(Bloomberg) -- Ralph de la Torre, the embattled chief executive officer of the bankrupt Steward Health Care System, sued a US Senate committee that subpoenaed him to testify about his role in the hospital chain’s financial collapse.
De la Torre alleges that the Senate has violated his Fifth Amendment constitutional protections against government overreach and self-incrimination. The lawsuit names the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions as a defendant, as well as 20 senators on the panel.
The Senate voted last week to hold de la Torre in criminal contempt for declining to testify. The bipartisan vote means his failure to comply with the committee’s first subpoena since 1981 will be referred for criminal prosecution to the US attorney for the District of Columbia.
The senators are “undertaking a concerted effort to punish Dr. de la Torre for invoking his Fifth Amendment right not to be compelled to be a witness against himself,” according to the lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in Washington. In the suit, de la Torre asks the court to declare the subpoena invalid and the contempt finding unconstitutional.
Holding de la Torre in contempt is “an abuse of power and a flagrant constitutional violation,” Bill Burck, a lawyer at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP who is representing de la Torre, said in a statement.
Representatives for Senator Bernie Sanders, the committee chair, didn’t respond to a request for comment on the suit.
De la Torre told senators he wouldn’t participate in the hearing into the hospital operator’s failure until after its bankruptcy had concluded. Being forced to testify now could also jeopardize a settlement with the company’s landlord, Medical Properties Trust Inc., intended to keep most of Steward’s hospitals open under new managers, de la Torre’s lawyers said in a letter this month to Sanders.
His lawyers say his refusal to honor the subpoena is different from other high-profile cases, such as those of former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro and chief strategist Steve Bannon. Both Bannon and Navarro were convicted on contempt charges for defying congressional subpoenas in the investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol.
“It’s a completely different scenario,” Burck said in an interview. While Bannon and Navarro claimed they were relying on Donald Trump’s assertion of executive privilege, de la Torre is asserting his own Fifth Amendment right, “which is not subject to executive authority or congressional authority or even judicial authority,” Burck said.
The lawsuit comes shortly after Steward announced that company founder de la Torre will no longer serve as the hospital operator’s CEO and chairman. He will officially step down on Tuesday.
The case is De la Torre v. Sanders, 24-cv-02776, US District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).
--With assistance from Jonathan Randles.
(Updates with what De la Torre seeks in lawsuit, in fourth paragraph.)
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