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DALLAS (AP) — Federal prosecutors on Friday dropped the case against a Texas doctor who called himself a whistleblower on transgender care for minors and was accused of illegally obtaining private information on patients who weren’t under his care.

The dismissal of the case against Dr. Eithan Haim in U.S. district court in Houston comes as the Trump administration in its first week has already issued executive orders rolling back transgender rights.

Prosecutors had said that Haim, a 34-year-old surgeon, took the information and shared it with a conservative activist with “intent to cause malicious harm” to Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, one of the nation’s largest pediatric hospitals.

Haim pleaded not guilty in June to four counts of wrongfully obtaining individually identifiable health information, saying outside the courthouse that he had “done nothing wrong.”

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

Ryan Patrick, one of Haim’s attorneys, said the dismissal speaks to the veracity of their case, and they “‘are very happy for Dr. Haim and his family that this ordeal is finally over.”

Haim has publicly identified himself as the person who gave the information about patients at Texas Children’s to a conservative activist, who published a story that the hospital was providing transgender care for minors in secret.

At the time, transgender care for minors was legal in Texas, but the hospital had announced in 2022 that it would stop would stop gender-affirming care. A ban in Texas on transgender care for minors went into effect in September 2023.

DALLAS (AP) — Millions of documents related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas have already been made public, but President Donald Trump has ordered the release of thousands of still-classified files.

Trump signed the executive order Thursday as part of a flurry of executive actions taken in the first week of his second term.

Many people who have studied what’s been released so far say the public shouldn’t anticipate any earth-shattering revelations, but there is still intense interest in details related to the assassination and the events surrounding it. And the possibility of significant new information is tantalizing to researchers.

Here are some things to know:
Trump’s order

Thursday’s order directed the national intelligence director and attorney general to develop a plan within 15 days to release the records related to Kennedy’s assassination. It’s not clear though when the records might actually be made public.

The order also aims to declassify the remaining federal records related to the 1968 assassinations of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. It says a plan must be developed within 45 days for the release of those files.

After signing the order, Trump handed the pen to an aide and directed that it be given to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who Trump has nominated to be the health secretary. He’s the nephew of John F. Kennedy and son of Robert F. Kennedy. The younger Kennedy, whose anti-vaccine activism has alienated him from much of his family, has said he isn’t convinced that a lone gunman was solely responsible for his uncle’s the assassination.

In a post Friday on X, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. thanked Trump for ordering the release of the files and “trusting American citizens.”
Nov. 22, 1963

When Air Force One carrying JFK and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy touched down in Dallas, they were greeted by a clear sky and enthusiastic crowds. With a reelection campaign on the horizon the next year, they went to Texas for a political fence-mending trip.

But as the motorcade was finishing its parade route downtown, shots rang out from the Texas School Book Depository building. Police arrested 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald, who had positioned himself from a sniper’s perch on the sixth floor. Two days later, nightclub owner Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald during a jail transfer.

A year after the assassination, the Warren Commission, which President Lyndon B. Johnson established to investigate, concluded that Oswald acted alone and that there was no evidence of a conspiracy. But that didn’t quell a web of alternative theories over the decades.
The JFK files

In the early 1990s, the federal government mandated that all assassination-related documents be housed in a single collection in the National Archives and Records Administration. The collection of over 5 million records was required to be opened by 2017, barring any exemptions designated by the president.

Trump, who took office for his first term in 2017, had said that he would allow the release of all of the remaining records but ended up holding some back because of what he called the potential harm to national security. And while files continued to be released during President Joe Biden’s administration, some remain unseen.

Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and author of “The Kennedy Half-Century,” said that most researchers agree that roughly 3,000 records have not yet been released, either in whole or in part, and many of those originated with the CIA.

There are still some documents in the JFK collection that researchers don’t believe the president will be able to release. Around 500 documents, including tax returns, weren’t subject to the 2017 disclosure requirement.
What’s been learned

Some of the documents already released have offered details on the way intelligence services operated at the time, including CIA cables and memos discussing visits by Oswald to the Soviet and Cuban embassies during a trip to Mexico City just weeks before the assassination. The former Marine had previously defected to the Soviet Union before returning home to Texas.

One CIA memo describes how Oswald phoned the Soviet embassy while in Mexico City to ask for a visa to visit the Soviet Union. He also visited the Cuban embassy, apparently interested in a travel visa that would permit him to visit Cuba and wait there for a Soviet visa. On Oct. 3, more than a month before the assassination, he drove back into the United States through a crossing point at the Texas border.

Another memo, dated the day after Kennedy’s assassination, says that according to an intercepted phone call in Mexico City, Oswald communicated with a KGB officer while at the Soviet embassy that September.

The releases have also contributed to the understanding of that time period during the Cold War, researchers said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday barred Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes from entering Washington without the court’s approval after President Donald Trump commuted the extremist group leader’s 18-year prison sentence in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who oversaw the seditious conspiracy trial of Rhodes and other Oath Keepers, issued the order two days after Rhodes visited Capitol Hill, where he met with at least one lawmaker, chatted with others and defended his actions the day of the riot.

Mehta’s order applies to seven other defendants who were charged in one of the most serious conspiracy cases brought by the Justice Department over the riot. The order also prohibits them from entering the Capitol building or surrounding grounds without the court’s permission.

Ed Martin, who has been serving as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia since Trump’s inauguration on Monday, argued that Trump’s commutations mean Rhodes and others are no longer subject to the court’s supervision. In a court filing that bears only his name and signature, Martin urged the judge to vacate Friday’s order.

Martin has served as a board member of the Patriot Freedom Project group, which portrays the Jan. 6 defendants as victims of political persecution. He’s now overseeing the office that prosecuted the hundreds of riot defendants.

“The individuals referenced in our motion have had their sentences commuted — period, end of sentence,” Martin said in a statement Friday.

Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, was released from prison hours after the Republican president’s sweeping clemency action Monday benefiting the more than 1,500 people charged in the attack that halted the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory over Trump.

While Trump pardoned most of the defendants, he only commuted the prison sentences of Rhodes and 13 others. That means they remain on supervised release and have to follow certain restrictions set by the court under the supervision of a probation officer.

Rhodes did not enter the Capitol on Jan. 6, but was accused of orchestrating a weekslong plot to forcibly stop the transfer of power. He was convicted of seditious conspiracy in 2022, and he received one of the longest sentences in the Justice Department’s massive prosecution.

Rhodes said during his visit to the Capitol this week that he’s now urging Trump to give him a full pardon. Rhodes stopped in at a Dunkin’ Donuts inside the House office building in the Capitol complex before delivering a lengthy defense of himself and his actions.

“I didn’t lead anything,” he said. “So why should I feel responsible for that?”

James Lee Bright, an attorney who defended Rhodes at the trial, told The Associated Press on Friday that he’s concerned that criticism of the pardons from judges on Washington’s federal court means his client and others on supervised release will be monitored “with a very heavy hand.”

Trump’s clemency order on Monday led to the release of more than 200 people in federal custody, including dozens of people convicted of assaulting police who defended the Capitol. The president also ordered the dismissal of hundreds of cases that were pending.

Trump has defended the pardons, saying the defendants had “already served years in prison” in conditions he described as “disgusting” and “inhumane.”

Several judges have since spoken out about the pardons and efforts to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6 insurrection by a mob of Trump supporters. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who presided over Trump’s election interference case before its dismissal, said the pardons can’t change the “tragic truth” about the attack.

“It cannot whitewash the blood, feces and terror that the mob left in its wake,” Chutkan wrote in court papers this week. “And it cannot repair the jagged breach in America’s sacred tradition of peacefully transitioning power.”

Mehta has said pardoning Rhodes would be “frightening.”

“The notion that Stewart Rhodes could be absolved of his actions is frightening and ought to be frightening to anyone who cares about democracy in this country,” the judge said from the bench last month.

Rhodes’ lawyer said the judge’s comments show that the Jan. 6 defendants couldn’t get a fair trial in Washington.

Nearly 1,600 people were charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. More than 1,000 of them pleaded guilty. About 250 others were convicted by a judge or jury after trials. Over 1,100 were sentenced, with more than 700 receiving a term of imprisonment ranging from several days to 22 years.

Police are searching for a prisoner who escaped custody while undergoing testing at a hospital in Bellville, Texas, on Thursday.

The inmate, Salvador Saucedo, has red hair and tattoos and isn’t handcuffed. He was wearing an orange shirt and blue pants when he escaped, according to the Bellville Police Department.

He is missing his front teeth and has face tattoos, according to the Austin County Sheriff’s Office.

Saucedo was in custody on charges of possession of a controlled substance, resisting arrest and assault on a peace officer, according to the Waller County Sheriff’s Office.

Saucedo escaped from custody at Bellville Hospital shortly after 7 p.m. on Thursday, police said.

He has not been seen since, according to law enforcement.

Authorities from the Bellville Police Department, Austin County Sheriff’s Office and Waller County Sheriff’s Office have multiple units searching for him, including K-9s, drones and a helicopter.

It is unknown if Saucedo is still in the Bellville area or not. Bellville is about an hour west of Houston.

Anyone who sees the suspect is being asked to call 911 or call the Waller County Sheriff’s Office at 979-826-8282 or the Austin County Sheriff’s Office at 979-865-3111.