims amounts to “online bullying” because the posts contain “inflammatory language.”
Earlier this month, Hittner postponed Haim’s trial to February 10 and deferred the DOJ’s request for a gag order on Haim and his attorneys, who have repeatedly criticized the federal prosecutors for pursuing a politically motivated case that relies on a misrepresentation of what Haim actually did.
Though the federal judge did not impose a formal gag order, he advised Haim and the defense against posting about the case on social media.
“If similar conduct continues to arise in this case after this hearing, I will not hesitate to reconsider the issuing of a gag order,” Hittner said on December 3.
In the event of future violations, he warned Haim would be sent to federal jail, his bond would be revoked, and his attorneys would be met with sanctions if they continued posting “inflammatory language” about the charges and prosecutors.
Because the judge refused to rule on a gag order one way or the other, Haim could not file an appeal. As a result of the de facto gag order, he doesn’t know what he can or can’t say. After conferring with his legal team, Haim thought it was best to refrain from directly commenting about his case online.
His wife, however, is not restricted by the judge’s vague threats. About a week after the court hearing, Andrea Haim started posting on X to raise awareness about the DOJ’s unjust treatment of her husband and the court’s infringement on his free speech.
“The limitation on his First Amendment rights is just the latest in a long list of injustices he’s experienced in this case,” Andrea told NR. “I couldn’t let the government escape criticism for everything they’ve put my family through over the last year and a half.”
Part of the defense’s social-media strategy was to raise funds for Haim’s legal expenses, which are quickly approaching $2 million now that the case has been prolonged. So far, the Haim family has raised more than $1.2 million for their legal defense fund.
As an assistant U.S. attorney herself, Andrea finds it “disturbing to see how other people in this position can so easily abuse their power for political ends” when they should be upholding and defending the Constitution.
Andrea remains hopeful that Trump’s DOJ will take “a close look at this case” and ultimately dismiss it.
“With incredible appointments like Pam Bondi and Harmeet Dhillon,” she said, “I am hopeful that whatever happens, justice will be restored to the DOJ and that an end to the weaponized prosecution of political opponents is in sight.”
Dhillon declined to comment, but on the same day that Trump announced Dhillon’s appointment, she criticized Haim’s de facto gag order on social media and hinted the case is soon reaching its end.
“It is extremely problematic for a judge to issue threats in the form of a de facto gag order while refusing to put it in an order that may be appealed. Abuse of process,” Dhillon wrote on X. “Truly chilling, particularly where everyone knows this political prosecution is nearing its sell-by date.”
A Flawed Prosecution
The prosecution’s case has been riddled with numerous legal and factual errors from the beginning, even before the indictment was filed in May.
The DOJ accuses the surgeon-turned-whistleblower of violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) on four counts by obtaining and disclosing individually identifiable health information belonging to pediatric patients undergoing so-called “gender-affirming care.” But the information he disclosed to conservative journalist Christopher Rufo, including patient names and birth dates, was redacted.
In the original indictment, Haim was accused of gaining “unauthorized” access to HIPAA-protected information belonging to pediatric patients while he was a resident at Baylor College of Medicine, an institution affiliated with Texas Children’s Hospital. The indictment says he completed his last rotation at the pediatric hospital in January 2021 and never returned to treat patients there.
That allegation is false, Haim’s lawyers say. Assigned to Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, he still performed surgeries at Texas Children’s Hospital’s Pavilion for Women during the time he accessed the information around April 2023. Texas Children’s Hospital admitted as much in correspondence with the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights.
Furthermore, Haim was given access to the hospital’s computer system. Therefore, by definition, he could not have gained “unauthorized” access. Texas Children’s Hospital notified the HHS that he held “approved and authorized access” to the electronic medical records in August 2023, nine months before the original indictment was filed.
Federal prosecutors filed two superseding indictments in October and November, respectively, to fix the errors. But in doing so, new problems surfaced.
In the revised indictments, the DOJ doubled down on its accusation that Haim operated under “false pretenses” by lying that he needed access to Texas Children’s Hospital’s medical records for his own patients who were adults. However, this theory is based on the DOJ’s false understanding that Haim never had adult patients at Texas Children’s Hospital when, in reality, he did.
He also allegedly acted with “malicious harm” toward Texas Children’s Hospital and its physicians. Notably, the first indictment said Haim harmed pediatric patients, but that assertion is nowhere to be seen in the following indictments.
While Haim redacted the pediatric patients’ personal identifiers, the DOJ arguably harmed the patients more by disclosing their initials in each of the three indictments.
The original indictment also said Haim contacted Rufo to “grossly mischaracterize” the hospital’s medical procedures “in order to damage the reputation of TCH and its physicians and to promote his own personal agenda.” That description is not found in the subsequent charging documents.
Haim’s attorneys say the government “knowingly sponsored false information” that influenced the grand jury to issue the indictments. Also, the defense believes the case is unprecedented because very few criminal HIPAA cases have been litigated.
Haim maintains his innocence, as he felt he had a moral obligation to expose the transgender ideology that has hijacked the American medical establishment. If found guilty, he believes his case would set a dangerous precedent for other whistleblowers in the health-care industry.
A Conflicted Prosecutor
In addition to the substantive problems with the prosecution’s case, there are also procedural and ethical issues surrounding the lead prosecutor in the case which could in themselves be grounds for dismissal.
The lead prosecutor, assistant U.S. attorney Tina Ansari, faced a short-lived 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 and was not reactivated until September 19 after she paid the outstanding bar dues. The licensing issue was not taken up by the Houston judge.
However brief the suspension, Ansari should have been suspended by the Southern District of Texas and immediately stop practicing law, according to the court district’s own disciplinary rules. She continued prosecuting him until a more serious ethical violation was brought to light.
Ansari withdrew herself as the lead prosecutor from the case last month without explanation after the defense notified the DOJ of her apparent conflicts of interest. Her family exhibited “substantial financial and political ties” to Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor, Haim’s lawyers wrote in a letter dated November 13.
For example, Ansari’s family runs a coffee-roaster business that serves Houston’s extensive hospital system. Furthermore, her brother and aunt co-sponsored fundraising events for Texas Children’s Hospital this year while Ansari pursued the case. These relationships called Ansari’s impartiality into question.
Von Spakovsky suggested Trump’s DOJ should punish Ansari for her professional misconduct, compel her to apologize to Haim, and pay for Haim’s legal expenses.
“Given the allegations of wrongdoing by the Assistant U.S. Attorney, who has now apparently been removed from the case, she should be referred to the Office of Professional Responsibility inside DOJ for investigation of her potentially unethical conduct,” the Heritage legal expert said. “She should also be forced to write a letter of apology to Dr. Haim for bringing this case and if she refuses, she should be immediately terminated.”
“Moreover, the Justice Department should offer to pay all of the attorneys’ fees of Dr. Haim in defending himself from a case that should never have been brought in the first place.”
Mounting Pressure in Texas
Republican lawmakers from Texas, a few of whom have used their congressional power to request information regarding the politically driven prosecution, could very well pressure their local U.S. attorney’s office to drop the charges once the DOJ changes leadership.
Senator Ted Cruz, along with Representatives Chip Roy and Dan Crenshaw, have all questioned whether political bias is a factor in the criminal investigation and related indictments.
Meanwhile, Roy and Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) asked Texas Children’s Hospital about its decision to resume the secretive transgender program, as well as how and when the hospital identified Haim as the whistleblower.
The committees that Jordan and Roy lead are investigating the DOJ’s targeting of Haim to “inform potential legislative reforms that would enhance civil liberties and protect minors,” the December 11 letter states. Jordan chairs the House Judiciary Committee, and Roy chairs the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government.
In addition to advocating for the case’s dismissal, Crenshaw recently called for Congress to pass his bill that sought to defund pediatric hospitals that have surgically or medically transitioned minors. The bill was introduced in June, but it never got past committee.
Crenshaw said both moves would deal “huge blows to the radical gender ideology agenda” if they came to pass.
Haim has pleaded not guilty to the charges. If convicted, he faces up to ten years in federal prison and a $250,000 maximum fine for the alleged HIPAA violations.