Status: 🔴 Career DOJ attorney leading the agency's campaign to obtain transgender youth medical records through subpoenas, found by multiple federal courts to have submitted misleading or false sworn declarations.
Lisa K. Hsiao is the Acting Director of the Enforcement & Affirmative Litigation Branch within the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. She has been the central figure in the DOJ's campaign to subpoena transgender youth medical records from hospitals and clinics nationwide, first through administrative subpoenas and later through criminal grand jury proceedings.
Multiple federal courts have found her sworn declarations to contain inconsistencies, misleading statements, or outright falsehoods, with one judge describing her conduct as demonstrating "a reckless disregard for the duty of candor owed to a federal court."
In re: Administrative Subpoena 25-1431-032 to Rhode Island Hospital, No. 1:26-mc-00007-MSM-AEM (D.R.I.)
Judge McElroy found that Ms. Hsiao's declaration to the Northern District of Texas — claiming communications with Rhode Island Hospital had ceased as of February 4, 2026 — was "clearly misleading, if not utterly false." The DOJ had reinitiated contact the day before filing. The court stated:
"This reckless disregard for the duty of candor owed to a federal court is appalling."
The court also noted that Ms. Hsiao neglected to inform the Texas court that the DOJ had agreed to anonymized data in other jurisdictions, making her assertion that patient-level data was necessary "at best, deceptive, if not intentionally and knowingly false."
The court further observed:
"This is not the first time Ms. Hsiao and her subordinates have, in their crusade to obtain transgender children's medical records, acted in ways that appear to deviate from the norms of professional conduct expected of attorneys representing the United States."
In re Subp. No. 25-1431-014, 810 F. Supp. 3d 555, 582 (E.D. Pa. 2025)
The court took note of an "inconsistency" in Ms. Hsiao's sworn declaration, reminding counsel that "sworn declarations filed in federal court must reflect verified facts, not speculation recast as fact."
QueerDoc, PLLC v. U.S. Dept. of J., 807 F. Supp. 3d 1295, 1303 n.2 (W.D. Wash. 2025)
The court described a filing by Ms. Hsiao as reflecting "a fundamental misunderstanding—or deliberate misuse—of court procedure."
Ms. Hsiao represents the institutional apparatus within the DOJ's Civil Division executing the Trump administration's campaign against transgender healthcare under the legal theory that off-label prescribing of FDA-approved medications by licensed physicians constitutes felony misbranding — a theory rejected by multiple federal courts and contrary to the DOJ's own Office of Legal Counsel.
As a career civil servant rather than a political appointee, her role highlights how the infrastructure of federal law enforcement is being weaponized against transgender youth, with federal judges repeatedly finding that the attorneys executing this campaign have abandoned the professional obligations expected of lawyers representing the United States.
U.S. Department of Justice
Civil Division
950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20530
Phone: 202-514-2000