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Fox News host Jesse Watters pictured (left), (center) Indiana AG Todd Rokita, Dr. Caitlin Bernard (right) during the July 13, 2022 “Doc Failed to Report Abortion of Abuse Victim” segment referenced in the AG’s disciplinary opinion (Fox News/screengrab)
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita (R) got himself into hot water with the Indiana Supreme Court for July 13, 2022 remarks on Fox News about Caitlin Bernard, the doctor who performed an abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim who traveled from Ohio to the Hoosier State after the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Roe v. Wade that June.
Rokita, who later tried and failed to strip Bernard of her medical license, told Fox News host Jesse Watters that the OB-GYN was an “abortion activist acting as a doctor — with a history of failing to report.”
“Then we have the rape. And then we have this, uh, abortion activist acting as a doctor — with a history of failing to report. So, we’re gathering the information. We’re gathering the evidence as we speak, and we’re going to fight this to the end, uh, including looking at her licensure if she failed to report,” Rokita said, as transcribed by the state Supreme Court. “In Indiana, it’s a crime, uh, for, uh, to not report — uh, to intentionally not report.”
According to the per curiam opinion handed down Thursday, Rokita admitted the statements he made on Jesse Watters’ show amounted to “attorney misconduct,” in violation of two rules: “Making an extrajudicial statement that a lawyer participating in the litigation or investigation of a matter knows or reasonably should know will be publicly disseminated and will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding in the matter” and “Using means in representing a client that have no substantial purpose other than to embarrass, delay, or burden a third person.”
As part of an agreement dismissing a third disciplinary charge “[i]n exchange for Respondent’s admission to these two violations,” while also having Rokita face a public reprimand, the Indiana AG “admits, and we find, that he engaged in attorney misconduct by making this statement,” the high court said.
Under the stipulated facts section of the opinion, Bernard on July 2, 2022, 11 days before Rokita accused her on national television of intentionally refusing to report the case, the “physician submitted reports required by state law to the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH) and the Indiana Department of Child Services (IDCS).” One day earlier, the IndyStar published the report headlined “Patients Head to Indiana for Abortion Services as Other States Restrict Care,” revealing for the first time the story of a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio who was six weeks and three days pregnant.
Following an administrative complaint from Rokita, the Indiana Medical Licensing Board reprimanded Bernard in May 2023 for tipping off an Indianapolis Star reporter to the story that Rokita once called “fake news,” but the doctor’s license was not revoked.
After the story was published, the Indiana Supreme Court noted, Rokita’s office “received seven complaints regarding the physician’s termination of the Ohio child’s pregnancy.”
“None of the complainants were patients of the physician,” the high court said. “On July 11 and 12, staff members of the Attorney General’s office requested records from IDOH and IDCS; and on July 12, the Attorney General’s office notified the physician it was opening an investigation into six of the complaints.”
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The day after Rokita’s office informed Bernard she was under investigation, he appeared for the Fox News interview at the center of the attorney misconduct probe.
As recently as September, Rokita sued Indiana University Health, Inc., the hospital system that employed Bernard, writing that “Rather than protecting the patient, the hospital chose to protect the doctor, and itself.”
“Dr. Bernard knew or should have known that any disclosure of information related to the 10-year-old patient could generate public interest that could result in additional requests to obtain copies of the redacted Termination of Pregnancy Report related to the 10-year-old patient,” the complaint said.
The Indiana Supreme Court said that Rokita, in a sworn affidavit, admitted to two violations of Indiana’s Professional Conduct Rules and “acknowledges that he could not successfully defend himself on these two charges if this matter were tried.”
“Respondent’s statement additionally violated Professional Conduct Rule 4.4(a) because the statement had no substantial purpose, in connection with Respondent’s legal representation of the State, other than to embarrass or burden the physician,” the high court found.
The Indiana Supreme Court noted that two justices, Chief Justice Loretta H. Rush and Justice Christopher M. Goff, would have rejected the “conditional agreement” reached, “believing the discipline to be too lenient based on the Respondent’s position as Attorney General and the scope and breadth of the admitted misconduct.”
In response to the per curiam opinion, Rokita reportedly said that he “was not found to have violated anyone’s confidentiality or any laws,” said “I was not fined,” and emphasized he “will continue as Indiana’s duly-elected attorney general.”
The opinion stated, however, that in addition to the reprimand, Rokita is on the hook for the “costs of this proceeding,” which “remain to be determined,” and that he must cut a $250 check and send it to the state Supreme Court’s clerk.
Read the opinion here.
