The federal prosecutors’ request to prohibit a Dallas surgeon and one of his lawyers from making remarks that could jeopardize law enforcement and impede a fair trial was denied by a Houston judge.
However, if Eithan Haim and his lawyer, Marcella Burke, don’t soften their criticism of the government’s case, U.S. District Court Judge David Hittner stated he wouldn’t think twice about reopening the case.
Let’s try this in a courtroom, please. At the end of a hearing that lasted almost two hours on Tuesday, Reagan appointee Hittner stated, “That’s what it’s here for.” Hittner went on to say that he had never imposed a gag order in his more than 40 years as a state and federal court.
Haim is charged in a federal indictment with unlawfully acquiring and disclosing to a conservative activist private information about Texas Children’s Hospital patients who were not in his care. Regarding transgender treatment for minors, Haim has referred to himself as a whistleblower.
Fearing that Haim and Burke’s inflammatory and erroneous depictions of the pretrial processes would impair their capacity to appoint an unbiased jury, prosecutors had requested a specifically crafted gag order.
Former state prosecutor, judge, and U.S. attorney Ryan Patrick, who is also Haim’s attorney, mocked that idea, pointing out that the Southern District of Texas serves millions of people. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick of Texas is the father of Patrick.
After Tina Ansari withdrew from the case last month, Jessica Feinstein took over as lead prosecutor. She spent around an hour on Tuesday guiding Hittner through social media posts that she and her staff believed to be problematic.
Due to claims that she had been practicing law with a suspended license and that her family had conflicts of interest with Texas Children’s Hospital, Ansari withdrew from the case last month. Her departure has not been explained by the Southern District U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Haim has been open about his contempt for the case against him since his indictment in May on four counts of improper disclosure of personally identifiable health information. He has given interviews to conservative media sources and posted almost daily on X, the original name of Twitter.
Haim claimed in one post that Ansari had given the grand jury that found him guilty of indictment misleading information. In another, he charged Ansari with not considering the supporting evidence before filing charges.
We think that a line has now been crossed, Feinstein said, calling the claims untrue and deceptive. Former Southern District of New York employee Feinstein also drew attention to an interview Haim had with Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson in which he referred to her squad as demonic.
In June, Haim told Peterson, “It’s based on nothing, and they will become princes and princesses in this new empire of lies.” Their devotion to the cause is akin to offering their own blood in order to pursue an innocent person. They are shown to be obedient subservients (sic) if they defend this pernicious ideology and are able to shield these kids from harm.
Seated between Patrick and Nixon Peabody lawyer Mark Lytle, Haim nodded his head in accord with what he heard as Feinstein read aloud some of his tweets to Hittner.
Feinstein further contended that the use of social media by Haim and Burke would jeopardize the security of her team and the FBI agents who looked into Haim. Haim named one of the agencies in a since-deleted X retweet. Additionally, Burke retweeted a message that included an image of Ansari.
Feinstein highlighted an X post in which Burke referred to the case against Haim as a “bungling, illicit, twitching pile of catastrophe” to support her claim that Burke had violated professional rules of behavior in support of her request for a gag order.
“She should know better as a court officer,” Feinstein added.
Burke, who deactivated her X account sometime last month, said Hittner she didn’t think her posts would hurt the jury selection process. She read from a little handwritten paper, “I urge my respect for the court and the process.”
According to her biography, Burke served in a variety of capacities in the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency throughout the Trump administration before starting her own legal practice. Both she and Patrick declined to comment on the hearing’s outcome.
On Nov. 20, court documents that included screenshots of the X posts that the prosecution claimed were offensive were first filed under secrecy. After Haim and his lawyers protested the action, they were unsealed six days later.
Patrick contended at the court on Tuesday that Haim has the First Amendment right to voice his displeasure over what he perceives to be unfair treatment. Dr. Haim is entitled to keep quiet. According to Patrick, that does not imply that he is capable.
Using Texas Representative Chip Roy’s June announcement that the U.S. House Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government was looking into Haim’s case, Patrick further contended that Haim had been successful in using social media to garner support for his cause. According to Roy’s letter to U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland, the Justice Department’s treatment of Haim sparked worries that the agency was abusing its power to further left-wing policy objectives.
The lawsuit against 34-year-old Haim has turned into a hot spot in the discussion of transgender care for children. Conservative media sites have also given Haim a lot of attention by supporting his assertion that his prosecution is motivated by politics.
Between 2018 and 2023, Haim worked at Texas Children’s Hospital while a resident at Baylor College of Medicine. According to a second superseding indictment that was issued last month, Haim was given access to TCH’s computer data, but only to examine the records of the patients he was responsible for. According to the accusation, Haim got the names, treatment codes, dates of service, and attending physicians of patients who were not in his care by reactivating his log-in credentials in April 2023 after they had expired due to inactivity.
According to the second superseding indictment, which took the place of an October superseding indictment that the prosecutors claimed contained minor errors and superfluous language, Haim gave some of that information to conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who in May 2023 published an article claiming that Texas Children’s was covertly providing gender-affirming care for minors.
Haim has admitted to giving Rufo the information, claiming he did it to expose a falsehood by the biggest children’s hospital in the country. However, he insists that he did not break the HIPAA, or Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
After Texas Governor Greg Abbott directed the state’s child welfare department to look into allegations of gender-affirming care for children being abused, the hospital said in March 2022 that it had ceased offering gender-affirming therapies. While Haim contends Texas Children s continued to provide such care in secret, the hospital said in an August statement that it hadresumed providing gender-affirming carea few days after the announcement once it confirmed it was in compliance with existing law.
After Texas lawmakers outlawed transgender care for minors, Texas Children’s stopped prescribing drugs for gender dysphoria in September 2023, the statement said. The Texas Supreme Court maintained the statute in June, prohibiting transgender individuals under the age of 18 from obtaining hormone treatments, puberty blockers, and transition operations.
Haim has raised around $1.2 million so far for a legal defense fund as of Tuesday. The trial date has been set for February 10 by Hittner. Haim might be sentenced to ten years in prison and fined up to $250,000.
Monroe Trombly works for the Landing as a public safety reporter, covering Houston’s federal courts. You can contact him personally at [email protected] or find him at monroetromblyon X.
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