Jim Jordan Stunned By DOJ Actions In Probe Of Doctor Accused Of Leaking Child Gender Care Info

4 days ago

At Wednesday's House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) spoke to Dr. Eithan Haim, a former employee of Texas Children's Hospital, about alleged practices concerning gender affirming care for minors.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you, gentlelady, for your questions. I'll now recognize the chairman of the committee,

00:02Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Heimel, on June 23, 2023, you get a letter from the United

00:10States Department of Justice, Southern District of Texas. Probably a day you, you know, a letter

00:15that probably ruined your whole day, right? Well, so the agents came. This was a few hours before

00:24I was graduating from surgical residency. The ceremony was later that evening. I was meeting

00:29with my parents, you know, my sister. I was going with my wife. And so when the agents came, you know,

00:35I refused to speak with them. My wife had advised me to, you know, not speak with them without an

00:40attorney present. But, you know, we knew that it was so corrupt what they were doing, that there

00:45was a certain sense of defiance. So, you know, we kind of celebrated this new part of our life. It

00:52was kind of a hard thing to describe, but something kind of came over us. First two sentences,

00:57this office is involved in investigations dealing with federal law violations. You are a potential

01:00target in this criminal investigation. So, you didn't want to talk to these guys. You listened

01:03to your wife, which was good counsel and good advice and good that you did that. But you did go

01:07get an attorney and you got the guy sitting beside you. Is that right? Yes, sir. And Mr. Lytle, when you

01:11understood what was going on here, you contacted, just like you would as an attorney, you contacted

01:16the Southern District of Texas. You contacted the lady who signed this, Ms. Ansari, the U.S.,

01:21assistant U.S. attorney. Is that right? Yes, I did. Tell me about that conversation. Well, I reached

01:27out to her as a defense attorney would always do when there's a target letter out there, because

01:31that could mean that they're going to charge the person right away. That's under department policies

01:35that that means they believe he's a putative defendant. Yeah, normally that means they think

01:39they got a slam-dunk case on this guy, right? That's right. Yeah, and they're going to negotiate

01:42some guilty plea. And you reach out to her, what'd she say? Did she know anything about the case? She didn't

01:46know anything about the case. She had to talk to the agents and she'd get back to me when she knew

01:49more. She signed the target letter and she didn't know what the target was about. That's my

01:54understanding. That was great. So then you had subsequent conversations. And I understand in one

01:57of these conversations that happened after you learned she didn't know what the heck was going

02:01on, even though she signed the letter that ruined his day, the day he's graduating from medical school,

02:05you have subsequent conversations. And she says, well, maybe he isn't a target. Maybe if he'd come

02:10apologize and say pretty, pretty, please, we'd downgrade it to a misdemeanor. Is that right?

02:16That's true. She sort of was a weak and a nod, like maybe we can pretend he's not a

02:19target. And I said, that train's kind of left the station. And there's been emails with her

02:23calling him a target to me. And I said, I just can't do that. But why, why can't we talk about

02:29the case? And she had still didn't know the facts of the case. She wanted to dead set to be

02:33interviewing Dr. Heim, which I didn't want to do that as a lawyer because I didn't want to reveal

02:38any, I didn't want, I didn't know what she was getting at. And so they, they wind up charging

02:42with the maximum, like 10 years, I think you said the maximum they could charge. And they were so

02:46determined to get Dr. Heim. She was so determined to get Dr. Heim, even though he didn't violate

02:51HIPAA, didn't do anything wrong, that she not only threatened him, come talk to me, apologize,

02:57say pretty, pretty, please. We'll make it a misdemeanor. She also went after your wife.

03:01She also went after Dr. Heim's wife. Is that right, Mr. Lytle?

03:04That's right. She, she alluded that she would not make any comments or her agents make any comments

03:09about the background investigators for Dr. Heim's wife, as she's a new AUSA being hired,

03:15unless she became difficult. And I didn't really know what that meant, but I took it to being a

03:20retaliatory phrase that if she's going to be involved in this, then there's going to be

03:24something that's going to come for her too. Well, what's, what's she supposed to do? She's a

03:27lawyer. She's married to the, to the, to married to Dr. Heim. She's not supposed to give him advice

03:32or counsel or talk to him? This whole thing, you know, any kind of HIPAA as a criminal case is so rare in

03:38this country. It's rarely ever prosecuted, but then in this context of this political debate going on

03:44to come forward and charge Dr. Heim, it seemed just really out of control. It really was surprising

03:49to me to see this kind of a charge. It was sort of asked, sort of, I think begs the, the, the question,

03:54why did, why did they do it? Why did they do it? Why was she, why was, why, I mean, this seems so

03:59ridiculous. Why this behavior, why do you think they, they did it, Dr. Lytle, or maybe Dr. Heim, or maybe even

04:05Miss Sivage? I can say that we found a lot of bias, a lot of conflicts of interest, a lot of

04:11connections to the hospital and a closeness to these families. But at the end of the day, if there

04:17was any kind of issue, it shouldn't be handled in the criminal courts. It should be handled in the

04:21public arena, in the public debate. Yeah. Dr. You know, I think that they went after me so hard

04:27in order to send a message to everyone else. Of course they did. Because I saw it in my residency,

04:32right? You know, the, the other people who thought this was awful, we actually had to meet in dark

04:36corners. We, we knew that we couldn't say anything publicly. And that's the point. It's, it's to,

04:42it's to chill anyone else from stepping forward. It's why they went and set, raid Mark Houck's house

04:47with all these agents. Why they'd send multiple agents to, to the, the, the ATF goes into Brian

04:54Malinowski's house and he ends up getting shot. They thought he had like six gun violations. It's why

04:59they do it. It's to chill anyone else from coming forward. We will make life miserable for you,

05:04miserable for Ms. Savage. We will do that because we don't want anyone else threatening the left's

05:09position. And that is the frightening thing. And I'll say one more. And I'll just say this and I'll

05:13let you finish. God bless you for doing it. God bless you for doing it. And Mr. Lytle for defending

05:17you. Thanks for stepping forward, having the courage to do so. And I'll say one more thing,

05:21right? They came after me in order to make my life miserable, in order to send a message,

05:25but they came after me, right? To make my life miserable. We're going to make their life

05:30miserable. All right. That's what we're going to do. I thank the gentleman for his question. I'll

05:34now recognize the gentlelady from Washington, Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The right

05:39to privacy is enshrined in our constitution and in the...

Jim Jordan Stunned By DOJ Actions In Probe Of Doctor Accused Of Leaking Child Gender Care Info

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