If the best counsel is provided by those who can empathize with their clients, then it would be difficult for whistleblowers to find a better lawyer than Josh Russ. The former federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Texas was one of the youngest civil division heads in the DOJ and was at the forefront of one of the largest cases the government had ever brought against a corporation when he decided to become a whistleblower himself.
As he led the charge to hold 5,000 Walmart pharmacies accountable for looking the other way while knowingly filling suspect opioid prescriptions, the case experienced unexpected delays, and eventually, Russ had enough. He resigned from his dream job and filed a whistleblower complaint with the Office of Inspector General, saying that politically appointed officials were interfering with the investigation.
More than a year after Russ’ resignation, five United States attorney offices (the Eastern District of Texas wasn’t one of them) filed a suit against Walmart, claiming the retail behemoth violated the Controlled Substances Act. The suit was a mirror image of the case Russ had been working on. “It does not feel like vindication,” he says. “I am just happy that the work we put together is proceeding.”
In March, a federal judge dismissed two of the counts against Walmart, ruling that the retailer didn’t violate the Controlled Substances Act for failing to report suspicious orders and that it didn’t repeatedly break the law for not using...
numerous alleged violations of the False Claims Act with the U. S. government, which accused him of lying to obtain Small Business Administration loans meant to help companies stay afloat during th...