National
Gay Obama officials, HRC named in ‘racketeering’ lawsuit
Former Bush official Scott Bloch sues 25 people and groups
Two gay Obama administration officials and the Human Rights Campaign were lumped in as defendants with former Bush administration operative Karl Rove and more than a dozen others in a federal racketeering lawsuit filed by anti-gay Bush official Scott Bloch.
John Berry, director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (Blade photo by Michael Key)
The 64-page lawsuit, filed last week in Fairfax County Circuit Court, charges the defendants – including former GOP Congressman Tom Davis of Virginia – with conspiring to force Bloch out of his job as head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel through a trumped up criminal investigation.
News of the lawsuit, which was first reported by Courthouse News Services, hasn’t been widely reported in major news media outlets.
Bloch and his wife, who is a party to the suit, are seeking $102 million in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages.
Bloch, who served as director of the Office of Special Counsel from 2004 to October 2008, pleaded guilty in April 2010 to a charge of contempt of Congress. The guilty plea followed a lengthy investigation that included an FBI raid on his office and home in May 2008.
The investigation stemmed from allegations that Bloch improperly sought to purge employees in his office who disagreed with him and later sought to cover up possible wrong-doing by hiring a computer services company to “scrub” files from his government office computer.
A federal judge in Washington sentenced him on March 30 to one month in jail in connection with his guilty plea but agreed to stay the sentence while Bloch appeals it on grounds that he didn’t know the contempt of Congress law carries a mandatory minimum jail term of 30 days.
The gay Obama administration officials named in Bloch’s suit are John Berry, director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and Elaine Kaplan, OPM’s general counsel. Kaplan preceded Bloch as head of the Office of Special Counsel during the Clinton administration.
While working as an attorney in private practice after her term ended as U.S. Special Counsel, Kaplan joined others who criticized Bloch for dismantling LGBT-supportive policies at the Special Counsel’s office that Kaplan established there.
Kaplan and others argued that an existing U.S. civil service law protected federal workers from discrimination based solely on their sexual orientation through a provision that barred bias for non-work related factors. Bloch, upon taking office after being appointed by President George W. Bush, reversed Kaplan’s policies, saying he disputed the assumption that the civil service law could be interpreted to bar discrimination based on sexual orientation.
In his lawsuit, Bloch alleges that the Bush White House demanded that he back off from reversing Kaplan’s polices at the Office of Special Counsel, saying White House aides threatened to arrange for his dismissal if he failed to comply with their request.
Bloch and his wife, who are representing themselves in the case, filed their suit under a federal statute called the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. The statute allows both criminal and civil charges to be brought in cases where the government or a private party alleges that others conspired to commit an illegal act or to damage a person or a business through a “criminal enterprise.”
Other parties named as defendants in the lawsuit include the Executive Office of the President, the Office of Special Counsel, the National Treasury Employees Union, and several government watchdog groups, including the Government Accountability Project.
Elaine Kaplan, OPM's general counsel (Blade photo by Michael Key)
In his lawsuit, Bloch names Berry as a defendant only in his capacity as director of the Office of Personnel Management, making no allegations that Berry played a role in Bloch’s forced resignation as head of the Office of Special Council during the Bush administration.
However, Bloch repeatedly alleges in the lawsuit that OPM as a government agency “conspired” with others in the Bush administration to force his ouster because, among other things, he was investigating possible breaches of government ethics rules by Bush White House staffers, including Karl Rove, and officials with other government agencies.
The lawsuit alleges that Kaplan was a party to the alleged effort to oust him from his post as head of the Office of Special Counsel in her role as general counsel to the National Treasury Employees Union, which opposed Bloch’s policies and practices at the OSC. Kaplan became general counsel to NTEU shortly after her five-year term as head of the Office of Special Counsel ended.
The lawsuit alleges that Kaplan joined other organizations and individuals who disagreed with Bloch’s policies and sought his removal.
It says the Human Rights Campaign was among several outside groups that Kaplan and others worked with to discredit Bloch and “conspire” to oust him from office. During his tenure as head of the Office of Special Counsel, HRC criticized Bloch for rolling back his office’s protections for gay federal workers.
“We don’t believe this case has any merit,” said HRC spokesperson Fred Sainz.
“[F]rom 2005 to the present, both as counsel for National Treasury Employees Union, and plaintiffs are informed and believe and thereon allege, that in her current role as general counsel of OPM, [Kaplan] is conspiring with or has conspired with third parties to damage plaintiffs as hereinafter alleged, improperly, illegally, and against the Ethics in Government Act, both as to her involvement in previous issues as Special Counsel of the OSC, and as general counsel of OPM with conflicts of interest, personal and official, and to conspire to harm plaintiffs…,” Bloch says in his lawsuit.
The lawsuit charges that Kaplan and those she allegedly conspired with sought to “disrupt official investigations, undermine official functions in the Office of Special Counsel, divert loyalty of employees away from Scott Bloch, and otherwise seek to undermine and harm plaintiffs in their reputation and family life.”
Berry and Kaplan or a spokesperson for the Office of Personnel Management couldn’t be immediately reached for comment on the lawsuit.
The lawsuit can be read in its entirety on the Courthouse News Service website: http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/04/29/Bloch.pdf
New York
Men convicted of murdering two men in NYC gay bar drugging scheme sentenced
One of the victims, John Umberger, was D.C. political consultant
A New York judge on Wednesday sentenced three men convicted of killing a D.C. political consultant and another man who they targeted at gay bars in Manhattan.
NBC New York notes a jury in February convicted Jayqwan Hamilton, Jacob Barroso, and Robert DeMaio of murder, robbery, and conspiracy in relation to druggings and robberies that targeted gay bars in Manhattan from March 2021 to June 2022.
John Umberger, a 33-year-old political consultant from D.C., and Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old social worker, died. Prosecutors said Hamilton, Barroso, and DeMaio targeted three other men at gay bars.
The jury convicted Hamilton and DeMaio of murdering Umberger. State Supreme Court Judge Felicia Mennin sentenced Hamilton and DeMaio to 40 years to life in prison.
Barroso, who was convicted of killing Ramirez, received a 20 years to life sentence.
National
Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information
Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources
Nine private medical and public health advocacy organizations, including two from D.C., filed a lawsuit on May 20 in federal court in Seattle challenging what it calls the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s illegal deletion of dozens or more of its webpages containing health related information, including HIV information.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, names as defendants Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and HHS itself, and several agencies operating under HHS and its directors, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration.
“This action challenges the widespread deletion of public health resources from federal agencies,” the lawsuit states. “Dozens (if not more) of taxpayer-funded webpages, databases, and other crucial resources have vanished since January 20, 2025, leaving doctors, nurses, researchers, and the public scrambling for information,” it says.
“These actions have undermined the longstanding, congressionally mandated regime; irreparably harmed Plaintiffs and others who rely on these federal resources; and put the nation’s public health infrastructure in unnecessary jeopardy,” the lawsuit continues.
It adds, “The removal of public health resources was apparently prompted by two recent executive orders – one focused on ‘gender ideology’ and the other targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) programs. Defendants implemented these executive orders in a haphazard manner that resulted in the deletion (inadvertent or otherwise) of health-related websites and databases, including information related to pregnancy risks, public health datasets, information about opioid-use disorder, and many other valuable resources.”
The lawsuit does not mention that it was President Donald Trump who issued the two executive orders in question.
A White House spokesperson couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the lawsuit.
While not mentioning Trump by name, the lawsuit names as defendants in addition to HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., Matthew Buzzelli, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health; Martin Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Thomas Engels, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration; and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.
The 44-page lawsuit complaint includes an addendum with a chart showing the titles or descriptions of 49 “affected resource” website pages that it says were deleted because of the executive orders. The chart shows that just four of the sites were restored after initially being deleted.
Of the 49 sites, 15 addressed LGBTQ-related health issues and six others addressed HIV issues, according to the chart.
“The unannounced and unprecedented deletion of these federal webpages and datasets came as a shock to the medical and scientific communities, which had come to rely on them to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, assist physicians and other clinicians in daily care, and inform the public about a wide range of healthcare issues,” the lawsuit states.
“Health professionals, nonprofit organizations, and state and local authorities used the websites and datasets daily in care for their patients, to provide resources to their communities, and promote public health,” it says.
Jose Zuniga, president and CEO of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (IAPAC), one of the organizations that signed on as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a statement that the deleted information from the HHS websites “includes essential information about LGBTQ+ health, gender and reproductive rights, clinical trial data, Mpox and other vaccine guidance and HIV prevention resources.”
Zuniga added, “IAPAC champions evidence-based, data-informed HIV responses and we reject ideologically driven efforts that undermine public health and erase marginalized communities.”
Lisa Amore, a spokesperson for Whitman-Walker Health, D.C.’s largest LGBTQ supportive health services provider, also expressed concern about the potential impact of the HHS website deletions.
“As the region’s leader in HIV care and prevention, Whitman-Walker Health relies on scientific data to help us drive our resources and measure our successes,” Amore said in response to a request for comment from the Washington Blade.
“The District of Columbia has made great strides in the fight against HIV,” Amore said. “But the removal of public facing information from the HHS website makes our collective work much harder and will set HIV care and prevention backward,” she said.
The lawsuit calls on the court to issue a declaratory judgement that the “deletion of public health webpages and resources is unlawful and invalid” and to issue a preliminary or permanent injunction ordering government officials named as defendants in the lawsuit “to restore the public health webpages and resources that have been deleted and to maintain their web domains in accordance with their statutory duties.”
It also calls on the court to require defendant government officials to “file a status report with the Court within twenty-four hours of entry of a preliminary injunction, and at regular intervals, thereafter, confirming compliance with these orders.”
The health organizations that joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs include the Washington State Medical Association, Washington State Nurses Association, Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Academy Health, Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, Fast-Track Cities Institute, International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, National LGBT Cancer Network, and Vermont Medical Society.
The Fast-Track Cities Institute and International Association of Providers of AIDS Care are based in D.C.
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has struck down guidelines by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designed to protect against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The EEOC in April 2024 updated its guidelines to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which determined that discrimination against transgender people constituted sex-based discrimination as proscribed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
To ensure compliance with the law, the agency recommended that employers honor their employees’ preferred pronouns while granting them access to bathrooms and allowing them to wear dress code-compliant clothing that aligns with their gender identities.
While the the guidelines are not legally binding, Kacsmaryk ruled that their issuance created “mandatory standards” exceeding the EEOC’s statutory authority that were “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.”
“Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,” he wrote in the opinion.
The case, which was brought by the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, presents the greatest setback for LGBTQ inclusive workplace protections since President Donald Trump’s issuance of an executive order on the first day of his second term directing U.S. federal agencies to recognize only two genders as determined by birth sex.
Last month, top Democrats from both chambers of Congress reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ-inclusive protections against discrimination into federal law, covering employment as well as areas like housing and jury service.
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