Justice Department Dismisses Slew of Biden-Era Criminal Cases

The Justice Department’s move to drop corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams is just the latest in a series of dismissals in high-profile criminal cases.

That’s at least the sixth notable non-Jan. 6 case abandoned since President Trump was sworn in, and it’s unlikely to be the last, as Trump implements his plan to review civil and criminal enforcement and end the perceived “weaponization of prosecutorial power.”

Federal prosecutors filed a motion Jan. 29 to dismiss false statement charges against former representative Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.). He was tried and convicted once, but the convictions were reversed due to improper venue. When he was subsequently re-indicted in Washington, D.C., his lawyers from Williams & Connolly LLP argued he was a target of selective prosecution.

Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Texas on Jan. 24 filed a joint motion to dismiss criminal HIPAA charges against a Houston doctor accused of unlawfully leaking medical records related to gender-affirming care provided to minors by Texas Children’s Hospital.

The doctor, Eithan Haim, said he was blowing the whistle on child abuse, and his lawyers—including Marcella Burke, who served in the prior Trump administration—had argued the case was politically motivated.

And prosecutors in the District of New Jersey on Jan. 21 moved to dismiss a criminal health care fraud kickback case filed in 2021 against John Berberian and Christopher Lytle. The motion simply said that “further prosecution of this case is not in the interests of the United States at this time.”

Berberian, a Georgia-based consultant, and Lytle, a Texas man who allegedly worked with Berberian to recruit patients, were accused of conspiring to pay a lab kickbacks for referrals for genetic tests.

Berberian’s lawyers include Brian Steel, who represented rapper Young Thug in his Georgia RICO trial. He famously asked to share a cell with his client after being held in contempt and sentenced to 20 days in jail. He didn’t ultimately serve an jail time because the order was reversed.

The Justice Department has also ended certain Biden-era investigations.

On Feb. 5 the Southern District of New York said it was terminating its ongoing investigation into Project Veritas related to the Ashley Biden diary theft case.

Miami-based Paul Calli, a lawyer for Veritas and its founder, said in a LinkedIn post that the government had “conceded its defeat” in an investigation that it “pursued for partisan political purposes and that threatened to desecrate the First Amendment and violate existing First Amendment precedent.”