▶ 0:02:19The subcommittee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. We welcome everybody to today's hearing on ending lawfare against whistleblowers. I will now recognize myself for an opening statement. The rule of law demands equal application without fear or favor. That's why we find ourselves here again today to continue our work to hold the Biden Harris administration accountable for their weaponization and political prosecution against their perceived adversaries.
▶ 0:02:47Over the past four years, we witnessed the Department of Justice be weaponized against parents, traditionalist Catholics, and peaceful pro-life protesters and grandmothers. Take for example two of our witnesses here today, Dr. Dr. Ethanheim and Vanessa Civage, whistleblowers who revealed that their employer, the Texas Children's Hospital in my home state, was performing transgender medical interventions on minors.
▶ 0:03:15Here, the largest children's hospital in the country, was shamefully involved in manipulating, mutilating, and sterilizing young, confused adolescent children with lifealtering procedures in the name of gender transition. This was despite its public statements declaring they paused these harmful procedures in light of the Texas Attorney General's opinion deeming these experiments to be child abuse. Yet, the Biden Harris Department of Justice subsequently charged Dr.
▶ 0:03:42Heim with HIPPA violations for protecting patients by releasing documents detailing this abuse despite all personally identifiable information having been carefully redacted. Dr. face penalties of up to 10 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines. Here, the HIPPA statute merely became one more tool that the Biden Harris Department of Justice engineered in its yearslong crusade against political dissenters instead of equally enforcing the law.
▶ 0:04:12Key to all of this was DOJ's lead prosecutor, assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, Tina Ansari. Serious ethical questions stemmed related to Mrs. Ansari's prosecution of doc Dr. Heim, including allegedly presenting knowingly false information to a grand jury in order to secure an initial indictment, threatening employment retaliation against Dr. He's wife as a form of intimidation.
▶ 0:04:40Failing to disclose her substantial financial ties to Texas Children's Hospital through her family's commercial coffee company. Not divulging having family members previously on the hospital's board of directors. Attending a VIP reception at a hospital fundraiser while the case was pending. Practicing law despite her law license having been suspended by the Texas bar for failure to pay bar dues. Though Ansari was eventually removed from the case series, questions remain about the DOJ's commitment to providing American citizens with a fair trial.
▶ 0:05:10The Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Health and Human Services Division abuse their enforcement authority to advance left-wing policy goals and coers whistleblowers to keep their mouths shut. where agencies serve to protect the financial incentives of American hospitals by prosecuting health care workers who dare expose the barbaric performance of transgender medical care on minors.
▶ 0:05:32When the left captures institutions, those who descent can face legal expenses, reputational damage, and harassment, all of which deter future whistleblowers from coming forward. Here, prosecution itself becomes the punishment. And Dr. crimes prosecution raises questions about the DOJ's propriety and the use of federal resources to wage culture wars highlighting the emboldened behavior of the judicial branch and I find this particularly disturbing to me personally having served as an assistant United States attorney.
▶ 0:06:02This is not what the Department of Justice is supposed to do where rogue prosecutors and judges knowingly sponsor falsities and hide conflicts of interest in order to harass an individual for holding a disfavored view. These individuals wielding political power continue to be a primary threat to our institutions and personal freedoms. Therefore, this hearing touches upon two tragedies. Weaponization of government against innocent civilians who did the right thing and harmful lifealtering medical procedures against innocent children and parents.
▶ 0:06:32All so that hospitals and medical providers can profit. While the Trump administration rightfully ended the prosecution of Dr. Heim, that's not enough. The American people deserve to know that they will not face prosecution on the basis of their political views or which administration is in power.
▶ 0:06:50It is long past time for Congress to address this weaponization, investigating the extent of such DOJ partisanship, publicly exposing how it came to be brought and ensuring hospitals are not secretly inflicting irreversible damage on children. We must identify rogue prosecutors, permanently removing them from their positions. Our agencies must no longer be seen as a safe harbor to weaponize authority. The message from this Congress and the Trump administration must be clear. Abuse of authority will not be tolerated.
▶ 0:07:19You will be held accountable. While we must act to reverse these wrongful prosecutions, it is not merely enough to end the Biden era discrimination. We must ensure that the left is never again able to capture our institutions for future weaponization, ensuring Americans will not find themselves as collateral I thank our witnesses who know these abuses all too well for being here today to address the need for fundamental and permanent reforms of the Department of Justice. And I'd only add one final concluding remarks.
▶ 0:07:48We had a witness last year, Khloe Cole, who gave passionate testimony in this room about the impact on her life, her personal ability to bear children in the future and be a mom. All because of the pressures being brought to bear by this politicization of this personal um issues that have been taken away from parents and families and then thrust upon our youth through social media and technology and the people who want to profit from this politicization.
▶ 0:08:17And it's shameful and it's harmful. And thank God for people like Khloe Cole and thank God for the witnesses here who have stood up to speak the truth so the American people can know what's happening and parents can protect their children. And with that, I will yield to the ranking member for her opening Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to witnesses. Since this is the subcommittee of judiciary on the Constitution, I just wanted to take a couple minutes to take stock of our constitutional order.
▶ 0:08:46Today, the president and his allies are attacking the pillars of our civil society, including the courts, universities, and the free press, trampling on the Constitution and the rule of law through executive orders, threatening the very foundations of our democratic republic and the rights and freedoms of our people. In an unconstitutional power grab, the administration, aided and enabled by Mr.
▶ 0:09:12Musk is dismantling federal agencies and freezing federal funding for critical services. They're indiscriminately firing hardworking public servants, jeopardizing not only their livelihoods, but the health, safety, and well-being of the American people whom they serve. Seniors are scared that Elon Musk's doge is coming for their social security and Medicare, too.
▶ 0:09:34This administration is branding all immigrants as criminals and it's embarked on a lawless campaign of terror, including wrongfully arresting US citizens and deporting innocent people with legal status. Doctors are terrified that this administration's funding cuts and antivaccine rhetoric will worsen the highly contagious measles outbreak that's already killed two children, the first measles deaths in this country in more than a decade.
▶ 0:10:02And to top it off, the president launched an irresponsible and costly tariff war, bringing chaos and volatility to markets across the globe and handcuffing working families and American businesses to his sinking economy. Congress has a constitutional duty to act as a check and balance on an outofcrol executive to fight for the people we represent and stand up to the madness coming from the White House. But so far, our Republican colleagues don't seem up to the job.
▶ 0:10:32Instead, they're wasting the time and resources of the Constitution subcommittee to give a platform to right-wing extremists, seeking to sew more chaos and division in order to distract Americans from Republicans utter failure to engage with the most pressing issues facing our country. So, let's start by getting a few facts straight. The subject of today's hearing, Dr. Etanheim was not criminally charged for his political views.
▶ 0:11:00Instead, he was indicted by a grand jury for stealing the personal medical records of children and giving them to a right-wing activist. These were criminal violations of HIPPA or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. According to the indictment, Dr. H obtained unauthorized individually identifiable health information of pediatric patients who were receiving gender affirming care at Texas Children's Hospital and who were not his patients.
▶ 0:11:30At the time Dr. Heim was accessed the records, gender affirming care was legal under Texas law and he knew that. Dr. Heim also knew that the children were not his patients and therefore he had no legal right to access their medical records. Even if Dr. Heim believed his allegation, however erroneously, that this care amounted to child abuse, he didn't follow any of the official procedures to report that concern to supervisors, as he'd been trained to do.
▶ 0:12:00Instead, he shared the stolen records, not with child welfare authorities, but with a conservative activist, Christopher Rufo. He knew that the law was designed to protect patient privacy, and he chose to break it. This is an openand-shut case. And that's why the grand jury determined that there was enough evidence to charge him with criminal HIPPA violations. So, it wasn't the Department of Justice that politicized Dr. Heim's case when it charged him with a blatant violation of HIPPO privacy laws. It was Dr.
▶ 0:12:30Heim himself who came up with a political excuse for his illegal actions. And it was the Trump administration that dropped the charges against an ideological ally in a way that serves its own political agenda. That should give us all pause. The Department of Justice's creed has always been to operate free from fear or favor. In other words, independent of political bias. But we're already seeing that's not true under the Trump administration.
▶ 0:12:58Earlier this week, we heard testimony from a DOJ attorney who was fired because she refused to recommend that the gun rights of one of the president's celebrity buddies be restored because of deep concerns about his history of domestic violence. Over the weekend, we heard of a DOJ lawyer who was placed on leave when he refused to manufacture law or facts to support the government's case, which would be a violation of ethics and the rule of law.
▶ 0:13:24And among other egregious examples, these past few months, the DOJ dismissed this case and others despite clear and grotesque invasions of patient privacy because the White House wants to attack gender affirming care. And Americans have to wonder then, what other invasions of your medical privacy will this administration encourage given the administration's embrace of project 2025? Is reproductive healthcare next? So why are we having this hearing?
▶ 0:13:53For one thing, it's yet another chance for our Republican colleagues to spread misinformation about transgender individuals and their medical care because they think they'll score political points by bullying the young people receiving that care and their families. Regardless of the fact that every major medical and mental health institution in the US, representing more than 1.3 million doctors, supports age appropriate, age appropriate, gender affirming care for transgender people.
▶ 0:14:21And that includes the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Endocrine Society, among other But this is part of a pattern in practice for our colleagues who are too willing to disregard Americans fundamental rights and freedoms in order to meddle in people's personal medical decisions for political gain.
▶ 0:14:49Injecting their own religious or political beliefs into choices that rightly should be left between individuals, their families, and their doctors. It's abundantly clear that our Republican majority only cares about some rights and freedoms for some people rather than those that all Americans should enjoy. In addition to spreading misinformation, this hearing is meant to distract Americans while while our Republican colleagues continue to ignore the real problems.
▶ 0:15:16And we don't have to look far to find out why our colleagues chose to have this hearing this week. Believe me, bullying transgender kids and families is not the number one concern for any of our constituents. I know because I've been holding town halls in my district and in some of theirs, too. No, our constituents number one concern is how they're going to pay for housing, health care, food, clothes, college, and retirement.
▶ 0:15:43With the global economy and stock markets tanking and predictions of a recession rising by the hour and Elon Musk and Doge gutting social security, the VA, food support, and freezing funding that our communities rely upon. At the same time, in the midst of all this chaos and economic disruption, House Republicans are trying to pass an unpopular budget plan that would be devastating for American children and families.
▶ 0:16:10They're proposing at least 880 billion in cuts that will decimate Medicaid. Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program or CHIP provides health coverage for over 37 million kids and covers 41% of all births. Their plan will rip health care coverage away from millions of Americans with children and working families bearing the brunt. Kids will be left without routine medical care, leading to greater infant mortality and tragic consequences from preventable illnesses.
▶ 0:16:41It doesn't stop there, either. Republicans are also targeting programs that help working families keep food on the table. Their budget blueprint calls for billions of dollars of cuts that threaten SNAP, a program that provides food support to over 42 million families. They'll jeopardize a parents ability to buy the groceries they need to feed their kids healthy meals.
▶ 0:17:00Cuts to SNAP also endanger other nutrition assistance programs like the special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children or wick because they use Medicaid data to automatically enroll children. If fewer families can access SNAP and Medicaid, fewer will be able to access WICK as well. The budget will also cut over 300 billion from Department of Education programs, threatening, among other thing, kids access to nutritious school meals that they need to learn and grow.
▶ 0:17:30At the same time, Elon Musk and his Doge bros are trying to dismantle the entire Department of Education outright, destroying an agency that helps ensure that children, no matter their parents' jobs, zip codes, or special learning needs, can access a highquality education. They say that our budgets reflect our values. And it's clear that instead of using their power in Congress to actually protect children, our Republican colleagues would rather pull the rug out from under them, ripping away resources that set them up for success.
▶ 0:18:00And why? So they can give tax breaks to big business and their billionaire buddies like Elon Musk. American children should never be used as pawns or props in MAGA's culture where they're our country's future and we should always be working to ensure that the future is a better and brighter one for them. The Republican majority's plan and this hearing shamefully miss that mark. I yield back. Then I'd recognize the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Jordan.
▶ 0:18:30Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The left has a template. The left will tell a lie. Big media will report the lie. big tech will amplify the lie and then if you tell the truth they call you names time and time we saw it all during co almost everything they told us turned out to be co they said oh no the virus didn't come from a lab it was a bat to a penglin to a hippopotonomist to Joe Rogan and then we all got it right they said oh no the vaccinated can't get it the vaccinated can't transmit it and if you said anything against
▶ 0:19:00that they told us the first virus in history where there's no such thing as natural immunity if you said anything against that. They came after you. Science denier, crazy right-wing Republican idiot. They call us all kinds of names. And now in today's context, the same playbook, the same template is being used. The left says, "Oh, these surgeries are fine." Really, some people have some concerns about that. Texas took a position on it, but they tell us it's fine, and if you say anything against that, you're a you're a no good whatever name they're going to call you.
▶ 0:19:30And then when it comes to whistleblowers, oh my goodness, if you speak out, they not only call you names, they bring the government against you. We saw it with every single whistleblower who came forward last year in the government. Dr. Heim's not in the government, but he had the U. He had the Department of Justice come after him saying he violated HIPPA, which he did not. That's why this hearing is so darn important. Why it is so darn important. Every single whistle.
▶ 0:19:59We saw what they did to Mr. Shappley. We saw what they did to Mr. Ziggler. Every FBI whistleblower who came forward to this committee last Congress had their security clearance taken away from them, which put them in a no man's land. They couldn't get employment, couldn't leave. They were You talk about retaliation against whistleblowers in the government. So, I want to thank you, doctor, for coming forward. I want to thank our chairman. He has been the leading leading person in the Congress on this committee on this issue. Uh, we want to thank you and we look forward to your testimony. Thank you, Mr.
▶ 0:20:30Lidle, because you defended a lot of these whistleblowers who had the courage to come forward and stand up against what the left does every stinking time. I yield back. I thank the chairman. I will now recognize the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Rasin, for his opening statement. And thank you, Chairman Roy and Miss Scanlin, for convening us today. Um, I was psyched to learn that we were having a hearing about quote legislative reforms aimed at protecting minors.
▶ 0:20:56I thought we were going to get together to oppose Donald Trump's threat to health care for 37 million children who rely on Medicaid and the CHIP program. After all, they want to cut 885 billion dollar from it. Alas, that's not on the agenda. I thought maybe we'd come together to stop Trump from cutting benefits for 15 million children who rely on SNAP benefits to get the nutrition they need in America.
▶ 0:21:23Or perhaps we could be opposing the gutting of the Department of Education, which ensures 26 million low-income students and 7 and a half million students with disabilities get access to real educational opportunities. We could stand together really for children, but no such luck. Instead, we're here to talk about Dr.
▶ 0:21:42Ethanheim, a man who, according to a May 2024 criminal indictment returned by a unanimous grand jury of citizens in Texas, unlawfully obtained and disclosed the medical records of children in violation of HIPPA, a law Congress passed in 1996 to establish standards protecting health information from disclosure without the consent of the patient. According to this criminal indictment, Dr.
▶ 0:22:10quote obtained personal information including patient names, treatment codes, dates of service, and attending physicians from Texas Children Hospitals electronic system without authorization and under the false pretenses that he needed the access for the provision of medical services to patients under his care. He lied. They were not under his care.
▶ 0:22:36He lied to get access to the medical records of four adolescents who were not his patients. And what did he do with those patient medical records? Did he go to the Department of Social Services as instructed by law? Did he go to the police? He thought they were in danger of child abuse. No. He went to Christopher Rufo, a right-wing conservative activist and provocator to put them out into the media. Now, Dr.
▶ 0:23:03claims he did this and my colleagues alas are celebrating him for this because he believes that the gender affirming care these patients were receiving from licensed physicians was quote child abuse under Texas law. Now, if he truly believed he had evidence of child abuse, Dr. Hay knew he had many avenues to report it by going to a public health authority or the Department of Social Services or the police.
▶ 0:23:27As his criminal indictment states, as a Baylor University medical resident, he received quote extensive HIPPA training that he attended numerous trainings where he was provided information related to anonymous reporting of any instances of child abuse, misconduct, or ethics violations.
▶ 0:23:44The HIPPA implementing regulations specifically authorizes disclosure to quote a public health authority or any other appropriate government authority authorized by law to receive reports of child abuse or child neglect. Yet, after unauthorized, individually personally identifiable health information from young people who were not his patients. Dr.
▶ 0:24:12Hay made no attempt to report any concerns through any of the authorized government channels to his supervisors or to his employers anonymous hotline to the police or to child protective services as directed by his training and mandated by Texas law.
▶ 0:24:28Instead, he went to a right-wing culture warrior whose recent articles have been titled, "There's a trans cult inside the NSA and the NSA secret sex checks." Now, let's be clear that the gender affirming care that Texas Children's Hospital uh was providing was not child abuse. All major medical associations agreed that evidence-based gender affirming care is necessary and in some instances it's lifesaving for transgender youth.
▶ 0:24:57That care was also legal at the time the hospital provided it to adolescent patients whose medical privacy Dr. Hay violated. Only later did the legislature pass its ban on these practices. But with all due respect, Dr. Hay makes a very strange whistleblower.
▶ 0:25:16He's a doctor who fraudulently obtained the medical records of youth who were not his patients, not under his care, and then he used them for blatantly political and ideological purposes to make a splash and a name for himself as an anti-trans crusader. and he's got every right to do it, but he doesn't have a right to violate other people's privacy and violate HIPPA. Now, I know what my colleagues think of people who leak sensitive personal information.
▶ 0:25:44Take the case of the former IRS contractor who exposed the tax avoidance practices of billionaires, including Donald Trump, by disclosing thousands of returns to news groups. That contractor was prosecuted, and he received a 5-year prison sentence. He had no pardon. Yet, Chairman Jordan has opened an investigation because he thinks that five-year sentence was not enough. He thought it was far too lenient. But now, he wants to lionize and valorize Dr. Hay. Why?
▶ 0:26:14My colleagues want to uphold Dr. Hay as some kind of moral role model and exemplar. So, let's take his example to its logical conclusion. if it's going to be fine now to steal other children's private health care information and turn it over to the media if they believe the child's being harmed and despite the fact that the law provides an authorized way to do it. So say I'm a doctor in Texas and I know that the law requires you to get a vaccine for measles. the kids have got to be vaccinated.
▶ 0:26:44And I overhear a colleague of mine saying that multiple patients whose parents don't believe in vaccinating their children are not being vaccinated. And so I try to talk to that doctor. That doctor says everything is fine. Leave it alone. Now I suspect child abuse, but I don't go to the Department of Social Services. I don't go to the police.
▶ 0:27:03No, I break into the computer system or I uh I convince someone I really have authority to get in the computer system and I take their records and then I go to show not the Department of Social Services, not the police, not a health authority, but I go to a media outlet. I go to pro-accine organizations and I say, "Release this information on that family. Those parents are not letting their kids get vaccinated and I'm going to be a hero.
▶ 0:27:32I'm going to be a whistleblower even though I'm not following the law. Are are my colleagues okay with that? I'm I'm fascinated to know. I know I've got some libertarian colleagues there. The distinguished gentleman from Kentucky, would he be fine? Would he be lionizing somebody who breaks into a computer system to get other parents' children's vaccination information to release it? Because I think it's child abuse not to vaccinate kids for measles.
▶ 0:27:57And by the way, I do think it's child abuse in Texas today with an outbreak of measles where children are dying not to have your children vaccinated. But I would never break the law and violate that family's HIPPA rights and those patients HIPPA rights by stealing it and turning it over to a public interest group and to the media. This is where we are today. So please act like the judiciary committee. Follow through on the logic of what it is you're saying. This is not a whistleblower we're dealing with.
▶ 0:28:26It is a law violator. We should be here talking about what we can really do to help children instead of plunging everybody into this me exercise in absolute moral hypocrisy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Thank the ranking member. Without objection, all of their opening statements will be included in the record. We will now introduce today's witnesses. Dr. Ethan Heim. Dr. Dr. Heim is a surgeon at Hunt Regional Medical Center in Greenville, Texas.
▶ 0:28:56During his residency, Dr. Heim blew the whistle on the pediatric transgender medicine program at Texas Children's Hospital, and assisted with the Texas Attorney General's investigation into violations of state and federal law. Dr. Heim was indicted by the Biden Department of Justice for allegedly disclosing protected information as described in my opening statement. Mr. Mark Little. Mr. Little is a partner at Nixon Peabody and an attorney for Dr. Heim.
▶ 0:29:21previously served as a staff attorney in the enforcement division of the SEC, as a prosecutor in the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, in the Department of Justice, and in the White House Council's office. Miss Vanessa Civage. Miss Civage is the founder of Protecting Texas Children, an advocacy organization that is focused on safeguarding children from sexualization and exploitation.
▶ 0:29:42She is a registered nurse who also blew the whistle in the pediatric transgender medicine program at Texas Children's Hospital, which fired her in retaliation for her disclosure. Mr. Bruce Lesley. Mr. Leslie is the president of First Focus on Children, an advocacy organization focused on making children a priority in federal policy and budget decisions. He previously served as a House and Senate staffer. We thank our witnesses for appearing today, and we'll begin by swearing you in.
▶ 0:30:09Would you please rise and raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief? So, help you God. Let the record reflect that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative. Thank you, and please be seated. Please know that your written testimony will be entered into the record in its entirety accordingly. We ask you to summarize your testimony in 5 minutes.
▶ 0:30:38There's a clock that should be running in front of you. I'll just remind you to turn your microphones on before you speak. And with that, Dr. Heim, you'll be our first witness, and you may begin. Thank you all for taking the time to listen to our testimony. My name is Etonheim. I'm a general and trauma surgeon. I was the anonymous whistleblower who exposed Texas Children's Hospital, the largest children's hospital in the world, for lying about the existence of their transgender program, a program that would manipulate, mutilate, and sterilize healthy young children.
▶ 0:31:09There's a reason I'm here today is because for exposing this truth, my own government manufactured a case to send me to prison for 10 years. The story starts in February 2022 when the Texas Attorney General issued an opinion that transgender interventions could constitute child abuse. A few weeks later, TCH released a statement to the media. They were shutting down their program because of quote potential ramifications.
▶ 0:31:37Not long after I discovered this was a blatant lie. The reason I knew this is because I worked there. Between 2018 and 2023, I was a surgery resident at Baylor College of Medicine, which is primarily affiliated with TCH. They not only continued their program, they expanded it. All this was happening behind closed doors. On May 16th, investigative journalist Christopher Rufo published a story exposing this. I was the anonymous whistleblower in that story.
▶ 0:32:07One day later, the conduct we exposed was made illegal in the state of Texas with bipartisan support partially because our story came out the day before. On May 19th, the Texas Attorney General initiated an investigation into the hospital. On May 23rd, another whistleblower spoke out. That was Vanessa Civage. She's here today.
▶ 0:32:31Despite crossing the highest possible threshold for a whistleblower on June 23rd, a month after the story's release, two armed agents with HHS showed up to my home on the day of my graduation, a few hours before the ceremony, one of the most important days of my life. This was the moment I learned I was under federal investigation, federal criminal investigation by the United States Department of Justice. The target letter was signed by an assistant US attorney, Tina Ansari.
▶ 0:33:00From the very beginning, I knew this was nothing more than a charade. I knew this because I never violated HIPPA. I never accessed the records of transgender patients or released any identifiable information. All of it was fully redacted, deidentified hospital data, which is used every single day to report infectious disease outbreaks like measles or conduct retrospective research studies. Over the next few months though, Ansari confirmed our worst suspicions.
▶ 0:33:28This was a political witch hunt. For example, Onsari admitted to my attorneys she never reviewed the evidence before sending agents to my home. She didn't even know what statute she was investigating. Onsari threatened my wife, who had just been hired as an assistant US attorney in Dallas. She told my lawyers she would take me to a jury trial even on a technicality and without concern for losing. And she meant what she said.
▶ 0:33:58In May 2024, I was indicted on four HIPPA based felonies and faced up to a decade in prison. This indictment portrayed me as a liar who used deception to hack into TCH's EMR system, like was said before. But all of this was pure fiction. The DOJ's own evidence, their own evidence that they gave us in discovery, disproved every single one of the claims against us. This is worth restating.
▶ 0:34:27Onsari and her team either never reviewed this evidence or they it. This led to the collapse of their first indictment, but they pursued another. The big difference this time is that they dropped any pretense. This was about HIPPA. They legally castrated the indictment by removing key statutory language. The most important change were the victims. TCH and its patients was changed to TCH and its physicians.
▶ 0:34:57It was the first time in American history that HIPPA was being used not to protect patient privacy, but multi-billion dollar hospital systems, TCH and Baylor, who were caught lying to the public. It was too ironic when we discovered that Ansari and her family have quite the special relationship with TCH and Baylor. The best way to put it is this.
▶ 0:35:17You couldn't throw a tennis ball at Tina Ansari's Thanksgiving dinner without hitting a major fundraiser for TCH or Baylor or a former board member for TCH and Baylor or a CEO who's contracted with hospitals in the Baylor TCH academic consortium. Ansari ended up withdrawing from the case shortly after we made this public. The case was eventually dismissed with prejudice after the Biden appointed US attorney left his office.
▶ 0:35:46He was running the case solely with Tina and bypassing the entire chain of command in the southern district. But this can't be the end of it. There has to be accountability when the unlimited resources of the federal government are used to destroy the lives of ordinary American citizens. Thank you, Dr. Heim, for your testimony. Mr. Lidle, uh, I apologize. Uh, please proceed.
▶ 0:36:16Good afternoon, Chairman, Chairman Roy, Chairman Jordan, uh, Ranking Member Scanland, Ranking Member Rascin. My name is Mark Lidle. I'm in private practice now, but for the majority of my legal career, I've been honored to serve as a federal prosecutor working at Maine Justice and as an assistant US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. I have also served as the chief of the financial crimes and public corruption unit and as the district-wide coordinator for public corruption matters in the Eastern District of Virginia.
▶ 0:36:43During my tenure, I was the lead prosecutor on high-profile matters such as uh the bribery prosecution of Congressman William Jefferson from Louisiana and Credit Swiss, the second largest bank in Switzerland. I've also worked on hundreds, if not thousands of smaller cases that never really drew the attention of the public or the media. I've been honored to receive numerous awards, including the Attorney General's Distinguished Service Award and other decorations for my work.
▶ 0:37:09Throughout my career, I've been trained, mentored, and worked alongside prosecutors and staff who were dedicated to the fair administration of justice in an even-handed way. Our goal was always to preserve the public safety for our citizens and to deter criminals from committing crime. We never took politics into consideration. It's with this background and training that I quickly learned there was something desperately wrong with the way Dr.
▶ 0:37:34Heim's case was being investigated and later prosecuted by the US Attorney's Office in Houston, Texas. In May 2023, Dr. Heim worked with a journalist to blow the whistle on Texas Children's Hospital and publicly revealed that TCH was performing transgender medical procedures on minors contrary to what TCH was telling the public. and following a Texas Attorney General opinion advising that those interventions could constitute child abuse under Texas law.
▶ 0:38:04Shortly after the story had been published, the Texas legislature voted to make such illegal. Dr. Heim made his disclosure carefully, thoughtfully, and legally without disclosing any patient names in the process. He also went to law enforcement, the Texas Attorney General's office, as well as the media. These are procedures that have been endorsed by Congress in ways for which whistleblowers can come forward with information related to fraud, misuse, and abuse.
▶ 0:38:34I was first retained to represent Dr. Heim during the summer of 2023. He had been served a target letter signed by the lead assistant US attorney in the case. Once retained, I reached out to this A USA, but surprisingly, she wasn't familiar with the facts of the case. But she confidently proclaimed Dr. Dr. Heim had violated the HIPPA rules through a disclosure of patient records to the media. I know that that did not happen as Dr. Heim's disclosure redacted patient names.
▶ 0:39:02It concerned me that the A USA had it out for Dr. Heim. It was clear there was a bias towards Dr. Heim. The A USA's statements to me were concerning to say the least. The prosecutor claimed first that Dr. Heim's wife had obstructed justice. That was a shock when I heard that the basis for the claim of obstruction was that Dr.
▶ 0:39:22Heim's wife said, "You should probably have an attorney before you speak to law enforcement agents." Second, um EASA surprised me when um she said that she wouldn't do anything about reporting Mrs. times behavior to background investigators who are investigating her background for her new job as an assistant US attorney unless she became difficult to me.
▶ 0:39:48That was code for retaliation and it it raised grave concerns on the defense team uh for the and for the heimmes. Uh the AOSA proceeded to tell me that if Dr. time comes in and expresses remorse, she will offer him a misdemeanor. But if he did not, she would charge him with a felony and take him to trial, even if there were on a technicality or there no basis for conviction. The AOSA was clearly too close to these families to have any credibility as a neutral prosecutor.
▶ 0:40:15The AOSA claimed that he had no right to blow the whistle on on Texas Children's Hospital, even though the regulations permit it and support it. and just because he didn't report it to the hospital, uh, the hospital, the very hospital that he believed was breaking the law, um, is inconceivable. And he did the right thing by going to the media and to the Texas Attorney General's office. And there's congressional, uh, support for this. Then came the indictment of Dr. Heim in May 2024. It was heavy-handed.
▶ 0:40:43Out of all the charging decisions that were possible, the A USA chose the maximum, a 10-year statutory maximum for malicious harm. But to whom? patients. No, he didn't name any patients to doctors. They're not protected by HIPPA. The hospital, no, the the Dr. Heim wanted to protect these children's, not go after them. There were numerous factual errors in the indictment. Dr. Heim, it stated that Dr.
▶ 0:41:10Heim was not treating patients at T at TCH during the time that it was alleged, but he was, and their own discovery pointed it out. Then they had to redo the indictment because of that. Dr. Dr. Him was not they said not Dr. Heim was not authorized to access patient records but he was and a law firm conducted an internal investigation of the hospital concluded just that and that was reported in discovery. When I go to the A USA and tell her that she says well we disagree with them. This is the going to be their witness for this case.
▶ 0:41:40He was authorized legal insufficiencies. Um the without authorization was rejected by the Supreme Court in a decision by the Van Beern court. Mr. I I'd ask you to wrap up your your your opening statement. Uh thank you. On on January 24th, uh so this was a runaway train with the A USA in Houston, Texas as its conductor. On January 24th, the US Attorney's Office dismissed the charges against Dr. Heim with prejudice.
▶ 0:42:08The misconduct throughout the investigation and prosecution was truly exceptional. The conflicts of interest and bias displayed against Dr. Heim should never have played a role in the prosecutor's mind, but it did. But I'm happy to answer your questions. I appreciate Mr. Lidle. Uh Miss Civage, the time is yours. Good afternoon, Chairman Roy, Chairman Jordan, Ranking Member Scanland, and members of the subcommittee. My name is Vanessa Civich.
▶ 0:42:33I'm a pediatric nurse with 10 years of experience caring for the health and well-being of children. I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to testify today. My story is about shining a light on how children are being irreversibly harmed, the egregious overreach and weaponization of the federal government, and what it means to stand for truth no matter the cost. My employment at Texas Children's Hospital began in 2018.
▶ 0:42:59In 2021, I accepted a position within the hospital system in an outpatient multipety clinic. I accepted this job not knowing that children confused about their biological sex were being prescribed cross- sex hormones and puberty blockers at my workplace. Over the next three years, disturbing trends and concerning practices emerged. I observed the harmful effects of sex change hormones and puberty blockers for children who were convinced this would be quote unquote life-saving treatment.
▶ 0:43:30I witnessed how doctors emotionally blackmailed parents by telling them that if they did not affirm their child's delusion, their child would harm themselves. In particular, I was saddened to see young girls suffering from profound mental health struggles like depression or anxiety, many of whom had also suffered sexual abuse or trauma, persuaded by doctors at TCH that hormones would resolve their gender confusion.
▶ 0:43:54History books will one day record this emotional blackmail as the greatest lie ever sold by the medical industrial complex to vulnerable parents and confused children. In May of 2023, I read an article about a whistleblower within the hospital who had come forward to expose the existence of their secret transgender program.
▶ 0:44:15To affirm this testimony, I became the second anonymous whistleblower in Christopher Rufo's subsequent article where I provided my experience as a nurse working in the endocrine clinic. Two months later, on July 4 24th, 2023, my husband and I were hosting friends in our home for dinner when there was a knock on the front Two agents from the Biden Harris Justice Department flashed their badges, said they were from the FBI, and asked specifically to speak with me about issues at my work.
▶ 0:44:46I was stunned, and time seemed to stand still. These agents informed me that they had come to my home because they knew what I believed. What did I believe? In 2022, I had written an op-ed for the Washington stand at the Family Research Council in which I was publicly critical of so-called gender- affirming care, and I condemned the medical profession for abandoning biological realities and putting profits over patients.
▶ 0:45:12These two FBI agents apprised me that they were seeking to uncover the identity of the first whistleblower. Instead of referring to him as such, they used the term leaker, who, in their words, had violated HIPPA. And I knew this was a lie because they had because I had read the article and its contents in which all personally identifiable information patient information had been carefully redacted. We now know that this whistleblower was Dr. Etonheim, but at the time I had no knowledge of who he was.
▶ 0:45:43One agent effectively asked me to compromise my Christian convictions and made veiled threats against my career and safety if I didn't comply with their demands. He said that someone at my work had given him my name and they could make life difficult for me if I did not collaborate with their efforts. Their visit was designed to intimidate me into believing that I had no other choice but to cooperate with their witch hunt.
▶ 0:46:07Our adorable camera captured part of this exchange now viewed over six million times in which the overreach of the government was on full display. I was disgusted how the FBI was mobilized against me because I had a politically incorrect belief. My faith in Jesus Christ informs my belief that men and women are made in the image of God and therefore unique in their biology, anatomy, and function. These distinct identities and roles cannot ever be socially redefined or medically reassigned.
▶ 0:46:37In the months that followed, I noticed discrepancies in the My job consisted of refilling medications and obtaining insurance approval for those medications. I discovered how Medicaid was being buil for transgender interventions in direct violation of Texas law. I came forward publicly in June of 2024 to expose this. I also observed how TCH had misdiagnosed patients for the purpose of justifying those treatments.
▶ 0:47:06Additionally, the hospital had changed medical records by listing the preferred gender identity on the medical record instead of the birth sex, making fraudulent billing difficult to detect. In August of 2024, TCH fired me in retaliation for blowing the whistle. I am testifying today because I firmly believe that the weaponization of the government to silence political enemies must end. Whistleblowers display courage in a culture of cowardice when speaking the truth, safeguarding the well-being of children.
▶ 0:47:35Miss Civage, thank you for your testimony. Mr. Leslie, the time is yours. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um um Chairman Roy, Chairman Jordan, ranking member Scanland, and ranking member um Rascin. Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of First Focus on Children. I'm grateful for the opportunity today to testify about the plight of our nation's children. I come before you today not as a doctor or a lawyer, but as a child advocate.
▶ 0:48:04I grew up in what was at the time one of the poorest cities in the country, El Paso, Texas. My parents were raised in the Texas panhandle in difficult circumstances and sought out education in pursuit of a better life. They both became teachers and I would hear them talk about the many factors of importance to the education of children including their health, their development, their economic status, nutrition, housing and safety.
▶ 0:48:29When I was a child growing up in El Paso many, many moons ago, 40% of the children in our community did not have health insurance. I had a classmate who died because he did not have access to health care. It felt then and it still feels so wrong. Even today, Texas leads the nation in the percentage of uninsured children. We must do better.
▶ 0:48:52In my capacity of First Focus on Children, which Cole and Alma Pal initially founded as part of America's promise, our operating premise has been that children's issues are and should remain bipartisan, and that we must listen to and lift up the voices of children in these discussions. I would assert that almost every issue is either a children's issue or has a children's angle that is often ignored or missed.
▶ 0:49:17I would like to refer you to some examples of our work um as things that we've sent to your offices, but one is our children's agenda and one is our and another is our children's budget. Um I include those in our in my testimony as well and in my written testimony. Unfortunately, on many measures of child well-being, children are not fairing well. The list of issues threatening today's children is staggering and growing. Infant mortality is on the rise.
▶ 0:49:46Child mortality is on the rise. Child poverty is rising. Uninsured rates for children are growing. The children's mental health crisis is soaring. Measles and other prevent preventable diseases, including ptasus, are back. Homelessness is up. Hunger is surging. Child care is in crisis. Child abuse deaths are increasing. These are not niche or isolated problems.
▶ 0:50:13They are the foundational issues of childhood and human development going unmet and were symptoms of how we are neglecting and failing our youngest children. Although many of these trends and issues are not directly under the jurisdiction of this committee, they are all important because the children who come to the attention of this committee, such as those either in the juvenile justice system or whose constitutional rights are threatened, have often been repeatedly failed elsewhere.
▶ 0:50:41When we underfund mental health care, ignore child poverty, fail to provide inclusive education, and prioritize children's and fail to and politicize children's issues, we create crises that spill over into our legal and judicial systems. In my written testimony, I provided examples of that. Budgets, um, as uh the ranking member noted, uh, reflect our values, whether a family's budget or that of the federal government.
▶ 0:51:11and they can tell us about what we think about kids and whether we're making wise investments in their future. When it comes to children, study after study demonstrates that money matters and return on investment in them is among the highest that society can make toward its future. Investing early in our children leads to outcomes.
▶ 0:51:33Despite pronouncements from administration officials such as Vice President JD Vance and DOA's Elon Musk about the needs to promote more births in the United States and support for families to ensure our long-term economic prosperity, the actions and policy proposals coming out of the administration indicate that children are likely to be targeted for significant program and funding cuts.
▶ 0:51:56Even today, the House is scheduled to vote on a budget resolution that could potentially result in $880 billion in cuts in the to uh to the Energy and Commerce Committee, which the Congressional Budget Office recently confirmed that 96% of the available cuts in that committee would be to Medicaid and CHIP. For the over 37 million children who rely upon Medicaid for their health coverage, these programs are a lifeline.
▶ 0:52:25Consequently, well over 300 organizations at the federal, state, and local levels have co-signed a letter in opposition to these cuts. Children are being negatively impacted by the actions of DOJO and B and OPM in other ways. Um many of them are are noted in my testimony including the uh potential uh demolition of the department of education which is the one committee I mean the one seat at the table at the president's cabinet and that is p predominantly focused on kids.
▶ 0:52:54I earlier talked about the crisis of measles in the the chairman's um state of Texas, but I would also note that pertasus and whooping cough are now 50 times the level of what they were at this time in 2023. And there's also been two deaths of children in the state of Louisiana. Um I also pointed on the in the in my testimony about the public supports investing in children.
▶ 0:53:20And last, I just want to note that uh ranking member Rasin reminds us in his outstanding book, we the students that the constitution does not be begin at adulthood. Students have exercised their rights. Mr. I'll ask you to wrap up like I did Mr. Lidle. I'm giving you a little extra time because I gave him some, but if you could wrap up, I'd appreciate. Sure. I appreciate that. This um this is diffic difficult balancing act when it comes to children's w rights which we must weigh either affirming or conflicting roles of parents in government.
▶ 0:53:50Um, I would urge that it is imper imperative that when ch a child cries out for help, whether is sick, abused, hungry, homeless, or a victim of gun violence, that we listen to them. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Leslie, for your testimony. We will now proceed under the five-minute rule with questions. Without objection, uh, Mr. Klein, a member that full committee will be permitted to participate in today's hearing for the purpose of questioning the witness if a member yields him time for that purpose. Without objection.
▶ 0:54:18Uh with that I will recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Harris. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for this hearing today and thank all of you as panelists for uh being a part of this. Uh Dr. Hine, can you just share why did you decide to speak out against gender reassignment practices at Texas Children's Hospital? Yeah. So, the reason and that's a really important question because you know what would animate a person to risk his entire career to blow the whistle about something like this?
▶ 0:54:47And it was because all of my experience working with children at Texas Children's Hospital, which is an amazing hospital, by the way. They have some problems in their leadership, but what the doctors do, what the nurses do on a daily basis is amazing. The reason is because I understand and I've seen the effects of what these blockers do, what these hormones do, and what these surgeries do. They are destroying the lives of these children.
▶ 0:55:12they are putting them down a road where they become a chronic medical patient that they can never come back from and uh uh especially the surgical complications. I see these things all the time. We're talking about urethal stenosis where you can't go out to a coffee shop and go to the bathroom because the urethra is narrowed so that fluid builds up in the bladder, right? It's talking about fistulas where stool from the rectum can pour into the wound that they cause that they call the neo vagina.
▶ 0:55:42A lot of them don't see these problems in the first couple of months, even the first couple of years. But this is what happens, right? And understand that when I was at TCH, we would take children to the operating room, right? And we would make them better. But in the same operating room, they were taking them there and making them sick. They were putting them down a road that they could never come back from. So, could I call myself a doctor if I didn't speak up against it? Right? I couldn't blow the whistle to TCH.
▶ 0:56:10They were the ones who were responsible for the misconduct. I couldn't blow the whistle to CPS. You know how many children I I saw at TCH who were being abused? I saw one kid who had his fingers amputated by his parents, right? I was taking care of him. You know, in the next day, I was in that room. Who was who who was in the room with the patient? The parents. Who the kid go home to? The parents. CPS. What were they going to do? So, what was I to do in that situation? I had to blow the whistle. It was my responsibility as a doctor.
▶ 0:56:39If they're going to mutilate and sterilize these children, someone has to speak up for those kids. Well, while some on the other side may argue that pursuing so-called gender affirming care is up to a child and his or her parents, I do believe it's the role of the government to protect children from child abuse. So, let me ask you this, Dr. He. Do you think the government has a responsibility to protect children from these practices? I do.
▶ 0:57:04Especially when doctors and medical associations are deceiving parents and children about what exactly they're doing. They say this is evidence-based. That's a that's that's a bogus statement. All the evidence they had they have is is completely fraudulent. The way the studies are designed are meant to provide them a certain result. This is what we call fraudulent science. These are fraudulent studies.
▶ 0:57:32When the doctors who are informing these parents are misinformed about the pathology that they're treating, that's not informed And what do you think it says about the Biden administration that they chose to villainize you rather than shut down the chemical castration of children? I mean, that was the standard operating procedure, wasn't it? Right. Because they were trying to send me to prison. And how many other people were they trying to send to prison for doing the right thing for f for fulfilling the oath of my profession to do no harm. Right.
▶ 0:58:03Part of that is to make sure that the other people in my profession are not harming people. Exactly. Well, Mrs. Civage, um I want to talk for just a moment in the last minute or so that we have left about the underlying ideology that motivates the mutilation of children, which is gender ideology. Gender ideology posts that sex and gender are separate concepts and that one can change their gender.
▶ 0:58:28Now this belief is an affront to reality itself and it's no surprise that gender ideology is pra in practice leads to the mutilation and castration of these innocent children. But Miss Civage I want to pose this question to you because you have a background as a pediatric nurse. Can a child be born in the wrong body? Thank you so much for that question.
▶ 0:58:52Uh children are made in the image of God and there is they have a distinct purpose and they can you know this that this the statement that we're all here to defend today that boys can't become girls and girls can't become boys was not controversial uh up until very recently. And so we're here just to um amplify some very basic truths and realities.
▶ 0:59:16And at Texas Children's Hospital, you watch kids get diagnosed with gender dysphoria and then get treated through chemical and surgical intervention. Just in a closing seconds, can a child meaningfully consent to these lifealtering practices? They have absolutely no concept of what it means to be irreversibly harmed at the age that they are at. That's why we need doctors and medical professionals who are going to advocate on their behalf with the truth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm out of time.
▶ 0:59:47Thank you. I now recognize the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um Dr. Heim uh obviously is a man of strong ideological convictions about this issue and I assume they're sincerely held, but he's one doctor who thought his convictions were more important than state law in Texas at the time. the medical privacy of the parents, their ability to make decisions for their own children, and the wishes of the parents and of the patients in the case. Now, Mr.
▶ 1:00:17Lesley, uh Mr. Lidle says that there could have been no violation of HIPPA because the children's names were removed before the rest of the information was released to Christopher Rufo in the media. But it seems to me that uh that some credence should be given to the families which thought that there was sufficient personally identify identifiable information that people would figure out exactly who they were.
▶ 1:00:45But in any event, um it seems to me that it's it's off point because HIPPA says this. A person who knowingly and in violation of this part uses or causes to be you one uses or causes to be used a unique health identifier, two obtains individually identifiable health information relating to an individual or three discloses individually identifiable health information to another person.
▶ 1:01:12So, let's say even if you grant Mr. Lidle his point, which I don't because you know, and a juryy's obviously not going to figure it out at this point, but the families thought that it was readily identifiable. But even if it's the case that they were to win on that issue, isn't it the case that he obtained individually identifiable health information relating to individual? I mean, isn't HIPPA all about other people not getting into your medical records? Isn't that what it's about?
▶ 1:01:42Um, Mr. Eskin, I I am not an expert uh on HIPPA, but I I did work in the Senate when we passed HIPPA, and I would say that um it does, you know, based on the testimony today, I don't have Okay. Well, let me Mr. Le, let me come to you. Let's talk about measles for a second. I don't know if you followed my original analogy. I'm just trying to figure this out. All of this is new to me, but it seems to me that under the example of Dr.
▶ 1:02:07He if I'm in Texas and it's a law that the children have to get measles vaccine and I hear that some of my colleagues patients not my patients but their patients have not been vaccinated now under this precedent should I be authorized to break into the computer system or get access to the computer system access their records and then release to the media or some ideological organization uh this data in order to pursue the political mission I
▶ 1:02:37have which say is completely sincerely motivated because I don't want kids to get measles. Well, thanks ranking member Rasin. I don't know the exact example the measles situation you're dealing with, but No, but I I'm hypothesizing it because I I not heard of a doctor getting access to other doctor's patients material against their will or without their knowledge before and then releasing it on the media. But a couple of important points here. Dr. Heim didn't break into any systems.
▶ 1:03:05He was authorized to see these records that he reported on by the hospital by Texas Children's Hospital and the prosecutor knew that and I I talked about that in my he released their information with authorized to see this information to see the information. Yes. Well, was he authorized to release the information? He was because he was a whistleblower and he was reporting wrongdoing. So, you're saying the hospital authorized him to take this information to the media? The hospital doesn't have to authorize it.
▶ 1:03:32He's a whistleblower and he can go to law enforcement and Congress authorizes whistleblowers. Okay. Well, can you explain why Dr. Heim did not follow Texas state law and go to the Department of Social Services or another medical authority or law enforcement authority? Why he went to an ideological organization in the media? He went to a law enforcement agency, the Texas Attorney General's office, and he went to the media. And this body, Congress, favors going to the media for whistleblowers. And he also went to an attorney general. He went to the attorney general. One thing I wanted to comment about.
▶ 1:04:02You don't think he should have followed state law when every every state in the country has a report a mandatory reporting regime for people who are dealing with children and you're supposed to go to proper medical authorities where to the police if you think someone is being subjected to child abuse. That's exactly what he did. He went to the Texas Attorney General's office and he reported child abuse which was defined by the Texas Attorney General at that time as child abuse. Okay.
▶ 1:04:29One thing you mentioned about uh whether he just I understand that he went to Mr. Rufo and that he went to the media patient information. He redacted the patient records and I'd like to point out that the government in their indictment put initials of patients in their indictment that revealed more about the patients than Dr. Heim ever did. All right. I think that's a problem. They never charge disclosure. That too they never charged me with disclosure. Reclaiming my time if I could have those 10 seconds back just so I can conclude. Mr. Sherman.
▶ 1:04:56Um, we're going down a very dangerous road here where every citizen can appoint himself or herself a medical vigilante. If I don't like the way some other family is raising their kids with their doctor, I can go get their information and release it in the public. I go back to time has expired. I'll now recognize Oh, I'm sorry. I recognize the gentle lady from Vermont for your nameless consent request. Yes, I have your consent request. Um, this is a letter that I received um that I believe both uh Mr.
▶ 1:05:24Jordan and uh the chair received from Texas Children's Hospital uh saying that um TCH physicians have never performed sex change operations on minors. Um I believe it's a letter that you have received and you have in your possession. So what was said earlier is actually not in fact true. Thank you. Is that a request to put it in the record? Yes. I ask you without object. Without objection, I'll now recognize the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr.
▶ 1:05:54Um, Dr. Heim, did you want to respond to something Mr. Raskin said? Yeah. So, um, you know, and I can understand how, you know, if uh, whatever you read, why, you know, why you would be upset or have this idea that like all these awful things, right? Um, but the fact is that none of that is true. They never charged disclosure. They tried in their first indictment, but that wasn't true. That's why they had to change it, right? And who were the patients, right, in the indictment? You think they were transgender patients, right? like the the first count.
▶ 1:06:24No, it was transplant patients. Surgical transplant patients. Why would a general surgery resident at Baylor College of Medicine with the largest transplant program in the world, right, for for kids be accessing surgical transplant patients? You didn't get a response from the attorney. Excuse me. It's my No, no, it's a gentleman's time. No, and that's that's a good point. That's No, that's legitimate. Yeah, because No, you're right. It's like you have to there's certain like a certain pathway to blow the whistle. Yeah.
▶ 1:06:53And that's that's the thing is we tried my you know we reached out to the attorney general's office and we left the messages but they didn't get back to us. Thank you. Thank you. This is my time. Thank you Dr. Heim. Uh I now yield my time to Mr. Klein from Virginia. Well, thank you for yielding and I want to thank the witnesses for being here. Dr. Heim, you followed the whistleblower statutes. You heard that letter being introduced. Do you want to respond to that letter?
▶ 1:07:17I have no idea what that because what what they were doing is inserting uh purity blockers into children for gender dysphoria. That was the ICD code, right? Uh what these blockers do is change the cellular chemistry of the entire body, the bones, the brain, the heart, the blood vessels, everything. That is the second step on the pathway.
▶ 1:07:41social affirmation first blockers tear stage two before the onset of puberty hormones and then surgery that's sex change procedures and trust me I've done these procedures before on children with precocious puberty yeah it's not that you know difficult to insert it but removing it that's real pain in the butt because you have to dig out those implants from the kid's arms so that letter is misleading at best false uh if worse I have no idea but it's it's clear you followed the whistleblower
▶ 1:08:11statutes. Uh you did not reveal any individually identifiable information about these patients, but in response to that, you faced baseless criminal charges from the Biden Harris DOJ for alleged HIPPO violations. And thankfully, the cases were dismissed. But you've spoken out about being targeted by the Biden Harris administration for exposing these practices. From your perspective, was this a case of uh the administration using uh weaponizing law enforcement to intimidate you and other denters? Yeah. Um, of course.
▶ 1:08:41And you know, the other thing to say is, you know, they there was a lecture at the hospital where they were talking about doing it. That's why I released. I have no idea where what that see come from, but of course, yeah, this is uh one of those situations where, you know, of course, they see someone like me who has everything to lose at the beginning of my career, right? Like I didn't know anyone, you know, we we're very private people. They even have social media. They thought they were going to destroy us, but like we're going to bring kids into this world, you know, and and I wouldn't want this to be done to anyone.
▶ 1:09:10Not even liberals, even if they're the the craziest communists ever. There's nothing that should be done that that there someone is being accused of crimes they never committed. And that's the important thing is that there's no one in this country who should be falsely accused and the entire power of the federal government should should be brought down on them. And and it's like I can't even imagine, you know, my biggest fear is like for something like this to happen to anyone, even someone on on the other side. It has a chilling effect, doesn't it?
▶ 1:09:40It's it's terrifying. You know, I would never want this done to any of the people who came after me, right? Even though they were trying to send me prison for a decade. I would never want this to happen to them ever, right? Ever because it's uh and if it's happening to me, how many other people is it happening to? And it's not even political, right?
▶ 1:09:58It's just there has to be a certain standard with our justice system where people can't just bring these charges and and you know power through the courts and send these people to prison because that's what was going to happen to me. Mr. Lidle, do you believe there's a double standard in how the federal government treats whistleblowers depending on whether their disclosures help or hurt the administration in power? This this case is an example of that.
▶ 1:10:24I mean, you've heard the testimony about references to a political debate, you know, red state, blue state, however that might have been, but Dr. Heim never should have been charged with a crime for expressing his views and being a whistleblower. He came forward. It's extremely rare for anyone to be charged with criminal HIPPA violations, let alone the maximum 10-year charge. Um, it's really outrageous. And the fact that he was charged in this way shows that the prosecutor was out to get him. He was biased. Thank you. yield back.
▶ 1:10:54Um, my question is, are these prosecutors and FBI officials still employed by the federal government? Mr. Lal, do you know? I I believe so. I don't know for sure. Civage, do you know if those FBI officials? I'm not sure. Okay. Thank you. I yield back. Thank recognize the gentle lady from Vermont. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just want to say at the top, um, the chair said earlier that we should really look at these as personal issues, family issues. I agree.
▶ 1:11:23I don't know why we continue to have hearings in here about the lives of transgender Americans and their families. So, I agree with you, Mr. Chair. So, I question what we're doing here. I've spent a lot of time in Congress working to demystify gender affirming care. I never thought that's what I would be doing in Congress. I ran on issues related to housing and mental health care. I was an educator.
▶ 1:11:51I never thought I would have to do this all the time in these committee hearings. So, I just want to get down to some basics. Let's get it out of the way here. Transgender people exist. They exist. Period. They always have. And gender affirming care is health care and it is evidence-based and it has saved lives and reputable medical associations agree.
▶ 1:12:17and decisions made for children by their families should be done in consultation with their doctors and it should not be members of Congress trotting people out here to talk about people's personal private information decisions for everybody to see.
▶ 1:12:42And you know, in my very first session, we had another hearing in which transgender Americans and their families were demonized. And where you're sitting, Mr. Leslie, there was there was a parent sitting right there. And she was she identified herself as a Christian Republican mom of a transgender young person.
▶ 1:13:08and she sat right where you're sitting imploring my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to let it go because she was one of them. I am a Republican, she said. I care about my family. Why do you continue to demonize me and my family? It's our personal business and I'm trying to do what's right for my kids. And that's what all families are trying to do. I got two kids myself.
▶ 1:13:36So again, I ask, what are we here? Now, my Republican colleagues can continue to scapegoat and fearmonger this very tiny group of individuals in country at the same time saying they care about families, that they care about helping kids and families.
▶ 1:14:01When we look at the budget that they are trying to pass, which my colleague has said it, it cuts $880 billion dollars from Medicaid, which is going to impact children's hospitals across this country. It's going to impact food assistance programs. It's going to impact WIC. So, why don't we have a hearing on what we actually can do in Congress to help children across that country?
▶ 1:14:31Why aren't we doing that? Mr. Lesie, I am so grateful that you are here and I was looking before this hearing about all the work that you have done on behalf of kids. Um, just really quickly, is infor infant mortality rising in this country? Thank you for your question, Congresswoman Ballot. Yes, the answer is yes. And for the first time in decades that Yeah. Is child mortality rising?
▶ 1:14:56Child mortality is absolutely rising and our nation's child mortality rate is well above all other wealthy nations. Is child poverty rising. Mr. Lesie, child poverty is growing. It is more than doubled since the low in 2021 um with the um you know the expiration of the child tax credit. Is the mental health crisis among kids and teens rising?
▶ 1:15:24The entire children's advocacy community sees that and and argues that we are in the midst of an enormous children's mental health crisis. The gentle lady yield for a quick I will additional question. What is the leading cause of death for children under the age of 18 in America? The the biggest reason the biggest reasons for child mortality are suicide and um homicide. Gun violence. Yes. Gun violence. Yield back to you. And Mr.
▶ 1:15:55Lesie, given that the number of trans Americans in this country is is hovering at about 1%. Do you think we would be better served by really focusing on policies that would help all children and all teens and and what what are some of those programs just briefly that we should be focused on? Absolutely.
▶ 1:16:17I mean I we believe we believe strongly that medical decisions um should be made by doctors, parents and children in this country and we believe that we must not we must improve Medicaid and the children's health insurance program not cut it by 800 billion $880 billion. We believe that we should be making sure that children don't go to bed hungry and so we should not be cutting SNAP and wick.
▶ 1:16:43Um we believe that education programs are fundamentally important and um I know that in the tax debate that's coming up um there will be a debate around the child tax credit and one of this one of the crazy things we I ask you to wrap up your time because we're we're over the time. One of the crazy policies we have in this country is that when you have a baby and your income drops you're susceptible to losing your child tax credit. That makes no sense. Yeah. I think I think gentle lady for questions.
▶ 1:17:12I'll now recognize the chairman of the committee, Mr. Jordan. Uh thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh Dr. Heim, on June 23rd, 2023, uh you get a letter from United States Department of Justice, Southern District of Texas. Probably a day you you know, probably a letter that probably ruined your whole day, right? well, so the agents came. This was a few hours before I was graduating from surgical residency. The ceremony was was later that evening. I was meeting with my parents, you know, my sister.
▶ 1:17:42I was going with my wife and um so when the agents came, you know, I I refused to speak with them. My wife had advised me to, you know, not speak with him without an attorney present. But um you know, we knew that it was so corrupt what they were doing that there was a certain sense of defiance. So um you know, we kind of celebrated this new part of our life. It was it was kind of a hard thing to describe, but something kind of came over us. First first two sentences, this office is involved in investigation dealing with federal law violations.
▶ 1:18:11You are a potential target in this criminal investigation. So you didn't want to talk to these guys. You listen to your wife, which was good counsel and good advice and good good that you did that. But you did did go get an attorney and you got the guy sitting beside you. Is that right? Yes, sir. And Mr. Lidle, when you understood what was going on here, you contacted just like you would as an attorney, you contacted the Southern District of Texas. You contacted the lady who signed this, Miss and sorry, the US assistant US attorney. Is that right? Yes, I did. Tell me about that conversation.
▶ 1:18:38Well, I reached out to her uh as a defense attorney would always do when there's a target letter out there because that could mean that they're going to charge the person right away. That's under department policies that that means they believe he's a puditive defendant. Yeah. Normally that means they think they got a slam dunk case on this guy, right? That's right. Yeah. And they're going to they're going to negotiate some guilty plea. You reach out to her. What'd she say? Did she know anything about the case? She didn't know anything about the case. She had to talk to the agents and she'd get back to me when she knew more about the case. She signed the target letter and she didn't know what the target was about. That's my understanding. That was great.
▶ 1:19:06So then you had subsequent conversations and I understand in one of these conversations that that happened after you learned she didn't know what the heck was going on even though she signed the letter that ruined his day the day he's graduating from medical school. You have subsequent conversations and she says well maybe he isn't a target and maybe if he'd come apologize and say pretty pretty please we'd downgrade it to a misdemeanor. Is that right? That's true. She she sort of was a weak and a nod like maybe we can pretend he's not a target and I said that that train's kind of left the station.
▶ 1:19:33Uh, and there's been emails with her calling him a target to me. And I'd said, "I just can't do that." But why why can't we talk about the case and she had still didn't know the facts of the case. She wanted to dead set to be interviewing Dr. Heim. Um, which I didn't want to do that as a lawyer because I didn't want to reveal. I didn't want I didn't know what she was getting at. And so they they wind up charging him with the maximum like 10 years. I think you said the maximum they could charge. And they were so determined to get Dr. Heim. She was so determined to get Dr.
▶ 1:20:02him even though he didn't violate HIPPA, didn't do anything wrong. That she not only threatened him, come talk to me, apologize, say pretty pretty please. We'll make it a misdemeanor. She also went after your wife. She also went after Dr. Him's wife. Is that right, Mr. Lidle? That's right. She uh she alluded that she would not make any comments or her agents make any comments about the background investigators for Dr. Heim's wife as she's a new A USA being hired uh unless she became difficult.
▶ 1:20:29And I didn't really know what that meant, but I took it to being a retaliatory phrase that if she's going to be involved in this, then there's going to be something that's going to come for her, too. Well, what's what's she supposed to do? She's a lawyer. She's married to the to the to married to Dr. She not supposed to give him advice or counsel or talk to him. This whole thing, you know, any kind of HIPPA as a criminal case is so rare in this country. It's rarely ever prosecuted. But then in this context of this political debate going on to come forward and charge Dr.
▶ 1:20:57time it seemed just really out of control. It really was surprising to me to see this kind of a charge. We sort of ask it sort of I think begs the the the question why did why' they do it? Why' they do it? Why was she why was I mean this seems so ridiculous. Why this behavior? Why do you think they they did it? Dr. Lidle or maybe Dr. Heimer, maybe even Miss Civage. I I can say that we found a lot of bias, a lot of conflicts of interest, a lot of connections to the hospital and a closeness to these families.
▶ 1:21:26But at the end of the day, if there was uh any kind of issue, it shouldn't be handled in the criminal courts. Should be handled in the public arena, in the public debate. Yeah. Doctor, you know, I I think that they went after me so hard in order to send a message to everyone else. Of course, they did because I saw it in my residency, right? You know, the the other people who thought this was awful, we actually had to meet in dark corners. We we knew that we couldn't say anything publicly. And that's the point. It's it's to it's to chill anyone else from stepping forward.
▶ 1:21:56It's why they went and set raid Mark Hal's house with all these agents. It's why they send multiple agents to to the uh the ATF goes into Brian Malinowski's house and he ends up getting shot. They thought he had like six gun violations. It's why they do it. It's to chill anyone else from coming forward. We will make life miserable for you, miserable for Miss Savage. We will do that because we don't want anyone else threatening the left's position. And that is the frightening thing. And I'll say one more. And I'll just say this and I'll let you finish.
▶ 1:22:25God bless you for doing it. God bless you for doing it and Mr. Lidle for defending you. Thanks for stepping forward, having the courage to do so. And I'll say one more thing, right? They came after me in order to make my life miserable. In order to send a message, but they came after me, right, to make my life miserable. We're going to make their life miserable. All right, that's what we're going to do. I thank gentleman for his questions. I'll now recognize the gentle lady from Washington, Miss Jipal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The right to privacy is enshrined in our constitution. And in the past, this has been a bipartisan issue.
▶ 1:22:55In fact, I've worked closely with my friend across the aisle, the chairman of the of the committee, Mr. Jordan, on protecting the privacy of all Americans. We both stood up to our own party sometimes on this issue. And so, I'm disappointed that it it doesn't seem to be a bipartisan mandate anymore.
▶ 1:23:13um and that privacy is pushed to the background because I think that all Americans would be horrified, absolutely horrified to know that when it comes to health care, Republicans are suddenly abandoning the need for privacy. That Americans private medical information could be released if someone just doesn't agree with their personal treatment plan or their private medical conditions. Well, I refuse to give up the fight for privacy for all Americans medical information.
▶ 1:23:43A doctor's relationship with their par patients is predicated on trust and privacy. Patients trust their doctors to keep their discussions private and everybody else who can access the medical system to keep that information private so that patients can freely provide information that the doctor can use to best provide care. So, Dr. Heim, please answer yes or no. Are you a general and trauma surgeon? Yes, ma'am.
▶ 1:24:11And when you graduated from medical school, like every other doctor, did you take the hypocratic oath? Yes, ma'am. And does that oath include a promise to quote respect the privacy of patients? Uh, probably it does. I can provide it to you if you need a refresher. And if you or your colleagues had a patient who decided not to undergo surgery because of its side effects, would you keep that decision confidential in compliance with your oath? Yes.
▶ 1:24:38And if there was a latestage cancer patient who didn't want to undergo aggressive chemotherapy, should any doctor keep that decision confidential in compliance? The oath? Absolutely. And yet, despite your oath to protect patient privacy, you have admitted in your testimony today that you released the medical records of children who were patients at Texas Children's Hospital. Correct. Incorrect. You didn't release that information. DOJ never charged it.
▶ 1:25:08You did you or did you not release the information of children? Uh, no. Not any identifiable patient information. Actually, are you aware that the hypocrat that the HIPPA violations do not just say you can redact a name? You actually have to redact multiple. Let me No, I all everything I released was HIPPA compliant as confirmed by the DOJ's charges.
▶ 1:25:32Um, the removal of a patient's name alone is not enough to satisfy HIPPA's privacy rule requirements. It requires the privacy rule requires deidentified uh uh health information to be stripped of 18 specific identifiers. Whether the DOJ is choosing to charge, I need to I need to look at exactly what you're alleging, but let me just ask you, did the children and their parents give you consent to release those records? I was uh No. No.
▶ 1:26:02And all of your patients now have to worry that if you don't agree with somebody's choices of medical uh you know, whatever they're deciding to do that you're just going to be the sole arbiter of when something should be released. And the and the basic claim is if you don't agree with whatever they're doing, then you have the right to access that information under false pretenses. Under false pretenses.
▶ 1:26:31access that medical information and release it. So we're now depending on you as the arbiter of when those children are being muad and sterilized, right? So the answer is yes. You decide when somebody's medical records should be released. Any American out there is going to look at you and say, "Oh, I see. Dr. Heim is the arbiter of whether or not my medical records should be released and whether or not I should actually pay attention to HIPPA." Is that correct? Yeah.
▶ 1:26:59So, first of all, it was never under false pretenses, right? That entire allegation was incorrect. The DOJ's own evidence confirm that. Let me let me just stop. Children are beingated. Mr. I'm just going to time. I actually have the time. So, I'm going to reclaim my time because I have something very important to say. Look, I think privacy is critically important.
▶ 1:27:22It is also true that transgender children are literally 1.4% 4% of all adolescents and teens and they are facing a massive torrent of bullying and cruelty from Republicans, members of this committee. And when you heard Mr. Leslie say that suicide is the number one cause of death amongst young people.
▶ 1:27:45What you have done and what these Republicans have done is absolutely shameful in my view that you are continuing to go after and bully transgender children and their families who literally are doing what their doctors have told them what they know medical research to be safe and you want to be the arbiter of when medical information is going to be released. gentle lady's time has expired. I understand.
▶ 1:28:09I don't believe that any American would want their medical records to be released and I hope that my colleagues who have been with me on privacy would understand that this is a violation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Do you have any response? Nothing could be more untrue. Right. You have people who are undergoing the mental anguish of believing that they've been born in the wrong body. What these people need are not the most powerful chemicals humans have ever discovered.
▶ 1:28:39What they do not need the most radical surgeries ever invented by humans. They need people to listen to order. What these doctors are doing are harming these people. Can submit an Mr. Chairman, I have a unanimous consent request. J's recognized. Thank you.
▶ 1:28:58I would like to enter into the record the second superseding indictment, not the one that was brought by the first prosecutor, but the second one where on page three it specifically says that Dr. Heim un was under false pretenses accessed the uh the information that he needed um and released the department without objection. And what we'll you'll have a chance to respond to that in the next set of questions. We're going to have to recess because votes have been called.
▶ 1:29:28So, we're going to recess subject to the call of the chair. I will tell you that based on the vote estimates, I'm going to guess it's going to be just slightly after 4:00. Uh so, the witnesses will be able to go back to the back. And uh if everybody want to come back, let's come back immediately following votes. We'll start pretty quickly. Let's try to rush back after votes. Um and that we're in recess.
▶ 1:30:18That was a good time. How are you? Oh my gosh. I got it all. Thank you. You know what?
▶ 1:30:34It's like At
▶ 2:27:39this time, we'll call the committee back to order. And I believe it is Republican side. And I will now recognize the gentle lady from Wyoming uh for five minutes. Thank you. Uh Mr. Lesie, what is the success rate of sex change procedures for children? Um there's um if you look at the from medical societies um they indicate it's zero. You can't change your sex.
▶ 2:28:08So zero. So I want the record to be clear that the Biden administration targeted and prosecuted Dr. Heim and Miss Se Civage for exposing medical procedure, surgery, and pharmaceutical intervention that has a 100% failure rate. Am I correct, Dr. Heim? That is exactly correct. Dr.
▶ 2:28:35Heim, you have exposed the fact that medical providers were providing dangerous and illegal treatments to minors. And both the Biden White House and the activists who were actually running the show behind the scenes didn't like what you were exposing. Isn't that also correct? That's correct. And do you think that their subsequent federal pressure was brought to bear on you merely was that merely a coincidence or was it to try to stop you from exposing what they were doing?
▶ 2:29:04It was in order to prevent me from exposing what they were doing and to silence other whistleblowers. Okay. Miss Civage, what is gender dysphoria? And I asked that question because I'm a pretty well- educated person and pretty well read person. This is something that we didn't even really know about or talk about three or four years ago. What is this? Gender dysphoria is when a child is confused about their birth identity.
▶ 2:29:31And that the key there is the confusion because the problem is not in the physical body of the child. The problem is in their mind. And so why are we pushing as a society a solution that will irreversibly harm and sterilize children's bodies when truly the problem is that they are confused about their birth identity in their mind.
▶ 2:29:53And so part of what I've done here and part of what why we're here today is to affirm and to celebrate that God ultimately God's design for our gender and sexuality and that is something that should be defended. Well, are there industries that stand to benefit financially from uh these procedures, these industries?
▶ 2:30:14Um, I refer to them as the unholy trinity, which is the uh healthc care insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry, and the hospital system. And all three of these institutions um have much to gain because this is a highly lucrative industry that exploits the vulnerabilities of children. Why don't you explain that a little bit further? Well, in my in my case, I came forward to expose Medicaid fraud.
▶ 2:30:38Um, and I saw firsthand how Texas Children's Hospital was illegally utilizing Texas Medicaid to fund uh quote unquote gender affirming care, which is really gender denying care and uh the taxpayers were build for this. Um, and that is illegal in the state of Texas. Um, and so this benefited the pharmaceutical industry because the ch the child is put down a path of medicalization, making them a medical patient for life.
▶ 2:31:05So the pharmaceutical industry has a vested interest in making sure that a a child is initiated down this irreversible path. Dr. Heim, sex change, hormones, and puberty blockers are presented to patients and their parents as life-saving treatment. What is the reality and effects these treatments actually have on children? The reality is is that what they're telling them is the opposite of the truth.
▶ 2:31:30These hormones, the blockers, the surgeries will put them down a path that that they can never come back from. You know, they always say that it's reversible. But once you start changing your physiology from the inside out, right? Because that's what these hormones do. They change the cellular architecture of every single cell in your body in a way that you can't take back. And um you know it takes a while for the physical changes to develop but once they happen there's no going back.
▶ 2:32:00Okay. And so again you've got lifelong patients as a result of these interventions. Yeah. And and you know it's they were they were saying that um you know suicide rates have gone up. You know, is it any wonder that the suicide rates have gone up, but also the the society, you know, convincing people that they're born in the wrong body, that, you know, the way they were created was a mistake, that the name their parents gave them is their dead name.
▶ 2:32:26Of course, the suicide rates are going up, and it's exactly because of what these people call quote unquote gender affirming care. But what it really is is the destruction of the It's a it's a pretty cruel industry as far as I can tell. Uh I have a lot more questions I'd love to engage in with all of you. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you for your bravery and thank you for being here. That I yield back. I thank the gentle lady from Wyoming and I appreciate her uh sticking to the clock and for her questions and I'll recognize the ranking member.
▶ 2:32:57Thank you. I have a couple articles for unanimous consent. The first is a news article entitled Texas Children's Hospital halts hormone related prescription therapies for transgender children. dated March 4th, 2022, where the report notes Texas Children's Hospital said they're pausing specific treatments after state leaders decided to ask child protective services to investigate. Without objection. And a second one, uh, Houston Pediatric Chief's abrupt exit triggers fear and dis disappointment within transgender community.
▶ 2:33:26It's a May 3rd, 2022 Houston Chronicle article where the report notes that the hospital spoke uh the hospital has continued to care for transgender patients in light of a recent statewide injunction. Without objection. Thank you. I now recognize the gentleman from New York, Mr. Goldman, for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to follow up on your last answer, Dr. Is it Haim? He Yes, sir.
▶ 2:33:48Um you you you believe that the suicide rate for people who identify as transgender is going up because they are being told by other people that they are in the wrong body. Is that what your testimony is? Yeah. So the suicide rate is not going up because there are people like you who are telling them that they must be mistaken if they feel something different than what you think they should.
▶ 2:34:18That question was a little wordy. Can you uh clarify it? Sure. Because I it relates I think to Mrs. Seage as well. Uh it's pretty remarkable to hear that the reason why the suicide rate in the transgender community is so much higher than other communities is somehow because these innocent kids who don't want any of this gender affirming care who don't go to their parents and talk at
▶ 2:34:49length about how they're feeling and instead are through their parents controlled by some uh transgender industrial complex to convince transgender people that no, even though unquestionably your life would be so much simpler if you just carried on as you are because you wouldn't be the subject of a hearing in a subcommittee based on one case.
▶ 2:35:18It's pretty shocking to me that that actually is the rationale. But it does clarify a lot for me because um I I I wonder you talk about the the actual care and the impact that it has on these children. Is it your testimony here today that the doctors who provide that care to the children don't know what the impact that it has on the kids?
▶ 2:35:46Yeah, I would say first of all, it's not care because what they're doing is harming the patients. And that's exactly what I would say. The doctors who are doing this are misinformed about what they're doing. They don't understand the pathology they're treating because gender dysphoria is a problem of the mind, but they're using solutions of the body. That is where you're wrong. And so it's a a dysphoria of the mind. So psychiatric care is what they need, I believe. Yeah. Conver maybe maybe conversion therapy.
▶ 2:36:16Excuse me. Conversion therapy maybe. What do you mean by conversion therapy? Well, you seem to know everything about the medical field. I'm sure you understand. Well, I would say conversion therapy is using hormones. It was a rhetorical question, sir, and I'll reclaim my time. Let me ask you a little bit about the process. I'm sorry, only five minutes. Let me ask you a little about the process.
▶ 2:36:34Now, I heard your testimony earlier to be that um you saw this happening, and I'm not going to get into the details as to uh what the Texas Children Hospital represented it was doing or not doing. They clearly say they never had anything secretive. They were following the law. Um but you felt like you had come upon uh something that was very damaging to uh child patients.
▶ 2:37:05And obviously you're aware of HIPPA. Uh, and I assume you're aware of as a medical doctor what your obligations are to report anything you see as child abuse or something similar through a particular chain. Is that correct? Yes, sir. And um I know you testified and you said that you saw one example or a couple examples of parents who had abused children be allowed in their hospital rooms.
▶ 2:37:34And so therefore, even though you knew that you should go to child protective services, you decided unilaterally that it would be worthless. So you weren't going to follow the proper procedures. Is that right? Yes. CPS has had proven ineffective to protect proven proven to who? To me. I see. So, you get to sub you get to put your own judgment in instead of the parents, instead of child protective services, instead of the government, whatever you think you get to do.
▶ 2:38:03Well, they're not going to be good. So, I'm going to go to a journalist. And now you're trying to call yourself a whistleblower. But let me ask you, you said something else I found interesting. Or maybe it was Mr. Lidle before you went to Mr. Rufo with this information. Um, did you try to reach out to the Texas Attorney General? Yes, sir. That's Ken Paxton, right? Who has been leading the charge against gender affirming care, correct? Yeah.
▶ 2:38:32Um, I have an article here that you wrote in January of 2024 to defend yourself. You don't say anywhere in here that you tried to reach out to the Texas Attorney General. Yeah. So, where where which is true, the article or what you're testifying to here today? testifying here today that we reached out to Ken Paxton's office before the story was released in May of 2023 and you didn't hear back. No. Um, I have a unanimous consent uh request.
▶ 2:39:01I'd like to introduce uh this article uh written by uh Ethan H here not on my watch uh in the it's eye on the news the social order healthcare dated January 12th 2024 without objection I'll now recognize myself uh for five minutes um we had as I mentioned earlier a witness last year uh named Khloe Cole I've become uh friends with and
▶ 2:39:31come to know uh who testified here. Uh she's one example of many of people that I've met and and come uh to know through her and through others. And in testimony, this is similar testimony. It wasn't the exact testimony she gave here. Um she mentioned that she's a dransitioned 18-year-old woman. Now, this is older. Um this is like last year from California who went through the process of medical transition between the ages of 12 and 16.
▶ 2:39:58And then she goes through and describes how it happened, how she was pushed by social media and how she was pushed by uh medical uh personnel uh to go down that road. And then she goes through and explains because this this is relevant. I'm going to ask a question about what um Children's Hospital was up to in Texas. Uh she said, quote, "I've suffered a multitude of complications from the blockers, from the cross sex hormones, and the surgery.
▶ 2:40:23She had a double My quality of life is still being impacted to this day. I had my puberty blocked when I was already about four years in. So, I started experiencing some menopause-like symptoms, severe hot flashes, and itching over my body. This went away after I stopped taking them, but I still have joint pains and shooting pains in my spine. During a consultation for testosterone, I was told by my endocrinologist that I would experience vaginal atrophy. I was not informed that this atrophy actually affects the rest of the organs in the pelvic region.
▶ 2:40:52She want goes to explain more uh uh that uh she would be unable breastfeed. Um it's horrific. It's absolutely horrific. And what I want to point out is I heard one of my colleagues said on the other side of the aisle, I think he was asking you, Dr. Heim, about whether or not uh Children's Hospital uh was engaging in uh surgery.
▶ 2:41:15And I want to just stick real quick to your allegation that Children's Hospital was continuing to engage in puberty blockers uh even after what was happening on with Texas with respect to the law in Texas. Oh yeah. I mean they were absolutely doing the surgeries after they said they were not doing they were doing puberty blockers and surgeries. Well, the puberty blockers are surgeries to implant the devices into the child. And that was absolutely happening. That's your testimony. Absolutely.
▶ 2:41:45There's evidence of that. And Miss Civage, can you explain a little bit more detail about why that is so horrific? Um, absolutely. I think there are so many harmful effects uh from implanting puberty blocking devices and administering some form of testosterone or estrogen therapies to children.
▶ 2:42:11Some of those effects include um ovarian atrophy where prolonged testosterone uh you know uh taking prolonged testosterone for a female will result in ovarian atrophy which ultimately results in uh menstrual irregularities and then the cessation of the menses ultimately culminating in uh infertility the the inability to conceive and to have children. Um Mr. Leslie a quick question in your work and and I'm going to try to ask some quick questions. have limited time.
▶ 2:42:40Um, do you believe the government should intervene uh when parents refuse to provide their minor children with access to uh gender dysphoria treatment? At first focus, we believe that medical decision should be made by doctors, parents, and children, right? Yes or no? If the parents don't want to do it, should doctors be able to intervene? Doctors, parents, and children should make medical decisions. But if the doctors are trying to do it without the parents and the parental consent, should they be able to do it?
▶ 2:43:11Parents should be abs parents and children should be involved in all medical decisions involved. Should the parents be making the decision with the child? Yeah. The the in conjunction with doctors though like not all right. If the if the parents don't agree to do it, is that does that constitute child abuse? There are cases where there's medical neglect in in but that's not my expertise what I'm talking about.
▶ 2:43:36Well, is it true that you published a column stating the following that quote on the other hand children are less powerful than adults and are particularly vulnerable uh for physical emotional and sexual abuse but also abuse of power by parents in one article. On another article, April 5th, 2020 20 25th 2021, you published an article stating there is no doubt that children need the support protection of parents, but children also sometimes need protection from actions by parents and government that threaten their health, education, safety, and well-being.
▶ 2:44:03In other words, do you think it's abusive if parents choose not to pursue this path? Yes or no? The path of gender dysphoria or generally because what I was talking about in those columns were things like abuse and neglect that have to do with what Dr. time talked about was things like, you know, he he testified that there's in intentional starvation, cigarette burns, those kinds of things that then he sees that the parents are still in the room.
▶ 2:44:30So, I agree with him that in those sorts of cases, we should actually have protections for for kids request. Yeah. Uh I would like to insert into the record uh an article by Mr. Leslie, how parental rights bill threatens the health, education, and safety of children. Another article by Mr. Leslie, Governor DeSantis should veto Florida's tragically flawed so-called parents bill of rights. Uh, a number of tweet threads uh by uh Mr.
▶ 2:44:58Leslie on the same topic and then a first focus campaign for children letter uh that I believe that Mr. Leslie authored dated January 12, 2024 to Tim Scott and Virginia Fox on similar topics. Without objection, I'll now recognize the ranking member. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, Miss Savage, you've issued some opinions here about the propriety of care for gender dysphoria. Now, you're a pediatric nurse. Is that correct?
▶ 2:45:28Yes. And you have a bachelor's in nursing. I do. Okay. And you received that when? Uh, when did I graduate? Yes. In 2015. 2015. Okay. And as you described your job, you were working as a clinic nurse where your duties were refilling prescriptions, acting as a liaison between doctors and parents, and obtaining insurance authorization. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. You don't have a medical degree. Is that right? I have a nursing degree. Right. But you don't have a medical degree. Correct. No.
▶ 2:45:59And you don't have a psych psychological Uh, I have common sense. Okay. But you don't have a license to practice as a psychologist, a psychiatrist, or a doctor. And I know the difference between right and wrong. Yes, ma'am. So, you're you do not have those things. Okay. Moving right along. Um, Mr. Lesie, you testified earlier that child poverty is rising, and we know that's happened since the elimination of the expanded tax credit. Will Republican budget cuts make that problem worse?
▶ 2:46:30Depending on on what things we see. after after the uh in the aftermath of the budget resolution. Absolutely. Depending on what kinds of cuts and we're very concerned that they tend they what we're seeing is that they may just be disproportionate to kids and that's um the kinds of cuts you talked about earlier with respect to SNAP and WIC and Medicaid which is um funding CHIP for children's health insurance. Absolutely.
▶ 2:46:56I mean, chip the children's health insurance program was a bipartisan piece of legislation that is universally supported by Democrat Republican governors all across this nation and the polling in America shows that it is the most popular and people strongly oppose cutting chip. Um, I've had a longtime concern about children's hunger. Yes. And SNAP has been proven over decades to be a really effective way of alleviating hunger as have school lunches, school breakfasts.
▶ 2:47:26We've already seen cuts from this administration eliminating millions and millions of dollars that go towards school lunches and now we're faced with um budget proposal that is by necessity in order to meet its parameters going to end up cutting SNAP and wick. Can you talk about the impact of that on children? Absolutely. Um SNAP beneficiaries are disproportionately children and SNAP basically, you know, prevents children from going to bed at night hungry.
▶ 2:47:54um and and some of the summer summer meals programs. I mean those things are also being targeted. Um it it is enormously important to reducing child poverty as well. has um huge ramifications for families and we know I mean I testified earlier my parents were educators and they would speak often about kids coming to school hungry and they would they had a food drawer you know both of them and they would give kids food because kids would come to school hungry and you can't learn when you're not h when you're hungry.
▶ 2:48:24Yeah. Um, I think the the image of a kid going to bed hungry is is it tugs at the heartstrings, but having spent a significant amount of time in the public schools, kids who come to school hungry absolutely don't learn. Are we seeing child hunger on the rise right now? We are seeing child hunger on the rise. It's it's more than doubled since 2021. Okay.
▶ 2:48:47Uh, another longtime concern that I've had has to in our streets and you testified earlier that it is that gun violence is now the number one killer of children under 19 both through suicide and through homicide. Um, we've already seen this administration cut uh community violence prevention and gun safety grants to our cities and communities which actually had seen a reduction in gun violence since a peak in 2021.
▶ 2:49:15Can you talk about what budget cuts would mean with respect to reducing gun violence and child Yes, I I I would hope that we would all agree that we should do all we can to do prevention. And those grants are prevention grants. They're not gun control grants. They're they're grants to try to re reduce, you know, to improve prevention services. And so that's that's something that hopefully is a very bipartisan thing.
▶ 2:49:40Another thing that hit the news over the last week was the fact that DOE and and the uh fired everyone at the federal government, all 15 people who administer the lie heap program and lie heap provides uh emergency funding to heat homes in the winter or cool them when it gets so hot in the summer. So with no one there to administer the program, the remaining $400 million for this year and whatever isn't cut from the budget last year can't go out.
▶ 2:50:09What does a cut to lie heap do to kids? Oh, it's huge. I mean, I I mean, I grew up, as I said earlier, from in El Paso, Texas. It's in the middle of the desert. It gets to be over 110 degrees. Um, my wife is from the state of Maine. It gets freezing up there. Same thing. Her family's in the home heating oil business. Lie Hap is huge for no matter what end of the country you you live in. And life- saving, I would argue. Yes. Um, really want to thank you for your testimony and I yield back.
▶ 2:50:42I would I would ask for a unanimous consent request to enter into the record the um a copy of the superseding indictment that was referenced earlier uh to recognize that there are a number of uh changes in that superseding indictment that it dropped the mistaken claim that a published HIPPA protected information obtained by Dr. Heim. Counts two through four no longer contain the false charge that Dr. Dr. Heim did obtain or wrongfully disclose HIPPO protected information, no longer alleges that Dr.
▶ 2:51:11Heim requested remote access so he could discreetly covert covertly access pediatric patient files and a number of other changes in the superseding indictment acknowledging the extent to which the original indictment was flawed and based on false claims. And with that, I will now recognize uh my good friend uh Mr. Ander. and uh in doing so without getting uh too personal, we're all humans and we all have a lot of things going on and um we're all praying for you and and uh and uh uh wishing you very well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Five minutes.
▶ 2:51:41Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the chairman for holding this important hearing. As a physician, I want to personally thank you, Dr. Heim, and Miss Civich uh for having the courage to come forward. While many doctors push these experimental procedures on children, you and I both know that many others have been pressured to comply or resign uh due to their refusal to knowingly harm children in the way that we're talking about here today.
▶ 2:52:10I personally know someone who was a chair of endocrinology at a major medical center who had to resign from his position because he wouldn't go along with the transgender madness that we're seeing today. Whistleblowers like you should be applauded as heroes, not the subject of investigations.
▶ 2:52:31Uh, one whistleblower who I believe we're all familiar with in Missouri, Jamie Reid, came forward about the blatant disregard for children, and she was a true believer. She was a true believer. She thought she was doing good by these so-called transgender children. Um, she was working at the Washington University Transgender Clinic at St. Louis Children's Hospital. Washington University happens to be my alma mater. And I've I've been aware of this clinic and advocated for its closure for years.
▶ 2:53:01And that's why one of the first bills I introduced when I came to Congress was HR 2387, the No Harm Act, because we as doctors take an oath to uh do no harm. Um I wanted to u Miss is it pronounc? Yeah, Miss Civage.
▶ 2:53:20Um, you know, I it's it's ironic my some of my Democratic colleagues today are um talking a lot about hypothetical reforms to Medicaid and so on, but as long as we're on the subject of Medicaid, let's talk about it. I'm a physician. I've I've uh taken Medicaid patients for over 30 years. I appreciate your courage in in exposing Medicaid fraud because we know these these transition medications and procedures are expensive.
▶ 2:53:49So I think it's it you're doing a great service. You did a great service both to the taxpayers in Texas and of course the children and the family and to all of us by exposing uh prohibited Medicaid coverage of transition procedures um diagnosing children with hormone deficiencies and sedat of gender dysphoria.
▶ 2:54:10I think another game they play is with regarding puberty blockers diagnosing precocious puberty when in fact in fact these drugs were being used as chem chemical castration drugs to block puberty. Um I have to say I treated children for 30 years in my practice not endocrinology but in a in a in a field where I saw lots of kids. I don't think I ever saw a kid with the with precocious puberty on his or her chart.
▶ 2:54:39And yet in some places tell me a little bit about what what was going on. Were they they were they were they were downright putting the wrong ICD10 code in these patients charts. Yes, thank you for that question. Yes, Texas Children's Hospital uh through two particular uh doctors were misdi intentionally misdiagnosing patients and I saw this with my own eyes.
▶ 2:55:01um they were for example labeling a male with a testosterone deficiency uh in order to administer uh testosterone. And uh they would do this because on the medical chart they would put the preferred gender identity of the patient and not the biological sex. And so this makes it very difficult to detect fraud for any insurance company who gets the billing code.
▶ 2:55:26it it's very difficult to distinguish what is what is actually happening right so what I have here behind me are charts hormone therapy and puberty blockers where the gender the diagnosis gender dysphoria was actually the reason for treatment so these are cases where the correct diagnosis code the correct ICD10 code was used in children aged 6 to 17 um but if we take into account
▶ 2:55:56fraud where hormone deficiency or or or or precocious puberty is is used, these bar graphs would be far greater. So quite a few children are being treated inappropriately with these drugs. Um you know, Dr. Heim, I I've been reading your story following you.
▶ 2:56:16I'm running short on time, but I just want to say I cannot imagine the courage that you and your wife and and by the way, thank goodness your wife was an attorney and counseledled you because you know what would have happened? You would have made some misstatement that they would have taken out of context and you would be in prison today for quote lying to a federal agent. So, um you illustrated great courage. You did not violate HIPPA and there are HIPPA violations all the time that are never prosecuted.
▶ 2:56:45They came down on you because you were standing up for kids. So, God bless you and it's I'm proud to have you as a fellow member of my profession. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Thank you. Uh gentleman's time is I yield back. I appreciate that. I'll now recognize uh once I give him a little second here to get seated uh my friend Texas, Mr. Gil. Thank Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for uh holding this hearing today.
▶ 2:57:14In in foreign countries, we refer to gender reassignment surgeries as child genital mutilation. In the US, we have a much more medicalized and sterile uh terminology that we use of of gender reassignment surgery. It's utterly barbaric and thankfully we have a president who's serious about ending it. Dr. Heim, thank you so much for being here.
▶ 2:57:39Um, we really appreciate all the work that you have done and your bravery um, throughout this process. I'd like to ask you a few questions. Um, there's a a far-left organization and it's known as the Campaign for Southern Equality and it publicly posts a fact sheet fact sheet, excuse me, with commonly used insurance codes.
▶ 2:58:02Um the the group claims that quote this information can help provide uh guide providers about insurance codes for trans health care that are commonly accepted and rejected. End quote. Are you aware of this fact sheet? I am aware. You are. Could you explain maybe a little bit about the sheet and what it's commonly used for? So this is really important because when you type in gender affirming care diagnosis codes on Google, this is one of the top search results.
▶ 2:58:30What this document does is inform doctors at these clinics how to get insurance companies, whether private or government, to cover um without revealing that it's being used for gender dysphoria, right? So, how do you get uh how do you do a mastctomy but then, you know, bill an insurance company and not raise any red flags? For example, like if it's happening in a red state, right?
▶ 2:58:58Well, you you uh uh bill it as breast reduction instead of a massctomy, right? If you have a girl, right, like a 14-year-old girl who um uh you want to prescribe, you know, testosterone for quote unquote gender affirming care, you put the a male sex in the med medical chart and then you prescribe testosterone for testosterone deficiency. The only thing the insurance company sees is male testosterone deficiency. No red flags are raised. They don't know that they're getting defrauded.
▶ 2:59:28But what this guide is is essentially uh um a template for how to commit medical fraud. And we should all all remember, you know, this is something that people go to prison for. This is a major deal. You know, they have entire departments at hospitals for this. That's that's right. So, this is a way of guiding doctors of how to defraud insurance companies. Is that correct? How to lie to them.
▶ 2:59:51that it I mean that's what it says in that uh I mean in in a you know um you know other language, right? They try to dress it up and make it sound nice, but that's what they're saying. And and this is something that could and likely is being used to subvert the president's executive order. Is that right? Oh, yeah. I mean, it's my suspicion this is happening all over the country, especially in red states.
▶ 3:00:13And in in your time in the medical field, have you seen this tactic being used to uh defraud insurance companies or to misrepresent surgeries that are that are being done in in my personal practice? No. No. Because it's such a big deal, right? Like everything you do has to be by the books. Everything you write on a medical chart has to be true. It has to support a certain diagnosis. That diagnosis has to be uh uh related to a treatment.
▶ 3:00:40If there's any break in that link, that's a big problem. People go to prison for that. Have you ever heard of a health care provider using some of these tactics or using a wrong insurance code? Uh yeah, I I've heard about it and those people are in prison. And do you and you suspect to be clear that this is a currently a recurring practice? Yeah. And and you know there's a few cases in Texas where um the attorney general of Texas has and of course this is before litigation. you know, we we have to remember that people are innocent until proven guilty.
▶ 3:01:11That he brought three doctors in Texas up for violating SB14, right, for this a similar scheme which has been outlined in his uh suits against them where they're using false diagnosis and then um misrepresented sexes in order to bill insurance companies to conceal quote unquote gender affirming care in Texas after the passage of SB14. Yep. Thank you, Dr. Heim. I'd like to yield the remain remainder of my time to the chair. I appreciate for my f my friend from Texas. I appreciate the witnesses.
▶ 3:01:41Uh Miss Civage, earlier your credentials as a nurse were challenged, I think with respect to your ability to uh make the observations you came here to testify. Would you like to respond to that? I would. Yes. um the sterilization and the medicalization of children is not lifesaving in the way in the same way that the dismemberment of the unborn in the womb is not healthcare and that does not take a person with credentials to recognize that. Thank you, Miss Civage. I appreciate the witnesses.
▶ 3:02:11That concludes today's hearing. We thank the witnesses for appearing before the subcommittee. Without objection, all members will have five legislative days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses or additional materials for the record. Without objection, this hearing is adjourned.