Texas doctor blasts 'corrupt' DOJ probe after blowing whistle on 'child abuse' at kids' hospital
A whistleblower who exposed the largest pediatric hospital in the U.S. for allegedly prescribing puberty blockers to minors despite claiming otherwise said he remains unafraid despite what he described as a politically motivated federal investigation against him.
"These people are corrupt," Dr. Eithan Haim, 33, told The Christian Post. "And the only way to expose it is to not play in to this Kabuki theater, like these people are practitioners of justice. Because if we were to collude with them, we would be sanctioning our own destruction."
'Not at all' frightened
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Haim, now a general surgeon in the Dallas area, said he's "not at all" frightened of the consequences he might face after coming forward to journalist Christopher Rufo last year with whistleblower documents.
The internal documents he provided alleged that the Houston-based Texas Children's Hospital (TCH), where he completed his surgical residency, was continuing to conduct so-called "gender-affirming services" on minors despite telling the public it had paused such procedures.
Following a February 2022 formal opinion from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that labeled some sex-change procedures and puberty blockers for minors as "child abuse" under Texas law, Gov. Greg Abbott issued an order that month instructing state agencies to investigate them as such.
In the wake of Abbott's order, TCH said in a March 2022 statement that they would be shutting down such procedures.
"After assessing the Attorney General’s and Governor’s actions, Texas Children’s Hospital paused hormone-related prescription therapies for gender-affirming services," the hospital said. "This step was taken to safeguard our healthcare professionals and impacted families from potential criminal legal ramifications."
Haim at first came forward anonymously with the documents that featured in a City Journal article penned by Rufo on May 16, 2023. The story claimed that despite the assurances from TCH, the hospital "secretly continued to perform transgender medical interventions, including the use of implantable puberty blockers, on minor children."
Within 24 hours of Rufo's story, the Texas state Legislature passed SB-14, which rendered such procedures for minors illegal in the state effective Sept. 1.
The story prompted Paxton to launch a formal investigation into TCH, and the hospital's CEO Mark Wallace subsequently issued a statement that pledged to finally shut down the facility's trans procedures for minors by the time the law went into effect.
'Evil ideology'
On June 23, 2023, weeks after Rufo's story broke, two agents with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General reportedly showed up at Haim's home on the day of his residency graduation.
Describing the experience to CP as "terrifying," Haim said, "After a few minutes, you realize that this is a political investigation meant to support this evil ideology."
The agents inquired about "medical records" and informed him he was a "potential target" in an unspecified criminal investigation, according to a letter his lawyers fired off on Jan. 24 to Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Chip Roy, R-Texas.
Jordan chairs the House Judiciary Committee and the Subcommittee of the Weaponization of the Federal Government, while Roy chairs the Select Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government. Roy responded to the letter on social media, suggesting Haim was the subject of the Biden administration's "#WeaponizedDOJ."
New whistleblower info sent to me & @JudiciaryGOP re: Dr. Eitan Haim, the Tx Doctor being targeted by Biden’s DOJ for exposing Tx Children’s child sex-change program. Thank you @realchrisrufo & @TuckerCarlson for reporting on this. #WeaponizedDOJ cc: @Riley_Gaines_@ChoooColepic.twitter.com/Pdrd8v7qf2
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) January 24, 2024
The letter to the congressmen claimed the investigation into Haim was "exceptionally fast" and predicated on evidence that had not been adequately reviewed. They also alleged the investigation emerged from the "easily disproved falsehood" that Haim violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) by leaking unredacted patient information.
Based on phone calls with her, Haim's lawyers also claimed that Assistant U.S. Attorney Tina Ansari, the lead DOJ prosecutor in his case, showed evidence of bias and aggressively targeted not just Haim, but his wife.
Ansari, who allegedly described trans procedures as the "last hope" for families of such children, urged Haim to admit to wrongdoing to avoid felony prosecution and claimed it was not his job to expose trans procedures at the pediatric hospital. She also allegedly used a personal cellphone to communicate with Haim's attorneys.
They also claimed that Ansari threatened Haim's wife because she advised her husband not to submit to an interview with federal agents without an attorney present. His wife has been awaiting the completion of a federal background check to become a U.S. assistant attorney herself, a fact the prosecutor allegedly attempted to weaponize.
"The prosecutor (who holds the same position) said that she and the agents would not mention Mrs. Haim's behavior to the background investigators 'unless [Mrs. Haim] becomes difficult,'" the lawyers wrote.
Haim told CP that his wife "worked her entire life to be able to be in a position where she can work for the Department of Justice, and it's a privilege for her to do that because she believes in her country and believes in justice."
"And for them to use that as a way to threaten me is despicable," he added. "It's beneath the stature of assistant U.S. attorney."
Neither the HHS nor the DOJ responded to CP's request for comment.
'Petty tyrants and neurotic bureaucrats'
Haim went public with his identity earlier this month, speaking to Rufo in an hour-long interview on X and appearing in outlets such as Fox News, The Daily Wire, and The Blaze. Despite the headwinds of opposition he is facing from those in power, he was adamant to CP that he did the right thing.
"If I don't stand up to these people, then what kind of future would I deliver my children into?" he said. "Because these people are just petty tyrants and neurotic bureaucrats. And what that boils down to is that these people are simply bullies. When you're fearful, when you're afraid, that's when they're most effective. So to be fearful and scared is to seal your own death warrant."
Haim said he also derives courage from his family history, noting that his maternal grandfather was a Christian who rescued Jews after he was drafted into the German army during World War II.
"He had always refused to join the Nazis, but when he was drafted, he had to go," he said of his grandfather. "But when he was in Italy, he saved Jews from the concentration camps by getting them to Northern Africa." He added that he believes today "there are parallels of the same type of totalitarian ideology" that afflicted Nazi Germany.
Haim said his father's Jewish side of the family, who fled Iraq in the 1950s, were among the first generation to settle in the state of Israel despite having to live "in squalor and in tents."
'Sickness in the medical community'
Haim suggested that his heritage has steeled him to stand up against wrongdoing, which he maintained is something that many of his colleagues in the medical profession seem unwilling to do.
Haim said there has been "a sickness in the medical community for a long time" that only became readily apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Medicine, he said, is increasingly grounded not in science, but in ideology and the "belief that there's no objective reality, that everything is subjective; that something is true because you say it's true, and not because you observe it in the reality around you."
"This is concerning when you see it in the college classroom, but totally different when it's the driving force behind medical recommendations," he added.
Haim worries the average person's trust in medicine is consequently eroding.
"I think we're already beyond that point, because people have lost so much trust in their doctors because of what doctors were willing to do, and stay silent in the face of, during COVID, and especially now with the transgender ideology," he said.
"Because if you have a doctor who's unwilling to speak up about this, what else are they willing to accept?" he added. "And people should be suspicious of that. The only way for doctors to regain the trust of their patients is by speaking up against things like this. They have to speak up for the principles of medicine."
Haim, who claimed he and his family have drained "the entirety of our retirement, investments, savings, and almost all of our disposable income to pay the legal bills to keep the case alive," has set up a legal defense fund for his fight against the inexhaustible resources of the federal government.
Haim, who told CP he intends to keep fighting, has raised more than $150,000 of his fund's $500,000 goal, as of Monday.
Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to [email protected]
