Rand Paul Eager for Trump to End "Lawfare-Against-Whistleblower" Era

#8 The Left used to honor and value whistleblowers. Will it now be the Right that restores that respect?

Texas surgeon Eithan Haim was prosecuted by the federal government for allegedly sharing private information about patients who were not his about transgender care for minors.

Texas banned transgender care for minors in September 2023, and the information Haim was accused of obtaining unlawfully was before then. He maintained that he had “done nothing wrong.”

In June, Haim said, “We’re going to fight this tooth and nail, stand up for whistleblowers everywhere.”

On Friday, Haim’s case was dropped.

Sen. Rand Paul hoped the federal government dropping Haim’s case was the beginning of the end of the war on whistleblowers.

Sen. Paul makes a good point.

For over a decade now, we have been living in an era of “lawfare-against-whistleblowers,” which has become the usual fate of anyone who would dare shine a light on wrongdoing, not the exception.

While the government punishing whistleblowers is nothing new - see the late Daniel Ellsberg and his treatment for revealing the Pentagon Papers in 1971 - the federal government became even more ruthless in pursuing leakers in more recent times (something Ellsberg pointed out repeatedly).

This newer wave of lawfare that Sen. Paul is referring to was a major feature of the Obama era.

Obama 2008: “Protect Whistleblowers”

In 2008, the Obama transition team created the website Change.gov that listed promises and reforms made by the one time antiwar and pro-civil liberties Democratic presidential candidate.

Many of Obama’s promises were a reaction to the George W. Bush and Iraq War years, where Patriot Act abuses, illegal torture, due process-less Guantanamo Bay and secret government black sites, defied so many basic liberties and traditional American values, or what generations of Americans considered to be their country’s values.

There was so much abuse under Bush-Cheney, that under his administration, Obama vowed to protect whistleblowers who might reveal some of these crimes carried out by the federal government.

This was from Change.gov, established in 2008:

This was removed from the website on June 8, 2013.

Two days prior, on June 6, 2013, the Guardian had an explosive report about the National Security Agency collecting the phone data of millions of Verizon customers, every day.

This was but the first of many revelations that came from whistleblower Edward Snowden, who was still anonymous at the time of this initial report.

The Obama administration eventually viciously pursued Snowden, with then Vice President Joe Biden in particular hunting him down from country to country, threatening any that might harbor the fugitive.

Snowden eventually landed in Russia where he has remained to this day, while openly wishing for a return to his home in the U.S. and to enjoy some of the kinds of protections President Obama once promised.

Obama is obviously no longer president. But President Trump could protect whistleblowers and deliver them relief.

Haim, Snowden and Assange

Like Snowden, Haim saw himself as doing a public service by letting the public know that gender-affirming procedures that might have been permanently damaging were reportedly being performed on children below the age of consent.

Near the time of Haim’s whistleblowing activities, polling data showed that strong majorities of Americans opposed gender-affirming surgery on minors and also underage children receiving puberty blocking treatment.

In other words, Haim appeared to see it as his civic duty to inform his fellow citizens of a moral wrong that was happening right under their nose.

The same can be said of two of the most famous whistleblowers of our time, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Assange languished in a British prison for years fighting U.S. attempts to extradite him for trial.

His “crime?” Practicing journalism.

Assange was presented with classified documents that showed a darker reality of the Iraq reality of the Iraq War and U.S. foreign policy that had been shielded from the public, and published it for the world to see.

Accepting and publishing classified documents is a practice the New York Times and the Washington Post and most other major legacy news outlets have done countless times for many decades.

But Assange had embarrassed the U.S. government.

In June, President Joe Biden accepted a deal in which Assange would be granted his freedom if he plead to a felony. Assange understandably agreed.

But he committed no crime. Journalism is not a crime, or shouldn’t be.

There are many more whistleblowers who are less famous, who have suffered even worse punishment for doing precisely what Obama once encouraged on his own website.

We should not have to live in a country where the lawbreakers and wrongdoers are protected, and those calling them out are made out to be criminals.

Thankfully, Trump Department of Justice has dropped its case against Eithan Haim.

He should do the same for Edward Snowden. President Trump could also issue Julian Assange a full pardon.

Let’s end this ugly era of lawfare-against-whistleblowers, and seek a more transparent government closer to the Founders’ original intentions.

And the people’s desire.

aaa