When Federal Agents Knock At Your Door | Dr. Ethain Haim

So you're doing all this while you're not even completely finished your medical training. So this really is your introduction into modern medicine as it's practiced currently. I can't believe; I can't imagine how demoralizing that would be. But it's for that reason that I did it, right? It's because I was seeing what was happening. Of course someone has to do something about it, because if I want to pass on a career, a profession to my children, a world to my children, I have to do it when it's the most difficult thing to do, right? It's like, what option did I have? So, of course, you know, um...

But yeah, it's kind of funny to say that because it was on the day of my graduation from surgical training that the next part of the story, where it gets really wild, um, because five weeks later, the day I'm graduating from surgical training, one of the most important days of my life, right? You spend all this time sacrificing, you all these important events. So it's a Friday, June 23rd. We have the ceremony in a couple of hours. I'm about to meet with my family. My wife and I are just getting ready in our apartment when all of a sudden I get an aggressive knock on the door.

I think, man, like, that's weird; like, who could this be? So I shuffle over, I open it, and standing outside are two federal agents with Health and Human Services. They show me their badges and tell me that they're investigating a case regarding medical records. So in that moment, everything just...you freeze, right? Your mind just shuts down. But in the back of my mind, like, you know, in like my cerebellum somewhere, you know, I just knew they were there to make an example out of me. Because I was anonymous, we were able to tell this story; a bill got passed, another whistleblower came out, they had to shut down the program. If I was able to do this, how many other people were able to do this, right?

It was a challenge to the dominant political ideology, of course I knew that's kind of what was going on, but you freak out in a moment. So I invite them in; we sit down and they... So you figured that out right away. You basically figured that out right away. How the hell did they know who you were, given that the story had broke anonymously? Well, they had most likely used a huge amount of federal resources to pursue this investigation in that time to find out it was me. They had to mobilize the agents, do an investigation, right, find all their evidence, surveil me to find out when I was going to be home, surveil me to find out when I was graduating, find out where my address was, and then come to my home a few hours before I was graduating.

So you know, it's like, when you have time that, do you think they...do you think they timed that to coincide with your graduation? And also, who is they? As far as you know, like, who? Obviously, the hospital wouldn't be very happy with you because they had to shut down this program and then there are people pulling the strings behind the scenes to keep the program going. But who do you believe, or perhaps know, was behind the investigation into the whistleblowing? Well, you know who runs Health and Human Services and the FBI and the, um, you know, different legal organizations, right? That want to see this pursued.

So yeah, you have the most powerful people in the country who I believe are in this. And I think the timing was exactly what they were intending because they have to use the value of that accomplishment, the meaning of that day, as their method to extort the threat, right? They have to use that as the extortion for my compliance, because they know I'm starting my career. In order to preserve that, they need to do that so that I comply with them. I admit to something that never happened so that I can participate in some phony investigation and then close the door permanently for other whistleblowers in the country.

But as they're coming to find out, you know, they knocked on the wrong door because that day we decided to fight. But you know, when they were setting up their little tripod to do an interview, my wife comes out; she was getting ready. And luckily, my wife is a brilliant attorney. She's actually an Assistant U.S. Attorney at the Department of Justice. So my wife works at the Department of Justice. She's a lawyer in the Northern District of Texas. Um, she had been hired at the time, and that's an important point later in the story; just kind of put that in the back of your mind.

But she comes out and we both look at each other and we say, "Bad idea." We go to our bedroom and we both say, you know what, not a good idea to speak with them without an attorney present. We go back out and we tell them, you know, we won't speak with them further. They say, "Okay." They pack up their things before leaving. They hand me a Target letter, and it's a piece of paper that says, "I am a potential target of a criminal investigation," and it's signed by an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of Texas. So we knew that a few minutes after that door opened, you know, the door closes; our lives are going to be changed forever because we had a choice, just like before, you know: do we fight back? Do I fight back, right?

Um, you know, do I submit to this ideology? Do I, uh, uh compromise everything I believe in, you know, everything I believe my profession to be? You know, do I, um, uh, you know, compromise what was happening to these children? So there was no question; there was no way I would allow that to happen. So, um, you know, I decided to fight that day, and we've been fighting ever since. What do you think they wanted from you? Like, they presumed, I imagine, or knew that you were the whistleblower at that point, and they came using these very sophisticated, I would say, and well-thought-through intimidation tactics.

Extraordinarily well-timed, I would say, sadistically well-timed. And, um, but you've already broken the story, and so you've done most of the damage that you could do, arguably. What do you think they wanted from you at that point? Fear and compliance. Because they needed, right? It's like, it's not the justice system, right, where it's these people who are actually pursuing the truth in order to obtain justice. This is the exact opposite. When you become a target of a corrupt justice system investigation, people believe that when you comply, when you give in to them, you're actually going to make it better for yourself. But it's the exact opposite, because it's their virtue; it's the truth that they are targeting.

It's, it's, uh, so you believe that your participation, right, if you're innocent, will exonerate you, but it's the exact opposite. It's because you're innocent, because you're virtuous, that they're targeting you in the first place. And I knew that at that point because I was able to see all these investigations over the previous couple of years where this was happening. So at that point, I already had the framework in my mind: like, this is a corrupt Department of Justice. What kind of investigations are you referring to that you had seen over the previous years? If you think about the main, uh, political investigations into, uh, political opponents of the Democratic Party over the past four years.

So for example, if you look at, um, uh, anyone who spoke out during Covid, uh, if you look at Douglas Mackie, if you look at, uh, the abortion badia, yeah, badar, if you look at, uh, the abortion protesters who are being sent to prison for 10, 20 years for the FACE Act for sitting in front of a, um, a clinic, right? You know your compliance does not exonerate you, right? It's because of your innocence, because of your virtue, that you're being targeted in the first place. So I knew that; it was obvious.

So I still don't exactly understand what, okay, say they wanted your compliance. But compliance with regard to what? For you to retract your accusations? You're telling me that you knew that complying wasn't going to help you, but I still don't understand exactly what they...what did they want? Other than to intimidate you and to stop other whistleblowers. Is that the gist of it? You know, that's actually a really good question, because, um, compliance toward what? I believe they needed me to comply, right, in order to admit to a crime, to grovel at their feet, to issue some meaning, you know, some fake apology for doing the right thing.

So basically, outline for us what exactly the charges were. So they brought these charges forward to you, and the presumption was that possibly you could admit to them. Hypothetically, that would mean things would go easier for you, which is completely not true, but then it would also discredit you and serve as an object warning to anybody who was going to pull the curtain back in the future. Okay, so what exactly did they accuse you of? So at that point, completely unclear, and that's where it goes into the next part of the story. But I think it's, it's, yeah, it's the point where they needed to make an example out of me.

They needed to make me into a criminal, right? Because if they could do that, of course they shut the door permanently to every other whistleblower in the healthcare system in our country. Yeah, they shut it, per...well, and they discredit you too. Exactly, right? And that's going to be very convenient because, you know, you could imagine that the, that Ken Paxton, for example, and the rest of the Texas Republicans aren't going to take the rebellion of the Texas Children's Hospital and their lies lying down. And so you play a pivotal role in that. Their best strategy is to discredit you and turn you into a criminal, obviously.

Okay, so continue with the story. Let it continue to unfold. Yep, so after that, right? What do we do? Right? So my wife and I, we had the graduation; we go on our patio and we celebrate. So we put on Vietnam War music, we open a bottle of champagne, and we celebrate. Because at that point, what do you do? Um, and, uh, well, good for you, so you went on with the celebration, of course? Yeah, yeah, huh? Yeah, no, we had. And it was kind of one of those moments where you look back, you're like, oh my God, like that's completely insane. But like, what else could you do, right? When the federal government comes knock on your door, right? You have to fight back.

Well, I also think, when you're shocked like that, you tend to revert to what would be typical and habitual behavior, you know, because you don't know what else to do. I mean, what the hell do you do when the feds come knocking at your door because you've blown the whistle on people in your, in your children's hospital who are mutilating kids? Like, that's a nightmare. That's really beyond comprehension. And so it's not like you're going to know how to react.

Yeah, and it was at that point where it's like, once you cross the Rubicon, you know, you're never going to go back to that life. That you become this new person, like you're entering this unknown world where you don't know what it's going to be, right? It's complete darkness, but you know you have faith that's the right place to go. So, um, we got in touch with our attorneys, right? Through Christopher Roff, brilliant people, Marcel Burke; she's amazing, she's a fighter. So we knew she was the right person for the case.