INDIANAPOLIS — 13News confirmed the Supreme Court of Indiana Disciplinary Commission is hearing a complaint against Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita.
A filing obtained by 13News shows a Washington, D.C. attorney is representing Rokita and the AG's office. The issue is with public comments Rokita made about investigating Dr. Caitlin Bernard before he filed that complaint with the board.
That attorney will also work for the AG's office temporarily in the licensing case against Bernard.
Rokita's office is going after Bernard's medical license, accusing her of wrongdoing in the abortion care she provided to a 10-year-old Ohio girl, who was raped and impregnated when she was 9 years old.
The Feb. 23 hearing is the first step in determining the medical license status of Bernard, an Indianapolis obstetrician-gynecologist whom the Indiana attorney general claimed violated privacy laws after Bernard spoke to an Indianapolis newspaper about the Ohio girl's treatment.
Attorneys for Bernard stated the doctor followed Indiana's abortion and child abuse reporting requirements while the child's case was being investigated by Ohio authorities, court documents from December show.
The case drew national attention in the weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June. A 27-year-old man was later charged in Columbus, Ohio, with raping the girl.
After the newspaper cited that case in a July 1 article about patients heading to Indiana for abortions because of more restrictive laws elsewhere, Rokita told Fox News he would investigate Bernard’s actions, calling her an “abortion activist acting as a doctor.”
Bernard filed a lawsuit against Rokita in November, when she argued Rokita’s office was wrongly justifying the investigation with “frivolous” consumer complaints submitted by people with no personal knowledge about the girl’s abortion.
Marion County Judge Heather Welch ruled last year in that case that Rokita could continue investigating Bernard after his office requested the state medical licensing board discipline Bernard. But Welch also said Rokita wrongly made public comments about investigating Bernard before he filed that complaint with the board.