By Joshua Arnold

The sham legal prosecution against Eithan Haim is over for good. After Haim blew the whistle on Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) for secretly providing gender transition procedures to minors in violation of state law, the Biden administration Department of Justice (DOJ) set out to ruin Haim’s life and career. More than 18 months and $1 million in legal fees later, Haim is finally free and clear.

It only took four days into the Trump administration for the Biden administration’s phony case to get crumpled up and thrown in the wastebasket. On Friday afternoon, the DOJ and Haim’s attorneys (the Burke Law Group) jointly moved “for an order dismissing the Second Superseding Indictment and all open counts with prejudice.”

The sparse motion gave little to analyze, except what it did not say. “The joint motion to dismiss the indictment offers no details,” mused Eugene Volokh. “But presumably the Trump Administration had a different view on the matter than did the Biden Administration.”

That same afternoon, Judge David Hittner responded, “As the direct and only result of a joint motion of the parties, the United States Attorneys Office of the Southern District of Texas, and legal counsel for the Defendant, Eithan David Haim, the Second Superseding Indictment and all open counts in the above-listed criminal case are hereby DISMISSED with prejudice.”

Dismissing charges with prejudice “means that the plaintiff cannot refile the same claim again in that court,” explains the Legal Information Institute. “The reason that dismissal with prejudice prevents subsequent refiling is because this type of dismissal is considered an ‘adjudication on the merits.’”

In other words, at the request of Trump’s DOJ, the judge decided that the charges brought against Haim by Biden’s DOJ were bogus, and that they could never be brought again.

For 18 months, beginning on the day he graduated from surgical training, the threat of criminal prosecution and financial disaster has hung over his head like the sword of Damocles.

It seems that this happy outcome came about through viral social media posts — and plenty of shrewd lawyering.

On Wednesday, both Haim and his wife Andrea criticized federal attorneys in the Southern District of Texas prosecution for accelerating the prosecution before the trial date, which was set for February 10. “They are attempting to bleed us dry, and make no mistake, they will try to take him to trial and put him in prison for 10 years if they aren’t stopped,” wrote Andrea Heim, herself a federal prosecutor in the Northern District of Texas. “So, at this moment, we will fight,” declared Eithan Haim. “We will fight in the public square. We will fight in the courtroom. We will fight in Congress. We will fight no matter what the cost.”

Both posts garnered more than a million views by Thursday, and by Friday, the case was dropped.

Tweets aren’t supposed to sway federal prosecutions, but everything about the Biden administration’s crusade against Haim was irregular, from beginning to end. When the Biden administration first placed Haim under investigation, they had no evidence that he had committed any crimes, but simply that he had blown the whistle. When whistleblowers uncover illegal behavior, the authorities are supposed to prosecute those who are committing crimes, not those who expose them.

In their first encounter, federal agents arrived at Haim’s door the morning of his graduation “in a highly atypical, unexpected, and aggressive show of force.” They unsuccessfully tried to launch a surprise interview, but Haim refused without an attorney present. Haim didn’t even find out what alleged crimes they were investigating after the DOJ indicted him more than six months later.

The DOJ filed a four-count criminal indictment against Haim, claiming that he committed HIPAA violations. This is despite the fact that “using a criminal penalty to go after a whistleblower is absolutely unheard of,” said Judicial Crisis Network president Carrie Severino. “The criminal punishment is essentially a death sentence for doctors for a HIPAA violation.”

Then, in September 2024, the Biden DOJ uncovered new evidence that completely obliterated the whole theory behind their prosecution. Their argument relied on the claim that Haim gained access to TCH’s system under false pretenses in January 2021. But the hospital’s electronic medical records system showed that Haim was still actively treating patients at the hospital until December 2021. Instead of dropping the case on this embarrassing discovery, the prosecution came up with a new theory and blazed ahead anyway.

In November 2024, the Biden DOJ got egg on their face again, when Haim’s attorneys raised “serious ethical questions” about their lead prosecutor, Tina Ansari, who had a conflict of interest with the TCH. It turns out that her family owns a large coffee/tea company, FreshBrew Group, which counts TCH among its customers. Tina Ansari herself was formerly an executive at the company, and her brother Ali Ansari is still the president and CEO. Ali Ansari also attended and co-sponsored TCH fundraisers during the time his sister was leading the prosecution against Haim.

In any event, Tina Ansari should not have been acting as a lawyer in any case, after she was suspended by the Texas bar on September 1 for failure to pay her member dues. On November 20, the DOJ filed a sealed motion to withdraw counsel and filed another indictment (the “Second Superseding Indictment” mentioned in the judge’s order) that no longer listed Ansari as an attorney for the case.

In December, the DOJ tried to turn the screws on Haim even further by requesting a gag order to prevent him from commenting publicly on the case. The judge declined to impose one but kept the option open for the future.

History will not be kind to the Biden administration’s unjust lawfare. Even though the case never went to trial and Haim was never convicted of spurious crimes, the Biden administration still inflicted enormous punishment upon him and his young family for doing what they knew to be right.

When Haim heard the news that his odyssean trial was over, his response was “pure jubilation,” according to Daily Wire editor Brent Scher.

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.