The Biden-Harris Department of Justice (DOJ) wants to place a gag order on the Texas surgeon indicted for blowing the whistle on a hospital performing sex changes on minors.
The DOJ argued Wednesday that Dr. Eithan Haim’s discussion of his case on X created “a substantial likelihood of prejudicing the Government, further tainting the jury pool, and impeding the Court’s ability to hold a fair trial.” Prosecutors cited posts Haim made highlighting the judge’s heavy criticism of the government’s conduct during a hearing last week.
During a Friday hearing, Judge David Hittner, a Reagan appointee, pressed prosecutors on why they included a word in their indictment that wasn’t in the original statute, according to the transcript.
“It’s obvious that the government didn’t proofread or review the superseding indictment to prevent these errors, but are you going to file another superseding indictment or what?” the judge asked.
Haim posted sections of the transcript on X and wrote that the DOJ “so thoroughly embarrassed themselves, it’s hard to comprehend how this is still ongoing.”
As if it couldn’t get any worse, the DOJ has now submitted a motion for a gag order.
This comes after I exerted my first amendment right to discuss a publicly available transcript from last week’s publicly accessible hearing.
The very hearing which the DOJ so thoroughly… pic.twitter.com/sXofT1iXGD
— Eithan Haim MD (@EithanHaim) November 21, 2024
Haim wrote on X that the gag order request targets his “first amendment right to discuss a publicly available transcript from last week’s publicly accessible hearing.”
“They believe that because I’m just a regular guy, they can intimidate me into silence,” he wrote on X. “But my freedom to speak is more important than their desire to conceal their corruption.”
The gag order motion also targeted Haim’s attorney, Marcella Burke, whose account on X now is listed as non-existent. Burke similarly criticized the government’s conduct in a post Wednesday, which is no longer available.
Prosecutors pointed in their filing to a section of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct that lawyers should not make public statements that have “a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicatory proceeding.”
The DOJ indicted Haim in June for allegedly violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which protects the disclosure of personal health information.
Haim provided documentation to journalist Christopher Rufo in 2023 demonstrating Texas Children’s Hospital was continuing to perform sex change procedures on minors after publicly stating the program had been shut down. Rufo has stated none of the documents Haim provided included information identifying any individual.
U.S. Attorney Tina Ansari, a federal prosecutor pursuing the case against Haim, also filed documents while her law license was suspended in September. She was placed on administrative suspension for failing to pay her dues, which she paid after the defense highlighted her status in a filing.
Haim’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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