Dive Brief:
- Two senators on an influential health committee are pressing Attorney General Todd Blanche on the Senate’s request to hold former Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre in criminal contempt of Congress.
- In a letter sent to Blanche last week, Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a ranking member, accused the government of failing to act after the Senate unanimously voted in 2024 to hold de la Torre in contempt for snubbing a congressional subpoena and failing to appear at a hearing on Steward’s bankruptcy.
- Cassidy and Sanders requested an update from Blanche by Aug. 20. “We needed answers from Dr. de la Torre, as did the health care workers forced to treat patients in dangerous conditions, loved ones of patients who died, and communities who saw their local hospitals close or face severe financial distress,” the letter reads. The DOJ and U.S. Attorney’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.
Dive Insight:
Steward, which operated 31 hospitals across eight states, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May 2024.
The filing, the largest for-profit hospital bankruptcy in U.S. history, triggered a massive fire sale of the system's hospitals and other assets. Several hospitals closed, including Carney Hospital and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Massachusetts, after Steward said it received no qualified bids.
Lawmakers quickly scrutinized the bankruptcy, including de la Torre’s role in the collapse. The executive drew scrutiny for his luxurious lifestyle, including owning private jets, a yacht and multiple properties, while the health system crumbled under multi-billion dollar debt loads.
The HELP Committee announced it would launch an investigation into the bankruptcy and then authorized a subpoena in July 2024, directing de la Torre to testify at a future hearing.
Still, de la Torre declined to appear at the hearing after asserting his Fifth Amendment rights through his attorneys. The committee approved civil-enforcement and criminal-contempt resolutions and the full Senate adopted the criminal referral six days later.
In the letter to Blanche, Cassidy and Sanders say that de la Torre’s wealth should not make him “immune to requests from Congress.”
The renewed pressure on DOJ comes days after the D.C. Circuit affirmed the dismissal of de la Torre’s lawsuit attempting to nullify the Senate’s contempt resolution. The court said de la Torre could have asserted his Fifth Amendment rights at the hearing and could raise a constitutional defense if a contempt prosecution moves forward.
The appellate ruling does not determine whether de la Torre will be prosecuted. The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel has said U.S. attorneys retain traditional prosecutorial discretion not to refer congressional contempt citations to a grand jury or prosecute them. A representative for de la Torre did not respond to a request for comment by press time
