House Judiciary subcommittee hears whistleblower Eitan Heim describe DOJ prosecution as 'weaponization'

Dr. Eitan Heim, a general and trauma surgeon, told a House Judiciary subcommittee that he was targeted by a federal criminal investigation after he provided redacted information about Texas Children's Hospital’s pediatric transgender medicine program to the media and to the Texas attorney general.

Heim said the Department of Justice’s Southern District of Texas opened a probe after the story was published and that prosecutors indicted him in May 2024 on four HIPAA‑based felony counts that, he said, carried a statutory maximum of up to 10 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000. “I was the anonymous whistleblower in that story,” Heim told the committee, and he said the government’s case mischaracterized his disclosures and “manufactured a case to send me to prison.”

The hearing focused on whether the criminal investigation represented a misuse of prosecutorial authority and on prosecutorial conflicts of interest. Heim and his attorney, Mark Lytle, said the lead prosecutor in the initial investigation, an assistant U.S. attorney identified in testimony as Tina Ansari, had personal and financial ties to the hospital system that should have required recusal.…