Dr. Eithan Haim was indicted on four felony counts for alleged HIPAA violations a year after exposing transgender procedures at Texas Children’s Hospital.
Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) requested information from the Department of Justice attorney leading the prosecution against Dr. Eithan Haim, who was recently charged with four felony counts of violating HIPAA for leaking medical records that exposed Texas Children’s Hospital’s transgender clinic last year.
Cruz sent a letter to U.S. attorney Alamdar Hamdani on Tuesday, raising concerns that the federal government is weaponizing the legal system against the Texas surgeon-turned-whistleblower in a “selective” prosecution. The DOJ unsealed the four-count indictment on June 17, as Haim attended his initial court appearance in the case.
Two weeks before the hearing, Haim received news from three armed U.S. marshals that he was being indicted for alleged violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The defendant is accused of accessing and obtaining personally identifiable information belonging to pediatric patients in the Texas Children’s Hospital system without authorization in the final weeks of his medical residency at Baylor College of Medicine.
In May 2023, conservative journalist Christopher Rufo published documents — which Haim obtained — showing Texas Children’s Hospital conducting transgender procedures on minors, despite hospital leadership saying it would stop providing sex-change surgeries and puberty blockers the year before.
The Houston-based hospital’s misleading announcement was made in response to Texas attorney general Ken Paxton’s February 2022 non-binding legal opinion equating transgender treatments with child abuse. The opinion prompted Governor Greg Abbott to order the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to conduct an investigation into so-called gender-affirming care in the state.
By September 2023, Texas Children’s Hospital was forced to comply with a new law prohibiting surgical procedures and prescription treatments for transgender youth.
While federal prosecutors allege the leaked medical records were unredacted, Haim and Rufo confirmed that much of the sensitive patient information on those documents was carefully redacted to protect the identities of minors. HIPAA prohibits the sharing of protected health information but does provide an exception in the case of a serious and imminent threat to health or safety.
In his four-page letter, Cruz wrote that the DOJ’s criminal investigation into Haim “appears to bear the markings of a politically-driven prosecution,” which he said is in character for the Biden administration’s DOJ. The senator cited a pro-life activist’s arrest and a separate pro-life activist’s prosecution as examples of the federal agency’s weaponization against its political opponents.
“These glaring disparities reveal a justice system that is not merely blind but rather selectively harsh, targeting those with opposing views while allowing others to flout the law with effective impunity,” the Republican senator wrote in his official capacity as ranking member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution.
“It is for this reason that I am concerned about the prosecution of Dr. Haim, a respected member of the medical community who has devoted his career to saving lives,” he added. “Now, because he acted to expose the barbaric and illegal practice of minor gender transition surgery, Dr. Haim faces the prospect of federal prison, substantial fines, and the loss of his medical license.”
If convicted, the defendant faces up to ten years in federal prison and a $250,000 maximum fine. The case is being prosecuted in the Southern District of Texas.
Cruz requested that Hamdani provide information on all felony HIPAA cases indicted by the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of Texas in the past two years and answer several questions, including whether the lead prosecutor communicated with anyone outside his office or the DOJ. Hamdani must respond to the congressional inquiry by July 11.
“Political prosecution of whistleblowers not only undermines the integrity of the Department of Justice, but also sets a dangerous precedent for intimidating others from exposing wrongdoing,” the correspondence concluded. “It has no place in our system of justice.”
Cruz joined Representative Dan Crenshaw (R., Texas) in probing the DOJ for information regarding its criminal investigation and the decision to indict Haim.
In his own letter dated June 13, which was first reported by the Daily Wire, Crenshaw pressed Attorney General Merrick Garland and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra for all documents and communications related to the case. The inquiry was directed toward the Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security in addition to President Joe Biden’s executive office.