No matter how much you may hate what the Department of Justice has become, it’s not nearly enough. On Monday the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas released a statement announcing the arrest of a 34-year-old surgeon.
Dr. Ethan Haim’s crime was exposing the fact that Texas Children’s Hospital, the nation’s largest children’s medical facility, was secretly performing gender-affirming care on minors after the hospital claimed to have shut down the program.
The hospital claimed to have discontinued these procedures after Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, denounced and equated them to child abuse.
The information Haim uncovered revealed the facility was still running the program and he relayed it to conservative journalist Christopher Rufo.
Shortly after that Texas made gender affirming care on minors illegal.
Instead of thanking Haim, U.S. Attorney Alamdar Hamdani, a Joe Biden appointee, charged him with unauthorized access to personal information of pediatric patients, in violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability (HIPPA) Act.
Rufo, also a Newsmax TV contributor, disputes that claim.
"For my own part, I can confirm that nothing in the information provided to me identified any individual; all the documents were, in fact, carefully redacted," he wrote in a City Journal story.
Haim made his initial appearance earlier this week before U.S. Magistrate Yvonne Ho, another Biden appointee.
"I have maintained from day one that I have done nothing wrong. We’re going to fight this tooth and nail, stand up for whistleblowers everywhere," Haim said outside the courthouse after his arraignment Monday.
Meanwhile, a second whistleblower has come forward with information that, if anything, is more damning against Texas Children’s Hospital.
Vanessa Sivadge, a registered nurse at the facility, confirmed Haim’s claims and added that the hospital was violating federal law by billing taxpayers through Medicaid for gender-affirming care.
Although she hasn’t been charged with a crime, her revelations prompted a visit from federal investigators, according to a separate Rufo City Journal piece.
Sivadge told Rufo "in a panic," that two FBI special agents, Paul Nixon and David McBride, appeared at her door and told her that she was a "person of interest" in an investigation targeting Dr. Haim, telling her that he broke federal privacy laws.
"They threatened me," Sivadge said. "They promised they would make life difficult for me if I was trying to protect [Haim]. They said I was 'not safe' at work and claimed that someone at my workplace had given my name to the FBI."
Sivadge also told Rufo that she regretted her participation in the hospital’s gender affirming scheme.
"I was told to do something I knew was wrong," she said. "It made me sick that the lie called 'gender-affirming care' was being sold to parents and children and creating hugely lucrative profits in secret — and I was part of it."
And ironically, the bad actors — the hospital and its physicians — will probably get off scot free. The whistleblowers are the ones under fire.
If Dr. Haim is found guilty, he could receive a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.
Think it’s unlikely? Think again.
Last month a Clinton-appointed federal district judge sentenced Paula Harlow, 75 and in poor health, to a two-year prison term.
Her crime was participating in a 2020 demonstration at a Washington, D.C.-area late-term abortion mill.
Harlow’s defense lawyer told the court that if she’s sentenced to prison, her husband wanted to be sentenced along with her, because she wouldn’t otherwise survive due to her health issues.
The sentencing judge callously told Harlow that it was her religious duty to just suck it up and not die.
"I would suggest that in terms of your religion that one of the tenets is that you should make the effort during this period of time ... to remain alive, to do the things that you need to do to survive, because that’s part of the tenets of your religion, and it's something that I would think you would want to do for your husband," the judge said.
At the moment, a Texas-based surgeon and registered nurse must be feeling cold and alone, wondering what fate may await them, while an elderly couple are feeling empty, already knowing theirs.
And all four are in this position for embracing a moral decision — two for protecting children outside the womb; two for protecting life inside the womb.
Meanwhile federal officials fear nothing and remain content, even with the knowledge that the hold the moral low ground and their weak, corrupt president holds the reins of power.
It brings to mind an observation often attributed to Thomas Jefferson.
"When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."
Guess where we are.
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.