The Surgeon Who Refused to Bow: Dr. Eithan Haim on Blowing the Whistle at Texas Children's

Episode Summary

Dr. Eithan Haim, a general surgeon in the Dallas area, joins Anish to walk through the events that took him from chief resident at Baylor to facing four federal felony counts and up to 10 years in prison. While rotating at Texas Children's Hospital in 2022 and 2023, Haim learned that the hospital's pediatric gender medicine program — which TCH had publicly announced it was shutting down in March 2022 — was in fact still operating, with puberty blocker implants being placed in children as young as 11. He took redacted information to journalist Christopher Rufo, the story ran in May 2023, and Texas passed SB 14 within 24 hours. A month later, federal agents showed up at his door on the day of his graduation. Haim describes the three successive indictments, the discovery that lead prosecutor Tina Ansari's family had financial ties to Texas Children's, the de facto gag order, the agreement signed under duress, and the dismissal with prejudice on January 24, 2025 — two weeks before trial. The conversation closes on what every physician should take from his case: the power asymmetry of federal prosecution, the weaponization of HIPAA, and why Haim believes telling the truth, even at total personal cost, is the only thing that ultimately matters.

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Chapter Markers

00:14 Introduction and overview of the case

02:18 Spring 2022 at Texas Children's — the first red flags

05:29 Rotating at TCH as a chief resident

06:59 Awakening to what was happening on the floor

09:14 The 11-year-old patient and the role of residents

10:38 Why institutional channels weren't an option

11:11 Cold-emailing journalists under a pseudonym

14:12 Did he access patient records? The transplant indictment myth

16:29 Where the records actually came from

17:44 Talking it through with his wife — a federal prosecutor

20:09 Mandatory reporting and the duty of physicians in a hospital

22:36 The knock at the door on graduation day

25:24 Going public in January 2024

28:26 "She'll bring it to trial even knowing she'll lose"

30:09 The 2024 election and what was at stake

31:41 Breaking down the four felony HIPAA counts

36:32 Why the DOJ went all in

38:37 Tina Ansari and the chain of command

39:24 Selectively tailored evidence to the grand jury

42:25 The arraignment — sitting beside drug traffickers and sex offenders

44:09 Discovering the prosecutor's financial ties to TCH

46:43 The de facto gag order and the descent into chaos

50:09 The agreement signed under duress

52:24 January 24, 2025 — the day of dismissal

56:50 The civil suit and Elon Musk's involvement

58:09 What this means for every physician in America

1:01:16 What HIPAA enables and why it needs to change

1:04:00 Privacy law versus mandatory reporting

1:06:51 The banana republic problem — power and resources

1:08:16 On Dostoevsky, legacy, and the calculus of telling the truth

1:11:00 Would he have done it differently?

1:12:43 Hypothetical: would the same standard apply to a left-leaning whistleblower?

1:15:01 On Jay Bhattacharya, Fauci, Collins, and the question of justice

1:21:00 Closing thoughts on courage, corruption, and the duty of physicians

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Transcript

Anish Koka: Okay, we are live at doctors lounge today and we are super, ⁓ grateful to have the fantastic Dr. Eithan on the today. Dr. Haim is a general surgeon who is practicing in the area, Dr. Haim ⁓ famous. I mean, this is an incredible story that you're gonna hear. In 2023, while he was completing his surgical training at the Baylor College of Medicine, he had rotations at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, which is the largest pediatric hospital in the country, He made a decision that almost cost him his freedom in his career. About a year earlier in March of 2022, Texas Children's publicly announced it was shutting down its pediatric gender medicine program. Eithan says what he saw on the floor told a very different story. There were puberty blocker implants that were still being placed, hormonal interventions on children, on kids that were as young as 11. These were quietly continuing despite the fact that this was not supposed to be continuing. So, he had access to internal records that we're going to talk about. He redacted patient identifiers and gave them to a journalist. The story eventually ran in May of 2023. And within weeks of that story, Texas passed a law, SB 14, that banned these interventions for minors statewide. A month later, federal agents showed up at his door. In May of 2024, the Department of Justice then indicted him on four felony counts of HIPAA violations. He faced up to 10 years in prison, quarter million dollars in fines. And then, the case unraveled spectacularly. The lead prosecutor, Tina Ansari, was removed amid allegations of undisclosed conflict of interest. The government's own premises fell apart. And on January 24, 2025, judge dismissed every count with prejudice two weeks before trial. Earlier this year, Eithan has filed a civil suit against Texas Children's Baylor College of Medicine and three individuals saying are attempted to put him in jail. So he's here to walk us through what. what really happened, what it cost him and what it truly teach every physician in America about what happens when you cross establishment, the hospital system, the controlling power. So, Eithan, to the Doctors' Lounge.

Eithan Haim: Yeah, and I appreciate you having me on.

Anish Koka: Eithan, take me back to spring 2022. You're a resident, you're not far from graduating. Texas Children has publicly announced that it was halting its gender program. What did you actually see in the months that followed?

Eithan Haim: it's, ⁓ I actually had no idea that TCH had announced that they had shut down the program when I first heard about these surgeries being done. ⁓ it was like sometime in 2022 where I was in the residence lounge, because you have these big surgery programs, you have all the residents that have the same work room. So you'll have all these different services, transplant, you'll have surgical oncology. And a lot of times the TCH residents will hang out in the break room that I was in, which is in Baylor St. Luke's because the two hospitals are connected by a bridge. So sometime in like mid 2022, One of my co-residents comes up to me he's like, Eithan, like you won't believe what I just did, you know just inserted some puberty blocker in some 11 year old girl who believes that a boy he had told me this story where whenever someone comes in for elective surgery, you have to sign a history and physical. And he told me about it, that it was ⁓ 11 year girl who believes she's a boy. She's positive she want to have children. She wants to have more surgeries like a phalloplasty, quote unquote. Both her parents are her siblings are transgender, ⁓ and that she's there day to have her puberty-blocked with cancer medications. And I remember thinking to myself, like, holy crap, Like, those are major red flags for child abuse. And the reason he was telling me is because, like, he totally agreed. He's like, ⁓ my God, I can't believe this. that was the first time I heard that something like that was happening at TCH. because like I kind of wasn't really familiar with the whole gender medicine thing. I mean, I had only known about it in like the months before that. You know, I knew about the jazz Jennings, like, but it was still so much on the periphery of like what was normal, but it was only in the last year, like, you know, 20, 21 and after that got really crazy because it was after COVID that, um, that really escalated. So in the months following that, you know, more and more, you know, well, really it was like, A few people would come up to me and tell me that yeah, they were seeing this going on at TCH that they were putting in pubic blockers into young children and You I at first I didn't believe it, know, it's like can't be true. This is totally crazy but then when I so it was months later that I found out That they had released this statement months before in March of 2022 that said unequivocally that they were going to shut down their program because of the legal consequences. That's like very, very clear what they were saying. And in actuality, was like the complete opposite. But like still, couldn't quite believe it. It's just too crazy. I didn't think the hospital would lie like that. Cause it really is. It's an amazing hospital. do like great work. The surgeons, nurses, like people do awesome work there, but you know, like the leadership, they're complete psychopaths. You know, it's like, it's, there's a difference between the people working there and the work they do and like the leadership, but, ⁓ I'll go ahead.

Anish Koka: So you're a general surgery resident, you're ⁓ at the Children's Hospital, correct?

Eithan Haim: Yeah, yeah, so we would work there all the time, because as a chief resident, we cover TCH whenever we're on call. So we would take care of kids and adults there. ⁓

Anish Koka: Mm.

Eithan Haim: Even though it's children's hospital, they have a adult wing for adult OB-GYN patients, but it's also pediatric OB-GYN patients. But also we get asked a lot to help with the transplants because as chief resident, you're the one who's most competent. So it's the busiest pediatric transplant program in the country for kidneys and livers. So it's like the volume is remarkable. So it's like when you have

Anish Koka: Wow.

Eithan Haim: residents who are being sent on donor runs to pick up livers, right? You have another transplant resident who's in the OR helping with the surgery there. It's like, oh, here's this case that TCH a lot of times would be asked to help out. So yeah, I was rotating there the whole time, which of course is something that they had conveniently left out despite having evidence that that was the case.

Anish Koka: Wow, wow. That's... that... Right. Right. So it sounds like you weren't quite the culture wars at all. You were just there. You were there. You were present. ⁓ when heard about this happening in a population, kind of, I guess, pricked ⁓ moral sensibility or was? ⁓ How did you awaken to that? Because of course, I I'm much, much older than you are. This is not at all on our radar at all. But yeah, how did you kind of awaken to this whole?

Eithan Haim: Yeah, I mean it was. Well, it's like, because when we, we spent a lot of time taking care of really, really sick kids at TCH, I mean, it was, it was remarkable what we can do to, to heal these sick kids. And you have these, these kids come in with these awful disorders that would completely destroy their lives. And we would take them to the O R and then, you know, after we would roll them back to the PACU, like where they recover after surgery, when they were waking up from surgery, they would always say these like these things that would crush your soul. They would just be crying for their mother, crying for a normal life. Like, why do I have to have this G tube in my, in my abdomen? Right. And they're pulling at it and all they want is a normal life. but, but by, ⁓ whatever happened to them, if they were born a certain way or if they developed a disease during their life, they're, never going to be normal because they have something that happened to them. And this other situation where you have these gender doctors, what they're doing to these kids is they're taking them to the same operating rooms, but they're creating the diseases that other kids are trying to run away from. And that's was happening. right? It was, it was, ⁓ it's the apex of child abuse to, for doctors to do to these kids what they're doing. you know, that's incontrovertible. I couldn't sit by and do nothing while this was happening, ⁓ especially months later in January of 2023, ⁓ I discovered that the directors of the program that supposedly didn't exist, that was conveniently taken off the internet, right? usually all these programs have a face on the internet so that families and patients can access like, like a patient portal, right? It was completely absent. But the directors of this program were giving grand rounds lectures, the hospital's most prestigious lecture series. They were having meetings with, with like 150 medical students, you know, and we, once I discovered that we recorded it, that was part of the, what we released. And, you know, it took me five months to find a journalist who is willing to tell the story. yeah, yeah. ⁓

Anish Koka: Wow. Walk me through, this, 11 year old patient or the patients that you saw, were you ⁓ to the or you heard about the procedure or like, what did you actually see in terms of what was happening? ⁓ Okay. ⁓

Eithan Haim: No, I was just told about it. Yeah, yeah. And so it was residents who would do the surgeries or hear that the surgeries were being done and then told me. ⁓ And then it was in January of 2023.

Anish Koka: Okay. So are residents and trainees involved in any of these procedures? ⁓ wow, okay. So why were you as a chief resident not involved in those procedures?

Eithan Haim: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, so like, like, ⁓ the germ- So I did PuriBlocker implants and removals, but for children who had precocious Puri. So like I wasn't on on those rotations at the time. Yeah.

Anish Koka: So you... Okay, so do residents and trainees have a choice whether to participate in this or are they kept out of it or how does it work?

Eithan Haim: Yeah, you have a ⁓ choice. I mean, it's like a not really a choice now. I mean, yeah.

Anish Koka: Okay. So you, did you consider going through just regular institutional channels? compliance, let risk know like, guys, like this is happening, or, or even like ⁓ the attorney general's office, ⁓ because guess the Texas attorney general, Ken was the one, right? Who am I getting the timeline, right? He he's the that had kind of said something about this.

Eithan Haim: yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, it's funny you say that because no, we actually reached out to the AG's office, which was going to be like one of the primary components of my defense. If it ever got to that point, yeah. So it's like, no, we made that effort. Definitely did not try with the hospital just because by that point, you know, being in the Baylor TCH system after everything with COVID, you saw how the administration had become so corrupted, right? It's like there was no chance of them

Anish Koka: Yeah. Yeah.

Eithan Haim: taking this complaint seriously because they were the ones who were responsible for perpetuating it. You know, because if these people are the ones giving the Grant Rounds lectures, of course, I mean, you know, they're authorizing this misconduct.

Anish Koka: You mentioned it took you months to find a journalist. Did cycle through the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Republican? What was your sequence? How did you decide what to do with this information?

Eithan Haim: Yeah, it sounds funny when I mean looking back because it was ⁓ so I just sent emails coldly to a bunch of journalists I listened to and ⁓ I you know, I wouldn't even try the Wall Street Journal or Fox News or New York I mean, of course, I mean they're not it's like Like you kind of know, I mean, I was definitely not like politically outspoken. I didn't even have social media at the time. Especially in residence, you wanna keep your opinions to yourself because it's important that you get along with your residence because you're there to do a job. You're not there to talk about politics. So like, I'll have a few people, maybe like. Five or four. I have a program of like a hundred that we would talk in like dark corners, which was actually what we would do talking dark corners but yeah, so I just sent emails and never get a response I would send some more emails never get a response and then eventually someone sent the response was like, yeah, let's do this. So Yeah, yeah, yeah, they had to verify it make sure I wasn't some crazy person like I understand how like

Anish Koka: And this was the Rufo's team. Okay. Right.

Eithan Haim: These people get emails all the time. And like a story like this is like, you have the biggest children's hospital in the world lying about like, mutilating children and like sterilizing them. Like that doesn't sound real, but it turns out it was like the least of what was happening. Yeah.

Anish Koka: Right. Wow, wow. Were you surprised that you didn't get a response from some of the other outlets that you reached out to?

Eithan Haim: You know, now, not really, now. at the time, I was like, yeah, like what's going on? you, you know? ⁓

Anish Koka: Did you think it was part of like just a cover-up and nobody wants to touch it or do you think it really just they didn't believe you?

Eithan Haim: I think it was a combination of probably some people didn't believe me, know, like these, what I realized is like a lot of the organizations I reached out to, no, no, no, I was like, yeah, actually under a pseudonym. Yeah, I adopted like this ridiculous pseudonym, Daniel Rosen. And I actually ended up using that for like six months while I was still anonymous after the agents came to like evade FBI detection and raise money. like,

Anish Koka: and you are reaching out anonymously. ⁓ you're reaching out. Okay. Okay.

Eithan Haim: So yeah, like it was under a pseudonym Daniel Rosen and ⁓ like Now that I have become familiar with this media landscape I mean these are ⁓ media organizations with like a very limited capacity you know, these are like the these people who are willing to kind of chase down like a good story, but you don't have a bunch, like a huge newsroom to verify whether a story is correct or not. If they're busy doing other things, like it's just not capable. So it's like, it's a matter of bandwidth.

Anish Koka: Hmm So we're of course all terrified of accessing patient starts that we aren't, you we directly involved with. Walk me through how you kind of, ⁓ like did you think through all that?

Eithan Haim: Yeah, well, the thing is, the good thing is I never access records that, people think that access the records of transgender patients, but it was actually never the case because the basis of the indictment was about transplant patients.

Anish Koka: Okay. ⁓ I see. So these were patients that you were involved with, directly involved with. And so you had access to their charts as part of that. you never accessed, ⁓ fascinating. So you never accessed patients' charts that you weren't directly involved with that care.

Eithan Haim: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's like, yeah, never. Yeah, and the reason is because like that would be inappropriate. At some point, of course, within the hippostatue, you have, there's a whistleblower clause, right? Like if you find something that's inappropriate, if someone is harmed, a doctor is doing something wrong.

Anish Koka: Right.

Eithan Haim: know, like if you have a surgeon who's doing something crazy and nurses are telling you, hey, this person's sick, you got to take a look at them. You have to take a look at them, right? Especially if you're in a certain situation of authority. ⁓ But in order to blow the whistle, you have to do it with the least amount of as So it's like if it can be done without accessing their records, yeah.

Anish Koka: Right. Right.

Eithan Haim: which is good because I never access their records.

Anish Koka: I think so these are so these are pediatric transplant children that were having gender transition or gender. No, no, ⁓ I see. No, tell me I'm confused. Yeah.

Eithan Haim: No, no, completely separate ⁓ Yeah, yeah, it was ⁓ Yeah, so the count one of the end out indictment, right? Which is they had accused me of Accessing records. I was like that was their foundation without count one. There's no counts two three and four So count one was just access transplant records ⁓ and but counts two three and four was like like

Anish Koka: Hmm.

Eithan Haim: this ⁓ of HIPAA that had never been done before in American history because they knew I never accessed their records, right? So had to use a fraudulent basis to charge me with something and get me to admit something that never happened. So like the whole transplant thing is completely separate. It has nothing to do with the transgender thing, but that was the only thing that was true, right? But they had used that as the basis to like deceive the entire world to think that like I had done something that I didn't. Yeah.

Anish Koka: That's how you're done. So where do the records come from? the records on, because you had to produce, at some point you had to produce records to the journalists saying, hey, this is the records of, the redacted records of patients and look, this is what that's happening to them, right? Okay. So that.

Eithan Haim: Yeah, yeah, it's something everyone had access to. Like surgery schedules, you know, it's like, are things posted on a board that everyone can see. Yeah.

Anish Koka: Yeah. I see. So, so public facing stuff that everyone can see that you redact, that's the information you're saying. You're not accessing the chart and saying, this is the procedure note from this hormone blocker that's being put in. Is that right?

Eithan Haim: Yeah. Yeah, but even so, even so, it would still be justified if that were the case, right? Because if you have a hospital who's lying about sterilizing kids, that is well within your purview to do. It wasn't the case, right, because I was able to succeed without doing that. ⁓ But yeah.

Anish Koka: Right. Right. Right. And the reason you were able to succeed without doing it is because you had access to, ⁓ yeah, you were working there, you had access to, you you were in whatever chart, in somebody you're taking care of, but that gives you access to the record of surgeries that are being done and, look, these are the surgeries that are being done.

Eithan Haim: Yeah, because I was working there, yeah. every nurse, every surgeon, every administrator, everyone. Yeah, it's like these things, you just walk by, you see it, you know?

Anish Koka: Right. Right. Right, right, right. You must have talked to someone before pulling the trigger ⁓ this. Who you talk to? Was there a mentor? Was it your wife? Yes, okay. Is your wife a

Eithan Haim: Yeah, definitely my wife. Well, cause she, no, she was actually, yeah, just got hired as a federal prosecutor with the Department of Justice at the time. Yeah. No, she's like a brilliant attorney. She went to Columbia. She's like a genius. she's ⁓ actually working for Texas Attorney General and leading the gender cases now. So it's kind of a funny twist of fate. ⁓ Yeah. What? ⁓

Anish Koka: Okay, that's amazing. ⁓ wow. That's incredible. So now it's making sense. So did she push you up to this?

Eithan Haim: No, no, well, you know, it's like we had both gone through so much and saw how COVID had changed both of our professions and destroyed them. And the reason that happened was because you had people in positions of authority.

Anish Koka: Yeah. Yeah.

Eithan Haim: who didn't do the right thing when it was hard to do, right? You had these people who could have stood up and said something, but they just acted like cowards. And every single day, you know, going to work and seeing things that were happening to these patients, know, whether it was COVID or this transgender thing, it's, you carry this degree of responsibility ⁓ because know that these kids are being harmed. And if I'm a doctor, I take this oath, right? Then that's something I take seriously. You know, I could never live with myself if I didn't. And you know, when I was talking to my wife about it, she was a person that, you know, it's like, especially because we had just gotten married, you know, have to do these things together, right? If you're going to go down this road, there's no going back ever, right? You have to be willing to give up everything. And we made that decision well beforehand.

Anish Koka: Did Did you have any idea what was going to come down the pike?

Eithan Haim: Absolutely no idea. No idea whatsoever because you know beforehand it's like pretty clear, you know, like Even if you're a non-lawyer and you look at the case law you're like no way they could ever do anything, right? There's nothing it's like I'm working there I am you know, was like operating at TCH at the time like on patients on pediatric patients and adult patients There's no way like like there's no but it turns out there was a way if you're corrupt enough

Anish Koka: Yeah, and again, there's this idea of being mandatory reporters, right? All physicians are mandatory reporters. Like if we, if we, if there's evidence that comes, comes to us of, of a variety of different things, certainly child abuse is one of them. Like we, we are, we are, we're not just ethically pushed to do it. We are legally to report that. Right.

Eithan Haim: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. that's the key thing is that that's exactly the case. Like, like people always talk about like, well, you your patients, whether these were, you were taking care of them or not. Well, first of all, it's like, I never accessed the records, but then ⁓ like, when you work in a hospital and you're a doctor, you have a responsibility to anyone who comes under the roof for that hospital. If someone's being harmed, right. And these kids were being harmed. evidence the day after the story comes out, know, the Texas Senate passes a bill with bipartisan support to make conduct illegal in the state of Texas 24 hours later, partially because of our story coming out the day before.

Anish Koka: Yeah. So, was under similar notion that, we live in legal fair society where the justice system, does what the justice system does. It's this impartial thing that, ⁓ and ⁓ you also, I also had this faith in the system. Like, I don't what politics are, you just, ⁓ you couldn't do that because that's unethical and corrupt to do that. But what I learned, ⁓ during was that it's all about power. Like people in power will ⁓ break rule. They'll be completely hypocritical and they will attempt to destroy you personally and professionally.

Eithan Haim: and knowing you're innocent too. That's the thing.

Anish Koka: Yep. Well, to them, to them, you're to them, you're not innocent to they view themselves as ⁓ ⁓ those bright angels holding fort against the orcs they're killing orcs. think you're an orc. That's what they think. They think you're an orc and once you have created that idea that you're an orc, you're subhuman, or at least what you believe is subhuman, and therefore you should not be allowed to participate in regular society. Yeah, they'll do anything. mean, ⁓ They have no issues, and physicians understand that. know, this is our colleagues. Our colleagues will go and do anything. ⁓ There's a lot them, ⁓ especially the ones that are in power.

Eithan Haim: Yeah.

Anish Koka: ⁓ if you ideologically disagree with them, it's just religious zeal that they bring to it. So, not to belabor what, ⁓ actually the thing that happens is knock at the right? ⁓ one month this, ⁓ piece goes in the city journal with Christopher Ruffo, you have federal agents at your door. Walk me through that day like what what what what happened? would shock surprise go through that? Yep.

Eithan Haim: Yeah, it was crazy because the story comes out May 16th, 2023, and I was anonymous. No one knew who I was. Of course, they found out who I was within 24 hours. I thought I was like, yeah, yeah, mean, probably. Probably within 24, 48 hours. I thought I was super slick, but it turns out not so much. So they...

Anish Koka: They did. Bye.

Eithan Haim: Federal government mobilized just the entire Leviathan. I'm telling you, FBI, HHS, DHS, somehow DHS got involved. I have no idea why. So yeah, a month, just a little bit over a month later, on June 23rd, 2023, the day of my graduation from surgical training, One of the most important days of my life, my family came in, getting ready to go to the ceremony. It's like Friday around like maybe like 11 a.m., know, early afternoon. And I get a knock on the door. It's like aggressive. I'm like, who the hell is this? So, you know, I walk over, open the door. One of the most important days of my life, my family came in, getting ready to go to the ceremony. It's like Friday around like maybe like 11 a.m., know, early afternoon. And I get a knock on the door. It's like aggressive. I'm like, who the hell is this? So, you know, I walk over, open the door. and standing outside, two federal agents and standing outside, two federal agents with HHS. And, know, of course your whole world kind of slows down at that moment. And I out. Of course, people always say not to talk to ⁓ the feds, it's much easier said than done. So I invite in and, ⁓ you know, start up this tripod and they told me it about medical records or something. So as they're kind of fumbling with this tripod I'm believe it was an act of Providence that they were fumbling with it because it took him a little bit of time to set it up my wife comes out of our bedroom because she was getting ready for the ceremony and ⁓ sees going on and then she kind of signals me to like come into our bedroom and she says, you you know you should not talk to these people, it's your constitutional right. So I'm like, great idea. So I go back out there and I tell them, know, very but they can F off ⁓ and they leave. But before they leave, they hand me a target letter and I know what that was, but it's a piece of paper. And it was a paper informing that I was under investigation by the United States Department of Justice.

Anish Koka: Ha

Eithan Haim: ⁓ when I knew ⁓ the game was on. ⁓

Anish Koka: What did you not? Did you not think that they were there to like you be a witness? Like when did you realize that I'm the target here? Was that was that obvious from the very get go?

Eithan Haim: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Because I had seen what was happening with the other corrupt prosecutions with January 6th with the abortion protesters, of course, you know, Trump being the most notable example. mean, it was very clear what was happening because, you know, the lack of law being broken with the very aggressive response a few hours before my graduation, it was very clear. that they were using the value of my accomplishments the means of my extortion. So, yeah.

Anish Koka: Boy. and then so then 2024, you go with the daily wire. What was calculation there? Because at this point, you're still anonymous. mean, ⁓ obviously, the somehow know who you are. Do you have any idea how they figured that out, by the way?

Eithan Haim: Well, they had worked with the hospital to find out who I was. And then, you know, this entire process behind the scenes, then they mobilized the Leviathan to to intimidate me into submission. ⁓ that the between June 23rd, 2023 in January 2024, ⁓ was anonymous. And the reason is because the last thing I ever wanted to do was go public.

Anish Koka: Okay.

Eithan Haim: Both my wife and are very private people. We didn't have social media. Like I work in a very, very small town that was like, was our dream to move to this small town, like just live a very quiet life. So immediately had gotten in touch with these great attorneys. You know, Marcel Burke, Jeff Hall. ⁓ Mark Lytle and they represented like this core team of us who started pushing back and we thought that you know if we just start pushing back enough you ⁓ try to communicate to this ⁓ Department of Justice that there's nothing ⁓ going to find right there's nothing that I did that they could possibly interpret as criminal that maybe they would just move on and it turns out that was not the case. Over the couple of months between June 2023 and January 2024, it was made very clear to me that they were not going to give it up, that they were going to prosecute me no matter what, that they would fabricate crimes, that they would do whatever they needed to do to put me in a prison. So if they were going to follow that road, then I was surely going to fight back against it. And the nature of that corruption is all documented in a letter my attorneys sent to Congress in January. And just to name a few, the very first call, ⁓ threatened my wife's background check because she had just been hired by the Department of Justice. The admitted that she had never reviewed the evidence before sending agents to my home. But they did enough research to find out my wife had just been hired by the Department of Justice. They had threatened me and said that the families were to sue me and these activist organizations were going to sue me, which eventually happened, but nothing came about it because it was totally bogus. There was one moment where I that I had to go public, that they were going to destroy me. It's when the prosecutor told my attorneys, that she was going to bring me to a jury trial, if she knew she was going to lose. And my being a prosecutor, we knew that is like the ultimate sin for someone who has authority. What? ⁓

Anish Koka: How did they tell you this? are they communicating to Through your lawyers? ⁓ ⁓ they sent a message to your lawyer saying, ⁓ care. And was it the email was from the prosecutor directly?

Eithan Haim: My lawyers. Yeah, and then my lawyers had documented all this and had sent that to Congress. no, these were phone conversations. Yeah.

Anish Koka: Oh, phone conversations. So the phone conversation with your lawyers was, you tell Dr. Heim, just so you know that I don't care what the details are here, we're gonna keep going.

Eithan Haim: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I mean, that was made very clear. yeah. So.

Anish Koka: And was it made clear by one individual or was it a team or?

Eithan Haim: Well, know, it's the way these things work, you'll have one person who's the primary person that my attorneys will communicate with, but you know, behind that person will be a team of investigators, then above the prosecutor will be the executive leadership of the... federal district, is the Southern District of Texas. know, the protocol for a case like this, whenever a doctor or a lawyer is prosecuted for something, like investigated or indicted, those cases have to be cleared by the executive leadership of that federal district. So we knew that, this was like something being run out of the office. This ⁓ going very high up.

Anish Koka: Okay, so we're going to get into the details of the DOJ case in a minute here, me about what 2024 looked like to you. mean, of course, ⁓ 2024, Trump gets elected, but you have no idea what's happening. could be, you know, is that playing in your mind that the elections that are coming have greater significance now that this is kind of playing out?

Eithan Haim: Yeah, of course. mean, it was, it was the, we knew that the corruption that would come from the Kamala Harris regime send me, my lawyers, my family to prison. We knew that that's how corrupt they were. But like what that year looked like, you know, I had just started my first job as a surgeon. like two months after I started my job, I went public as the whistleblower. Then I found out my wife was pregnant. Then I got indicted on four felonies facing 10 years in prison. You know, we raised $1.3 million to fund the legal defense. was enough to get the beginning part going. But you that money runs out very quick, especially in the federal trial where, you know, indictment after indictment just soaks up ⁓ every single of resource you have. When it came to the election, we knew that it all came down to that because these people who were being politically prosecuted, that their freedom hinged on that decision because the of it was, you know, we were living under a corrupt regime that had prioritized sending people to prison in order to terrify the public from speaking the truth, from doing the right thing. You know, was... the most, it was virtue that they were criminalizing while they were letting the criminals run free, right? And there's a purpose to that. But like,

Anish Koka: Yeah, no, mean, it clearly it sends a message, right? It's like, mean, I think they're going after you so hard to send a message to anyone else that could would even think about doing this. walk us through what it is? Like, what are you indicted on? What are the four felony? What are the four felonies felonies? Because hipaa mean, mean, hipaa violations. I mean, hipaa violations do happen, right? I mean, but

Eithan Haim: Yeah. Yeah. So.

Anish Koka: Are they ever felonies?

Eithan Haim: So there's a few felony cases of HIPAA and those cases are totally legitimate. It's like people who are accessing records to use their health information as blackmail to get money from them. There people who are accessing records to steal data to sell for, you know, like financial fraud. Those are like the two big cases and there's like not that many, like a handful. But so the indictments, there were three separate indictments. And what that means is every time ⁓ have to go to a grand jury, right? They have to make a case to a grand jury. And then to present these charges and say, we believe this person's guilty, they say, okay, here's your indictment. ⁓ So first indictment was completely fabricated. They had said, the count one ⁓ was that I access records of transplant patients who were not under my care. That's bogus, right? Counts two, three, and four ⁓ that I had ⁓ access records of transgender patients and disclosed their information. That obviously was not true, but that indictment served a very specific purpose because the New York Times, the Washington Post, all these people ⁓ can that indictment to repeat this message and then defame me, right, to the entire world. ⁓

Anish Koka: to say that you access other people's records. Even though again, number two is made up. You never access anyone's records.

Eithan Haim: Exactly. Yeah, that's like this. Yeah, ⁓ that indictment comes out, it's obvious it's an intimidation mechanism, right? Because every single moment of every single day, I had the option. I could just plead to something less, make this all go away. All I would have to do is just admit to their premise. But of course, I would never do that. I would rather die before I did that.

Anish Koka: What was their premise? Admit to what? That you did these things? And then it...

Eithan Haim: to admit to that, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I just, I could get off with a misdemeanor, my life could go on, no problem, right? Of course, that was never gonna happen. Because what that would do is set a precedent for every other whistleblower. And I knew that it was more than just me. So after the first indictment in May of 2024, right, it only took a couple of weeks to...

Anish Koka: Hmm.

Eithan Haim: a couple of legal maneuvers, you know, gather some evidence until the entire first indictment fell apart. were trying to say I had no access to TCH, I wasn't taking care of patients there. We subpoena a few records and then all of sudden, they make this huge disclosure. these things said in our indictment may not be totally true. So of course we had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars making these arguments, going to court. Their first indictment falls apart. The DOJ had admitted in one of their motions that they ⁓ Presented false information to the grand jury But they said they didn't do so knowingly so problem solved for them, right? Of course the court Let's him get away with it the second indictment Watered down right it it kind of Castrates it of all of its substance the the victims in the first indictment were TCH and his patients ⁓ The victims in the second indictment for the first time in American history were TCH and its physicians. There had never been a HIPAA case that had alleged that the victims were not patients, right? So it was news to us that supposedly HIPAA had extended to major hospital systems and doctors who were lying about a program that was mutilating innocent young children. ⁓ They had removed the disclosure part. There was a couple of other things where they watered their indictment. And at that point too, we had no idea what we were defending against. In the nuts bolts of a federal criminal trial, there have to be very specific allegations that you have to ⁓ know and then be to defend yourself against. If those are not clear, that's a big problem because there's no way to develop a defense strategy if you don't know. The second indictment was flawed from the very beginning because the language they included verbiage that was not part of the statute. put simply, they had charged me with a crime that didn't exist. But the most glaring problem was that they included a critical typo in their indictment. instead of subchapter XI, they wrote subchapter XL, which is a law that does not exist, which makes their indictment legally inactionable. So of course it had to fall apart and that was the same time where we also find out that the lead prosecutor had all these financial relationships with the supposed victims in the indictment, TCH and Baylor College of Medicine. And then the third indictment was who knows, I mean, we had no idea what that indictment was. My attorneys didn't, there was no like logic behind it. And my attorneys were like very, very smart people. I mean, they were some of the best defense attorneys probably in the country, but there was no interpretation. ⁓ So.

Anish Koka: So again, congrats on your daughter being born in this maelstrom, my goodness. And your job, you continue to your job, but with some extra notoriety, I imagine. So getting the DOJ case that we've kind of touched upon, again, four felony HIPAA counts. Your attorney noted that even basic HIPAA violations are essentially never criminally prosecuted.

Eithan Haim: Yeah

Anish Koka: So to lay out, what's theory for why it is the government was willing to take it so far? ⁓ you basically establish ⁓ groundbreaking for you. ⁓ Just it out for me.

Eithan Haim: a very simple answer because it proved so effective. If ⁓ as an anonymous ⁓ person with no power or connections can expose the largest children's hospital in the world for lying about a program like this and then it lead to the passage of a law the very next day lead to more whistleblowers because five days after the story came out, another whistleblower who worked inside the hospital spoke out. She ended up going public to allege widespread Medicaid fraud in the gender clinic, which that's a whole different story. ⁓ attorney general initiated an investigation into TCH in the days following that. So if I can do that, other people can do it, in which they did. So in order to make an example out of me, in order to prevent that from happening in other situations, because we knew other hospitals were lying about their gender programs as well, because the public opinion of... what was happening in these general clinics was starting to change once people found out what was happening. So the important thing was to prevent anyone from inside these systems from telling the truth about what was happening behind closed doors. That's why they put so much energy, so many resources, so many prosecutors. They had gone all in to sending me to prison because they knew that they didn't succeed that more people would start speaking out, which is exactly what happened.

Anish Koka: So the architect of all this is a named Tina Ansari, correct?

Eithan Haim: Yeah, well, it's it I think it goes beyond goes beyond that where you have the priorities from the senior levels of the Department of Justice and HHS that had prioritized this case. And ⁓ there's there's couple of clips where you have the head of like the HHS Office of Civil Rights who had talked about this case and, you know, a couple of other other things, too. And a couple of non-public facts that I can't necessarily discuss where I kind of knew that this was something that was very, very high up in the food chain.

Anish Koka: she is the, it may go higher up than her, but she is kind of like the tip of the spear ⁓ some sense, correct? And

Eithan Haim: Yeah, in the operative sense, yeah, she's the one who's doing the work on a daily basis. A team of attorneys and then agents.

Anish Koka: Okay. When you know there there's a bunch of things that start I mean it's it seems like this is not very well done. I I don't know if it's a case of she just gets very bad information like is it that how it that the first indictment which alleges that you were just never there ⁓ except are there and it's hard you know with the world of EMRs it's not very hard to understand that you know who's there ⁓ when you're like this this allegation that you know you were just gone from Texas Children's, you have no business being there and you're somehow accessing any records of Texas Children's. like, well, sorry, I'm a chief resident who manages, I mean, that's a very easy thing to figure out. And for them to like present this evidence to a grand jury, right? And the grand jury of course then has to agree to get these indictments. I mean, that seems extremely bad. is Tina Ansari ⁓ being bad or is that the information that she's being fed? ⁓

Eithan Haim: And just to add another layer of how really remarkable it is that they would make those really crazy allegations. Whenever indicted, the government is responsible for giving you all of their evidence. It's called discovery. So the government's own evidence that they gave us in discovery had proved that ⁓ I working at TCH at the time they said I wasn't. So. ⁓

Anish Koka: Yeah.

Eithan Haim: And they had this evidence for like a year, almost a year. And it was in their possession. It was like very obvious. It was unequivocal. So my point is this, it's like, you think, like we live in a world, me and you, right? Where competence is like the thing that separates.

Anish Koka: Okay. So there's some...

Eithan Haim: you know, good outcomes from bad outcomes. And there's no way to run away from it when someone's bleeding in front of you or someone's having a STEMI and their muscle is dying. But what I learned in our federal criminal justice system is that it does not work that way. These corrupt prosecutors are allowed to operate with near impunity. because they exist in world where everyone protects one another. Where in order to not reveal how corrupt it is, these people cover for each other because it also reveals something about themselves. Because if they were to really rein in like these prosecutors, they would have to do so in so many other instances. Yeah, like the corruption goes so far beyond just one or two people. This goes to, it's ⁓ very but I hopefully it's starting to change.

Anish Koka: Did you, well, I mean, it sounds like there's a great deal of incompetence. ⁓ should perhaps, ⁓ know, employ one of ⁓ BT or Gemini to go over records that they have. ⁓

Eithan Haim: Well, would say it's, the incompetence is intentional. Like, there's no way this is incompetence because the evidence in their discovery was so clear. All they had to do was look at it. Of course they did look at it. What I believe happened is they just ignored it, right? Because you can ignore your own evidence and then bring your selectively tailored information to a grand jury and indict someone.

Anish Koka: Yes. Yeah, so it's.

Eithan Haim: And would they think in a million years that someone like me would actually fight it? No. I mean, like, I'm like some powerless doctor who just started a family. Like, of course they're gonna think I'm gonna, I'm gonna give in and then they're gonna get away with it. That's why they do it. And how many other cases does that happen? Yeah.

Anish Koka: Wow. That's incredible. So just simply the indictment itself that the indictment is based on bad data, right? by itself gives them a lever to get you to submit, to get you to bend, get you to kneel.

Eithan Haim: Yeah, because the day of my arraignment, which is when I have to go in front of a judge and plead not guilty, it was a circus, right? So ⁓ was in June and I show up to the federal courthouse in Houston. so I walk in and then next to me are a whole two rows federal inmates. Right? And each one is called up and, ⁓ you know, the first person gets called up. He pleads not guilty for sex crimes. The second person gets called up. He pleads not guilty for drug trafficking for like, like, you know, hundreds of pounds of cocaine. And then they call me up. Right? I walk up, you know, in front of this judge you know, the, charges are read, you know, possible sentence, 10 years in prison, which was longer than these other people. Right? And I have to look them in the eye, look at all these prisoners, right? Know that I could be sitting there in just a couple of months. Of course, that indictment is exactly what you said. It's a mechanism of intimidation, of destruction, right? one of the first things that my attorneys were told on that day during my arraignment was, are really going to do this? Like, are we really going to take this trial? Meaning, Why doesn't he just plead? Why doesn't he just admit to something? We could just get all of this over with. But that was never gonna happen.

Anish Koka: It's an incredible story. When, and then it gets even stranger. Of course, you know, there's this incompetence, there's the attempt to basically essentially blackmail you. Then you find your lawyers find a number of interesting financial connections between Tina Ansari, her family and Texas Children's. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Eithan Haim: Yeah, well, you know, I had actually discovered those. You know, my attorneys are great. Yeah, yeah, you know, it's someone had told me that I was at some some dinner, right? Because, you know, my name was public at the time. And so I was at some dinner for like a bunch of Texas politicians. And, you know, one of the Texas politicians comes up to me and he's like, hey, know, like, I went to law school with Tina's brother and, you know, they own some big coffee company.

Anish Koka: You discovered this, wow.

Eithan Haim: And I don't know why, it just stuck in my mind. like, I didn't do anything about it the next couple of weeks, but then, you know, ⁓ a couple of losses, like big losses, I just Googled it. You know, I typed in the name, coffee Houston, and then didn't find anything, but I kept on looking. And then I found this entire web, this complex web where it showed that In the months after sent agents to my home, that her family members had started donating, going to massive fundraisers for ⁓ Children's Hospital, that her aunt was appointed to the board of Harris Health, which is within the TCH Baylor Consortium, that her aunt is a well-known Baylor TCH fundraiser that these people that her uncle was on the board of TCH and also MD Anderson and all these different hospitals. So, you know, yeah, of course, once that evidence was made known to the Southern District of Texas, she quickly removes herself from the case.

Anish Koka: Wow, so she exits from the case, she recuses herself from the case.

Eithan Haim: Yeah, and the funny thing is, it's kind of like an Irish goodbye, but legal style, because she tried to do so under a sealed motion. But it was very obvious she had recused herself because it was in between the second and third diamond. And when her name didn't show up on the third diamond, we know that motion in between that was sealed was her recusing herself. So what happened was the Babylon Bee and Dillon, entered into the case, you know, as like a third party to say, want this motion unsealed. We want to know what's behind it. And it ends up being unsealed by the judge. So yeah, it was the prosecutor recusing herself.

Anish Koka: Wow. see wasn't removed from the case. ⁓ She herself, essentially.

Eithan Haim: Um, yeah, yeah, as far as I think it was voluntary, um, but I'm sure, you know, it's like, it's kind of like once something like that is made known, you can't really, um, you know, continue on, right?

Anish Koka: Right. Right. Right, So and again, just you're getting ready to go to trial. know, Trump has won the election. January 20th is January 20th, right? Is not is inauguration and January 24th. day for you. Correct. Twenty twenty five.

Eithan Haim: Yeah, well, and before that, things had really degenerated. They had devolved into complete chaos starting in November of 2024 after the election. Because ⁓ the second indictment fell apart, after the whole thing with the conflicts, it obvious that like,

Anish Koka: Hmm.

Eithan Haim: I started gaining momentum on X. People were really, really starting to pay attention to what was going on. So that's when there was a de facto gag order placed against me where I was threatened with jail if I continued to speak out. because a de facto gag order wasn't signed, I had to appeal, in which I couldn't do anyway because we were $2 million in debt. during the hearing for the gag order, a threat was made that if I keep on speaking out, I'm gonna go to jail. But the content of what that means to speak out wasn't made clear. So of course, it's a de facto gag order. If you're not told what you can and can't say, you essentially don't have a first amendment. So that was, and at that point, we were so...

Anish Koka: Why? What was the basis of the gag order? Because you were talking too much on X? Like what does that even do?

Eithan Haim: Yeah, well, because they had said that I could pressure this jury into cyberbullying. They were worried about cyberbullying. That's what they said in their motion. And it's important to put this in context. I had never been recognized publicly. To this day, I've never been recognized publicly. The Southern District of Texas is one of the largest districts in the entire country. For me, as this lowly defendant, I have no capacity to influence a jury. So that's their argument. ⁓ judge bought into it. I mean, there was no basis which is why gag order wasn't signed. But of course, this how the system works, they wanted to silence me so they just threatened to send me to jail. at that point, we were so beaten down, ⁓ far in debt, that I was like, well, I can't do anything. What am gonna do? know, it's like, I'm completely...

Anish Koka: So that was, this is some judge that's signing off on that.

Eithan Haim: Yeah, yeah. It would be the judge who is overseeing trial. Yeah, so and that was gonna be just in February, so a couple months later. So like, November, December, I'm just completely losing it because there's ⁓ a lot

Anish Koka: ⁓ wow, okay.

Eithan Haim: distance between what's happening in Washington and then what's happening to me. Like for someone like me to get people's attention in Washington is essentially like it's very very difficult, you know, like like we had made some moves that kind of worked but not really. So after the Trump took office January 20th, what happened the very next day was that the DOJ prosecutors were escalating my case towards trial, right? And what that meant is that every single day we escalate towards trial, hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's just another pressure mechanism. And this was one day after Trump signed the executive order to end the weaponization of the DOJ. So it's like him sign that order and them escalating it the day after was, it was made very clear what their intention was. Right? So at that point, it was the lowest moment, right? Where, you know, I kind of, had come apart as an individual because once my first amendment, my ability to speak was taken away, I lost everything, right? I had no ability to raise money, to fight back, to tell the truth about what was happening. I lost it. you know, we kind of went full. ⁓ You know kamikaze on January 22nd and my wife and I spoke out, you know, I've I you know, technically violated this de facto gag order which never really existed but that set off this entire series of events that are like hard to believe are true but You know these people were so upset that I called out their corruption that I was going to go to jail like the very next day And were going to move my trial up to the following Monday. in order to make this all go away, right, they said you have to sign this agreement, right, that will agree to dismiss this case without prejudice, which means they can bring it back in the future. But also you have to stay silent about this case. for another year and every member of your family has to stay silent for another year, which was intended for my wife. So essentially they got me to sign this agreement the point of a gun, right? And I signed it because I was gonna violate it that Monday. I figured I could use that weekend to try to like figure some things out by myself some time and just like screw, you know. say screw it on Monday and then speak out again and violate this agreement. But luckily that's when you know that were making calls to people in DC really using any contact we had and ⁓ transition in DC had heard about what was going on that like ⁓ I was being blackmailed into doing that like that that was illegal so that they had ⁓ then the people in DC had mandated that the Southern District of Texas dismiss my case with prejudice, which means they can never bring it back. And then I can also speak out afterwards. So this stipulation that there's a year-long gag order was not part of it. And then 24th, I was free. The day I thought I was going to jail was the day that the case was dismissed.

Anish Koka: Well... Amazing, The really remarkable thing is that our government is weaponized to such a degree that if the election goes the other way, you think you're in jail?

Eithan Haim: 100%. I mean, beforehand, before the election, my attorney had put me in contact with ⁓ guy who had been ⁓ with the intelligence agencies for a couple of decades, but then he had spent the last 25 years. His specialty human extraction from... ⁓ like Russia, India, Africa. So like if Americans went to these countries and ended up in prison, he was like the guy who people would call in like very high places to extract those people from those situations. Before the election, you know, one of my attorneys put me in contact with this guy because, you know, we knew that if it went the wrong way that these people were going to send us all to prison. So this guy, it was kind of like a wink and a nod, like... If you want to disappear and need a new passport, I'm the person to call. And I thought it was kind of BS. I thought it was like a ridiculous thing, but I reached out to a couple of other people who, you know, this guy was legit because, know, he very powerful people knew who he was and he's like their guy. ⁓ But yeah, it was kind of like today, I would have never done that because I would have never given up that, you know.

Anish Koka: Wow, wow. Yeah.

Eithan Haim: I have to sacrifice for this country, you ⁓ But that's how desperate things got.

Anish Koka: Right. That is just incredible. yeah, it again, it's really frustrating that people just act like, you know, you got sued, people get sued, you know, it happens and now everything's fine. It's like, that is not exactly the process. It's an arduous process. It must be such an emotional toll to like be like, Oh my God, I'm going to prison. You know, I mean, let alone forget, forget about like practicing medicine and all this stuff and having a family. It's like, Oh, I'm going to prison.

Eithan Haim: Yeah, I getting ready to ⁓ out which prison gang I was going to join. know, as a Jewish guy, it's kind of like a quandary, right? Is it like the white guys or the Hispanic guys? But it turns out it would be the white guys. Yeah.

Anish Koka: Wait, but this is, so you would go to prison while the trial is in progress?

Eithan Haim: ⁓ Well, that was kind of like the, yeah, was gonna go like towards the end when everything was really devolving. The morning of January 24th, yeah, which was a Friday, I was planning on, I thought I was gonna go ⁓ jail. that weekend and be in jail throughout the course of my trial, which was going to be moved up to that Monday, two months early or one month early. So like, of course it would have been a kangaroo court because no witnesses, no trial prep. The whole thing would have been a sham. I mean, the whole point of threatening me with jail and then moving up my trial was just to get me to sign this agreement which was done under duress. So of course it invalidated it from the beginning but that's the extent that that they're willing to go and not just prosecutors but judges.

Anish Koka: I see, I see. So the agreement that you signed said what?

Eithan Haim: So the agreement that I signed said that, forget what exactly, but it was agreement to both parties would agree that the case would be dismissed without prejudice and then a stipulation, right? Because like you can have the defense and prosecution come to an agreement, right? And. This was that agreement that it would be dismissed without prejudice and me and my family could never talk about the case for a year. And if, yeah, so that was this corrupt deal that, because they didn't think I would speak out again because of the gag order. But. ⁓

Anish Koka: Hmm, I see. But you were going violate it, you were going to violate it regardless, you think.

Eithan Haim: Yeah, yeah, yeah. you know, I mean, for me, like my attorneys were freaking out, understandably. So they were like losing their minds. But like me and my wife, we were like, totally cool. I mean, we were like, it sounds crazy. It really does. But like, I there was no hesitation. mean, my heart rate probably didn't get above like 70 the whole time. Because like at that point, it didn't I had already accepted my fate. So there was no way that Like I would let these people get away with this. ⁓

Anish Koka: So why sign the gag order at all? Or yeah, why sign that agreement at all?

Eithan Haim: Yeah, because it would give us enough time like over the weekend. Yeah. And plus I was operating the next day and I thought it would be like a very bad look if the police showed up when I was operating.

Anish Koka: ⁓ I see. ⁓ my god, man. Alright, so thank goodness that January 24th happened and the case is The case is dismissed with prejudice.

Eithan Haim: Yeah. with prejudice, which means they can never bring again. And it's legally actionable because it's an admission that the case was brought without legitimacy. It's a different, much higher standard than without prejudice.

Anish Koka: Make it over my back, okay. Okay. So I don't know how much you can speak about it. mean, ⁓ what they put you through, for what they did, there a civil suit that is ⁓ currently ongoing. you to say who the civil suit is against or anything like that? Or can you say anything generally about it?

Eithan Haim: Yeah, well, know, all I can say is that, you know, was, you know, Elon Musk and X Corporation decided to fund this lawsuit with the help of a law firm called Cher Jaffe. And, you know, I'm just very thankful for them and their willingness to try to seek justice for someone like me. And I feel very fortunate and privileged. And, know, it's one of those things where, like, I have to accept and I accepted a long time ago that, like, You know, I still carry half a million dollars in debt, right? It's like, you know, 99 % of the hospitals would never hire me because of everything I've been through, right? Because of all these lies that were told about me. And, you know, I've accepted the fact that justice will probably never be done, but, you know, at least the opportunity to try is something that, you know, there's no way to express how much appreciation there is with that.

Anish Koka: Okay. All right. Well, you know, many, best of luck in, that, ⁓ in that endeavor, certainly. the, the, so the last part, you know, thank you for, again, we're running a little late, but five more minutes here. ⁓ can tell me a little bit about what this means ⁓ for, every doctor? Because look, ⁓ forget the politics of it, right? ⁓ this is a very political thing. Unfortunately, it's a very politically coded thing. ⁓ but

Eithan Haim: No, no rush. Yeah.

Anish Koka: Say what's a lesson for a cardiologist in private practice a medical student a pathologist who sees something that's going wrong inside a big system What is your advice to them in terms of you know, what you know how to act given what you've been through?

Eithan Haim: Mm-hmm. So I would say that regardless of everything that happened, right? All the indictments, everything I've lost, all the pain and suffering, the of having blown the whistle and what that means to your soul and what that passes along to your children is so much greater. It's incalculable because, ⁓ you my family, ⁓ you we just out my wife is pregnant with twins last week and, you know, they're

Anish Koka: ⁓ my god, congrats.

Eithan Haim: You know, they can grow up knowing that their father had stood up when it was the hard thing to do. So like for other doctors or medical students who are residents in a similar situation, right? Yeah, it's scary, but like, man, it's the greatest feeling in the world to stand up to people who are, you know, fully corrupt and then tell them to like, to refuse to bow down to their evil. It's, a feeling which is indescribable and especially when you know you're doing it to fulfill your basic role as a doctor that like you can't fulfill your role in that job unless you do this thing which might ensure that you never work in the profession again. But it doesn't matter because you have to do it for your children because if you don't fight it now, then your children aren't going to have something to go into. And that's what so many of our parents understood before, right? Where, you know, they had given up. a lot in different situations, at least in my family, where they had risked their lives to do things would absolutely have gotten them killed. But they did it because it was right thing to do and those stories have carried on to us.

Anish Koka: Yeah, it's really remarkable because I think we all thought that we would be that person that would have courage when you read these stories as you're growing up and stuff. And then you're like the sole breadwinner and you're used to a certain standard of life. And then you have to be willing to let it all go. And in your case, mean, you have to be willing to go to prison.

Eithan Haim: Yeah.

Anish Koka: You have to be willing to never practice medicine. You have to be willing to, you know, okay, be an Uber driver. That is extremely hard. And you get to understand why in history and now it is so hard for folks who want because it's a rare thing, Eithan, to have people that are willing to risk it all, to have people that are say, okay, we're going to do this. We're going to do the right thing. And that may mean that, you

Eithan Haim: Yeah.

Anish Koka: everything that we have, everything that we've worked towards all these years is just taken away and gone.

Eithan Haim: Yeah, all that money, all the prestige, all that doesn't mean anything, especially now that I'm on the other side. Like having accepted the fact that, you know, like I can live in a trailer, I can have nothing, but at least my parent, my family, you know, my parents, my children, my siblings will know that was not a coward, that I can pass that legacy on to them. Because without that legacy, what's anything else, right?

Anish Koka: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well said. know, HIPAA was the cudgel here. Is that statute being weaponized? Do you see that you need we should change it? We should change it?

Eithan Haim: Yeah, absolutely. know, HIPAA allows a near unlimited amount of ability for corrupt prosecutors to destroy the lives of innocent people. And ⁓ what case will, what people should take from my case is that if you're a doctor and you're looking at a patient list, if any of those patients are not your patients, you're violating HIPAA, even if you don't access those charts, right? Just your eyes laying on those records an illegal violation that can put you in prison for 10 years. ⁓ ⁓ the DOJ's case against me boiled down to that fact right there is that me my eyes on something constituted a felony. Right, because they couldn't, right, it's not that I disclosed patient information, it's not that, right, because that's not what they charged me with. It wasn't that I accessed it because I didn't access it, right. It was merely me laying my eyes on it.

Anish Koka: Yeah.

Eithan Haim: That's the basis of their case. And if it happens to me, it can happen to anyone else. And all they have to do is decide that you're a good target for whatever reason, it's ⁓ want to climb the ladder of their professional hierarchy.

Anish Koka: It's just, but it's just so painfully dumb, right? It's like you have, okay, you have HIPAA, but then you have a mandatory reporting, know, requirement, right? We are mandatory reporters. If we, if we see, if we see something, not only should we not just mention it because we observed it, ⁓ I mean, need, we need to, we need to ⁓ ring to authorities or higher ups something. that is substantial. if that meant, if that means you investigating that, area of impropriety, yeah, that's what, that's what one should do. So ⁓ it's like, it's just, you know, just smacks much of ⁓ political, ⁓ you nonsense, persecution, that you can ignore that. and just use things very selectively, right? mean, you know, somebody who doesn't do what you did, they should, you can go after them for, you know, Joe Paterno is the case, ⁓ the case at Penn State, right? I mean, what was his sin? His sin was that he didn't report it enough ⁓ or right? ⁓ And anyway, it's it's really, really ridiculous. What does it, ⁓ does it you something about this conflict between

Eithan Haim: Exactly.

Anish Koka: privacy laws, HIPAA, what the state wants you to do.

Eithan Haim: it's, ⁓ course, whenever work at a hospital, ⁓ right, of any introduction, ⁓ you as they're onboarding you, you know, they say all this stuff about mandatory reporting, blowing the whistle, ⁓ but know all that is garbage. That ⁓ if do report these things that are going to be destroyed, especially if it's something politically related. So ⁓ now, but all depends on which... which political party is in control. And ⁓ fact is now, ⁓ you had some ⁓ person ⁓ decided to blow the whistle and say something was going wrong, I can tell you with very, very high degree of confidence, the would not be weaponized against them. Because it's like to use your authority to send someone innocent to prison, it's unfathomable.

Anish Koka: Mm.

Eithan Haim: This is something that is a unique characteristic to the political left. whenever they're in power, that's what's going to happen. And that's why the future is so important. If these people get back into power, what happened between 2020 and 2024 is going to seem like child's play compared to what's going to happen in the future.

Anish Koka: Yeah. Yeah, right. That's a great point, of course. You know, ⁓ Just power imbalance strikes me as so ridiculous. mean, here you have ⁓ a which has unlimited pockets versus you. You need hire lawyers. need to every day that they do something you have to respond is as you're saying. many, many millions, you know, overall accounts to millions of dollars, right? And in your particular case, if you hadn't gone public, right, you wouldn't have been able to raise any money, right? And even if even though you raised a million dollars, you're still a million dollars in the red or something. Is that what you just said?

Eithan Haim: Yeah, about half a million. Yeah. I mean, in the first three months when I was still anonymous, between June, 2023 and January, 2024, we had gone through our entire life savings of $300,000. Yeah. And that's the thing is like, you know, these resources go out the window very quick when it comes to federal criminal investigations and prosecutions, because you can't just hire anyone, right? If it...

Anish Koka: Wow. Wow. Wow. No, so we have a banana republic. mean, we really do. have a banana republic where, you know, is no, the government can do whatever they want to anyone because they just have ⁓ much, much deeper pockets. Who, mean, and you're a surgeon, your wife is ⁓ an And then have the savvy to like go public, do a GoFundMe, raise a million dollars. I mean, the average person is not going to be able to do this, right? The average person looking at all this is going to be like,

Eithan Haim: Yeah.

Anish Koka: And again, the indictments were basically fabricated based on false stuff that they kind of made essentially made up and gave the grand jury to land these indictments. The whole thing is just so horrendous. mean.

Eithan Haim: But you know, very revealing of who actually has the power in that situation. Because it seems like they have the power, right? Because they have all the resources, the FBI agents, ⁓ prosecutors, they have the entire federal Leviathan behind them. But who ended up winning in the end? It was me. And the simple reason, because ⁓ was telling the truth. In situations where the truth...

Anish Koka: Yeah. Right. But you're saying if the election had gone differently, you'd be sitting in jail right now.

Eithan Haim: I would still consider it winning because it's hard to imagine that. ⁓ losing if you to give in to them. It's not I'm in prison or I'm broke. It's whether they have bought my soul. That's really what comes down to. The only way they win is if they take away your dignity and your honor.

Anish Koka: haha

Eithan Haim: the two things that you have to give up voluntarily. They have no power to take that from you. The only person who controls that is you. So the power dynamic, I would say, is actually very unilateral, where the person telling the truth has all the power, even if they decide to put you in prison or kill you, right? You're the one who has the power, because that legacy of fighting against corruption will never die.

Anish Koka: Yeah, you know, it's, I'm telling you, it's, it's a rare thing. You know, I mean, you're like, you know, I mean, Dostoevsky in Russia, course, famously, you know, went to prison, right? He's essentially a political prisoner went, you know, four years in Siberia, Siberian labor camp. and yeah, I mean, the end of the day, Dostoevsky is immortal and he lives, lives forever. And you don't remember all the petty little people who basically did deals and went back to their little lives and never said anything again. Right. So.

Eithan Haim: Yeah.

Anish Koka: Yeah, I mean if you want to be one, if you want to be, if you want to yeah.

Eithan Haim: But the reason those stories are timeless, the reason you know about them is because they're true, right? That's the only reason. And it's actually a very simple calculus when you think about it, right? It's like you know these things are true because these stories have proven timeless. So when you're faced with that decision, it's like, well, of course, I'm not gonna do this one thing because...

Anish Koka: Yeah. Yeah. No, no, 100%. Yeah. Yeah. So.

Eithan Haim: The honorable, dignified thing is this other option, even though you might lose everything.

Anish Koka: Even though it may mean you go to a Siberian labor camp, but yes, you're, you're, you're, you're now wrong. Um, so, you know, do you, so you still don't think that looking back on this, you would still not have gone through institutional channels because that would not have led anywhere. Yeah. Because at the end of the day, they figured out, in the end the day, they figured out who you were anyway, Ethan, right? So what was the point of like being anonymous and doing all this stuff?

Eithan Haim: Yeah. no chance, no chance, absolutely not. I mean, it would... Yeah.

Anish Koka: Why not go ahead and go through in social channels, get rebuffed and then go to Rufo? Does that make the legal case better overall? Meaning now you have records that say, look, I mandatory reported this guy. He did not, you my hospital, whatever person, they no. And now I'm going here. Would that have made a difference?

Eithan Haim: Probably not. Now because you know, there was a couple of articles that came out between March 2022 and the time the whistle by the time I blew the whistle anonymously which made it like very very clear that it was like the chiefs of the department of pediatrics the highest levels so that that they were involved with with covering up this program. Yeah like there was an article from I think it was May 2022 from the

Anish Koka: Yeah. Hmm. Doing all this, okay, my goodness. Yeah.

Eithan Haim: former head of the department of pediatrics who, you she ended up leaving TCH, you know, pretty much acknowledged that, like, try to give this idea that they they shut down the program. And for that reason, she was leaving TCH because she was embarrassed that the hospital would do something, you know, so awful as to shut down a transgender program.

Anish Koka: The timeline of these procedures happening was of course before the bill passed saying you can't do this in Texas. Does that mean anything? since the procedures were not necessarily illegal before SB 14 or whatever passed in September, 2023, does that enter into any of this?

Eithan Haim: Mm-hmm. ⁓ Not necessarily, the whole, blowing the whistle was simply for the reason that the hospital was lying. You know, if the hospital had told the truth about what they were doing, of course there was no story, right? Because if you say, we we shut down the program in 2022, but... we actually restarted it and we said we restarted it, then of course, you're telling the truth. There's no story there. But the issue was that they said they were shutting it down, lied about it. And the timeline is actually pretty remarkable too, because I think it was March 4th, which was a Friday, that the statement was released. And it was March 7th that... Puri blockers were implanted in like a 12 year old kid who believed they were transgender. So they didn't even wait a business day, right, before they restarted it. So they were back to it like as soon as possible. was no intention to ever shut down the program. But it's like, well, the other whistleblower had, you know, alleged that even with the being passed, there may have been, you know, some misconduct, but we'll see about that. Maybe down the road we'll find out exactly what happened. now, like before the law was passed, it was all just about the hospital being dishonest about what they were telling the public.

Anish Koka: Hmm. you flip the tables, Eithan, you feel the same way? if there was a leftist, a left leaning meaning somebody who believes in general left type of thing, say when it came to like care of, ⁓ so you're a state, abortion is legal, ⁓ you ⁓ person X you know, an abortion and despite personal feelings, that's the law. And the hospital a mechanism to say, no, delays ⁓ in a that's legal or something like that, right? And turns away. If there was a left-leaning surgeon who then accessed or not accessed or ⁓ said, hey, this is happening and went to Mother Jones some left-leaning outlet, ⁓ how would you?

Eithan Haim: Mm-hmm.

Anish Koka: and then the Trump DOJ comes down on them and stuff. How would you feel? Is that...

Eithan Haim: Yeah, mean, if, yeah, like, if they can blow the whistle, of course, let them do it. Yeah.

Anish Koka: And there's no, yeah, right. do you think we live in a world where the Trump DOJ would do something like that?

Eithan Haim: And I think there's a key difference though, because they're not necessarily moral equivalent, because abortion is just killing a baby. that itself, fundamentally immoral. So trying to or increase the number abortions being done or doctors assisting with the of a baby, those are two fundamentally different But yeah, it's like if... If it was another situation where it was not killing baby, then I would absolutely. Like if it was a hospital line.

Anish Koka: Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's hard to come up with examples because we live in a world that is very, very coded. The establishment and all, you ⁓ can't really think of things. Yeah. ⁓

Eithan Haim: You know, let's say ⁓ an example I thought about was if you had like someone who was like a big time anti-Trump or like a defense contractor and you have this defense contractor who's, you know, making all these deals with prominent Republicans and it's corrupt, ⁓ they should absolutely. And even if they release classified information,

Anish Koka: Mm. Yeah. Yeah.

Eithan Haim: that of course there's kind of different ways you can do that, but if they deemed it was necessary to unreveal this very extensive amount of corruption, even if it implicated the highest people in the Trump administration, 100%, almost like what happened to Kristi Noem, right, with DHS, like revealed these that were going on between her people and DHS, good for them. ⁓ because there's no room for that kind of corruption. Like you can't let these weeds breed, right? Like it doesn't matter whose side it's on. Like it has to be exposed because whether it's on the left or right, of course, the left is like, this is kind of their MO, but it's much more common on the right than people think, this kind of corruption.

Anish Koka: Yeah, well, my point is, is the problem that the DOJ just has much power, meaning, you know, all these things I'm talking about, the asymmetry of power, the bank accounts, et cetera. Obviously the same DOJ could be weaponized against, you know, from the right, you know, the rights in against folks that are ⁓ leftist. I don't know that, ⁓ I mean, I'm not, have trouble finding examples of actually happening. I guess will say, ⁓ know, should you know, people want to indict Fauci and people want to indict Peter Marks and these folks. Do you think generally speaking, our DOJ is is is just have too much has too much power? Like should we take away their power to go after to go after individuals?

Eithan Haim: Well, in the sense of like, especially with like this disparity between the left and the right, it's so far-weighted to the left because when you, especially with my wife's previous experience at the DOJ, and especially everything that I went through, what you realize is like the entrenched norm within the federal criminal justice system is like 98 % left.

Anish Koka: Yeah.

Eithan Haim: So even if like the DOJ tried to weaponize their like under the Trump administration, they probably couldn't because they couldn't find the attorneys to do it. Because even most conservative attorneys won't even go after like Fauci and all these people who are so obviously guilty of like the most significant crimes. mean, like the cases against them would be like slam dunks. Like you have all these gender clinics across the country who are fraudulently billing Medicaid insurance companies. evidence is all over the internet, right? ⁓ still, like you don't have any criminal indictments because there's not enough criminal prosecutors who, number one, are competent enough, who have the political will, and then have the co-onase to through with it.

Anish Koka: It's almost like the one J. Bhattacharya for instance, he was a current NIH director, right? He has, the kind of withering, not criticism, not just ⁓ sticks, don't, obviously, it wasn't just words. mean, these were actual things where went out of their way to kind of discredit him and then ⁓ things that at Stanford. You know, his response once he becomes an ice director, right, is not to try to go after Francis Collins, who was a former and ice director who still to this day runs around in churches saying, you know, well, you know, the things that are happening here are very bad, very bad. You know, I mean, he, tries to seem very adultish about it, but I still to this day have not heard Jay Bhattacharya in his role as an ice director say anything. He's just trying to move on beyond Francis Collins. He's trying to move on beyond Fauci. You people are constantly like, ⁓ lock him up, lock him up, lock him up. And, you know, he's trying to move on. Yeah. Yeah.

Eithan Haim: Yeah, and I've met ⁓ Dr. Bhadacharya and I think he is one of my idols. And really, he's one of the most amazing people. Seeing his trajectory and then being able to meet him. I was in DC one time and it was the greatest privilege ever. But I respectfully contend that ⁓ he would be wrong in this situation because I realized is that these people are apex predators. They are monsters. That they are willing

Anish Koka: Yeah. Yeah.

Eithan Haim: What it takes for someone to destroy an innocent person knowing what that like someone like dr Batari is doing is like the virtuous thing for them to destroy him takes this inhuman savagery For them to do what they did to me wake up every day use all of their energy and resources knowing I was innocent but trying to send me to prison because they You know, they absolutely knew I was innocent just by the nature of their indictments. They had to have those conversations. How are we going to bring this indictment? Those people in a civilized society cannot roam freely, right? There can be no given to them in.

Anish Koka: Hmm.

Eithan Haim: What that would translate, giving mercy to the guilty, to these people who are predators, will only allow it to thrive and then get to the point where your children come into a situation and they will get consumed by those same predators, which is why these people cannot go free. while people like Fauci, Collins, these people commit the most heinous crimes and they to be locked into a prison. for what they did to me and so many other people.

Anish Koka: ⁓ Yeah, but you're pointing out this distinction between right and left. It feels like the right were to do ⁓ that. It's like, what's the, then what is the differentiator? How does one differentiate? Because, they you're evil. They think you're an orc. how does one grow beyond that? Yeah.

Eithan Haim: The difference... well the difference is that those, yeah, and you know, that's a key point because the difference is those people objectively committed crimes. They objectively lied, hurt people. You know, in my case, what they're doing to these children is objectively wrong. They're sterilizing them. They're convincing them of something that's not true. Because just like, you know, when you do a heart cath on someone,

Anish Koka: Yeah.

Eithan Haim: It is either true or not true whether that person has a blockage in artery and you have to do a thrombectomy. Just like for me, it's either true or not true if someone's bleeding or not and I have to open them up and control that bleeding. Like there is absolutely a truth in this world that is objective and also a moral order that's objective. What these people did was violated the most basic tenets of the objective moral order. Whether you believe in God or not, believe in the former. But ⁓ these people did is ⁓ and you if you had a Martian come to the earth but they were imbued with human logic and they were to see what people like Fauci and Collins, what all these gender doctors had done, what their conclusion would be. Absolutely. These people are the criminals. The ones who are trying to preserve life, preserve goodness, to preserve the healthy bodies of young children, right? To let them up the way they meant to be. Those were the ones who are innocent and trying to preserve truth, justice, and beauty and happiness. That's, ⁓ if these people ⁓ and cry about us weaponizing our justice about, for people who are abject criminals, then let them scream and cry. Who cares? Right? Of course they're going to scream and cry. ⁓ That shouldn't prevent us ⁓ making sure ⁓ we provide a better future for our children.

Anish Koka: Yeah. Yeah, no, ⁓ a goes saying that, I mean, Tuskegee, was right? the people that perpetrated Tuskegee, you know, ⁓ bad things should happen them. what happened in World Two? the list goes on and on and on, of course, in terms of, of course, is, justice, there needs to be a society where justice matters. ⁓ So, yeah, I that we lost the ability discern sometimes, but think ⁓ having ⁓ like that ⁓ mark very what one believes be they're very important to out there. Because now, don't have that. Like anyone that says and speaks the way you're speaking, Eithan, is not allowed to I mean, it's very rare. I think that's real problem the fabric of medicine today.

Eithan Haim: Yeah. And also for people like us, it's like, you know, just as aggressive as we are with exposing corruption on left, you know, like we can read these indictments from the Department of Justice. If they don't make sense, if they look like BS, you know, we're obligated to say like, hey, like these indictments are phony. Like you should not, you should not be indicting these people. And because like, like I always thought, you know, as my prosecution was ongoing, it's like,

Anish Koka: Right. Right. Right.

Eithan Haim: I would never want any of these people to go through what I went through. It's like to do this to like my worst political enemy, right? Somebody who hated me. I could never even fathom it. I would never want them to go through something like that because it not only dehumanizes the person, but dehumanizes the people who are perpetuating it because it's like to see another human to send someone innocent to prison. You know, like it corrupts whatever system is behind that. Yeah, yeah. So it's like, if we want to win and see our children go to a, you know, have a better future, we have to be just as aggressive on our own side about that.

Anish Koka: Corpse of soul, yeah. Absolutely. Right. No, absolutely. was trying ⁓ best I can to kind of stay away the the left right coding thing a little bit, but impossible to ⁓ avoid. And I'm glad you're ⁓ saying it. But, you think about the underlying whatever you think about the the architecture of what happened, I think. What happened to you? What happened to Heim should worry every doctor in America, you have a hospital system you have Conflicted federal prosecutor you indictments that are based on Information is that is You have ⁓ a statute being reached for for HIPAA, which is normally misdemeanor All of this is being weaponized being used as a weapon against against citizens against a physician who did exactly what mandatory reporter ⁓ laws say a physician is supposed to do so i for one that will be following the civil case ⁓ where you're trying to get justice and that's exactly what i'm so glad that you're doing and i'm glad that you the folks that are supporting you in doing that and hopefully even we can't on a time we can have you back ⁓ When there's news about that. So thank you so much for spending as much time as you have Congrats for the the twins much know, wish you the to your wife and you the family ⁓

Eithan Haim: Of course, and I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Anish Koka: Thanks so much, Eithan.