DOJ Moves to Join Texas Planned Parenthood Fraud Suit
The Justice Department told a federal judge Friday that it will seek to join a Texas-backed Medicaid fraud lawsuit against Planned Parenthood, days after Texans elected a Democrat to succeed Attorney General Ken Paxton.
"The United States is planning to file a motion to intervene by November 13, 2026," federal and private lawyers wrote in a joint status report filed in Amarillo before U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of President Donald Trump.
As of Saturday, the docket showed no motion yet.
The move reverses course from 2021, when the Justice Department under former President Joe Biden declined to step into the case, The New York Times reported.
The suit seeks $1.8 billion in Medicaid reimbursements, interest, and penalties, and Planned Parenthood, which reported annual revenue of $2.1 billion, has said such a payout could force it to close.
Susan Baker Manning, general counsel for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, called the federal move "an effort by the Trump administration to shut us down."
An anonymous whistleblower known as Alex Doe filed the case in 2021 under the federal False Claims Act, which targets fraud against government programs, and Paxton intervened on the state's behalf the next year.
The plaintiffs seek repayment of money Planned Parenthood allegedly collected from the Texas and Louisiana Medicaid programs after those states moved to cut off its funding, Reuters reported.
Planned Parenthood has argued its billing was legal because courts had paused the terminations.
The filing also exposes the limits of the state's role.
Texas intervened only on a claim that Planned Parenthood failed to repay money it owed, and it has no remaining claims against the national organization, the report says.
The defendants reserved all rights regarding any federal intervention.
Paxton lost his U.S. Senate bid Tuesday to Democrat James Talarico, and Democrat Nathan Johnson defeated Republican Mayes Middleton for attorney general, becoming the first Democrat to win the office since Dan Morales, who left in 1999.
Johnson, who takes office in January, told the Times his review of the lawsuits Paxton filed during his 12-year tenure will include the Planned Parenthood case.
Once in office, he said in a statement, he will "take appropriate action in the interests of my state."
The case had been frozen since January 2024 while Planned Parenthood appealed a ruling that denied the national group immunity.
The full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed that appeal as premature in August, sending the case back to Kacsmaryk.
The parties have proposed a seven-day trial beginning April 13, 2027.
Comments