In June 2025, the Department of Justice served an administrative subpoena to QueerDoc, a telehealth provider of gender-affirming care, demanding extensive internal documents and confidential patient records as part of a purported investigation into federal healthcare offenses.
QueerDoc moved to quash the subpoena as overly broad and lacking a legitimate investigative purpose, and the district court granted QueerDoc’s motion. The district court concluded that the investigation was intended “to pressure providers to cease offering gender-affirming care rather than to investigate specific unlawful conduct,” and the DOJ appealed that decision.
A group of former senior DOJ officials, represented by the Brennan Center and the law firm Paterson Belknap, filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals supporting QueerDoc’s position that the district court properly quashed the subpoena. The brief explains that deviations from DOJ policies and norms evident in the record support the district court’s conclusion that the subpoena was issued for an improper purpose.
The brief does not take a position on gender-affirming care. Rather, it emphasizes that the Ninth Circuit cannot allow coercive investigations to take place and that the administration cannot pursue policy goals via improper investigations in place of the legislative process.
