Walmart pharmacists allegedly begged their corporate office to investigate concerns that doctors were using them to supply pill mills. Despite this, the company kept doling out deadly doses of prescription opioids, almost earning it a criminal prosecution, according to the news nonprofit ProPublica. Count on President Donald Trump to repeatedly bail out his wealthy and unscrupulous peers. Federal prosecutors investigated Walmart's opioid practices for nearly two years, unearthing what they described as especially damning evidence, only for top Trump staffers at the Department of Justice to intervene, ProPublica reported.
The pharmacists who pleaded with Walmart's corporate office came from Maine, North Carolina, Kansas, and Washington, among other states, and they detailed hundreds of thousands of opioid prescriptions that raised red flags. In one alleged case, a Florida doctor sent patients to Walmart locations in more than 30 states, ProPublica reported. Instead of refusing prescriptions from the doctor, Walmart officials allegedly told the pharmacists that they could do no such thing. One compliance manager for the company said it plainly in an email that ProPublica obtained, saying the company's priority should be "driving sales."
Uttam Dhillon, acting administrator at the Drug Enforcement Administration, reportedly said after a presentation of the information: "Jesus Christ. Why aren’t we talking about this as a criminal case?"
There had been a criminal investigation led by Joe Brown, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas. Heather Rattan, who worked on Brown’s team, told Walmart she intended to indict the company for breaching the Controlled Substances Act, a practically inconceivable action for a billion-dollar Fortune 500 company, according to ProPublica. Walmart, however, wasted no time in bringing their story before top officials at the Department of Justice. As a result, Trump officials told the company the department wouldn't be prosecuting the case, the news agency reported.
Read the Walmart letter ProPublica obtained here.
But when up against persistent urgings by Texas prosecutors to the DOJ to pursue criminal charges, Walmart leaned on the law firm Jones Day, which formerly represented Trump's campaign, according to CNN. For a while, Walmart allegedly tried to at least appear to be addressing its opioid practices and appeared open to a civil settlement, but the company determined prosecutors weren't acting in good faith and stopped making nice in 2018, according to ProPublica.
How dare prosecutors actually attempt to prosecute what they suspected was a deadly crime? Walmart attorneys cried to Washington that Texas prosecutors were trying to "embarrass" the company with talk of criminal charges only to extort a hefty civil fine, ProPublica reported.
Walmart spokesman Randy Hargrove called the potential criminal charges "meritless" and the behavior of prosecutors "improper" in a statement to ProPublica. "EDTX's investigation rested on a flawed legal theory that Walmart should have taken actions that not only were not required by federal law, but were contradicted by multiple state laws," he said in the statement. "We strongly deny any criminal wrongdoing and believe the Department's decision not to prosecute was mandated by a fair application of the law and the facts and the justice Department's rules."
Hargrove went on to say: "We are proud of our pharmacists and compliance experts who continue to serve the best interests of our customers despite complex and often conflicting direction from federal and state regulators and prescribers."
Brown also released a statement to ProPublica following Hargrove’s claims:
Drug Enforcement Agency investigations of multiple opioid overdose deaths in the Eastern District of Texas resulted in our office opening parallel civil and criminal investigations of Walmart’s pharmacy practices. These investigations have been handled appropriately, and according to Department of Justice policy. These investigations, which we would typically not confirm or deny, but do so now because of Walmart’s statement, continue. Accordingly, it would be inappropriate to comment further on the specific facts of the case.
Walmart chooses now to attack the investigators, a tried and true method to avoid oversight. We are confident that once all of the facts in this matter are public the hollowness of this criticism will be apparent. It is not the goal of our office to embarrass Walmart. Walmart’s behavior in dispensing opioid medication in the middle of a public health crisis should embarrass Walmart.
Moreover, having any tie to such a company should embarrass the president. Instead, he’s aided Walmart in what prosecutors can only hope will be a civil settlement at best. Four years after the civil case first opened, that settlement still hasn’t been reached, ProPublica reported.