The right has spent the past week claiming that Texas U.S. Senate Candidate James Talarico was somehow committed to a mental institution after briefly disappearing from the campaign trail for a week. According to Talarico’s campaign, he had the flu. Over the weekend, he reappeared at a huge campaign event with singer-songwriter Kacy Musgraves.
It hasn’t stopped the right from desperately trying to craft a narrative that a Democrat was missing in action and thus can’t be trusted over his GOP opponent, Ken Paxton.
At first, the right tried a tactic, saying that any U.S. senator who disappears has no business being in office. TV personality Spencer Pratt was among the early adopters of the conspiracy theory claiming that “sources” told him Talarico was in a mental hospital.
That claim caused some problems on Friday after Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) months-long hospitalization and home “rest” ended up among the top trends on the politics section of X.
While Talarico was back on the campaign trail this weekend, it didn’t stop political commentator Nick Sortor and ally Rhein Amacher from alleging that they’d spoken to someone at an Ohio inpatient mental health facility called the Lindner Center of Hope. They published an audio recording of a person claiming that Talarico was there and was “discharged this evening.”
The specifics prompted several legitimate journalists to begin their own research and contact the Lindner Center of Hope.
Brent Scher, the editor-in-chief of the conservative Daily Wire, posted on X a response he received from the center saying that it would never disclose any information about anyone.
“Lindner Center of Home respects the privacy and confidentiality of all individuals. We do not confirm or deny whether any individual is or has been a patient, and we do not comment on individual cases,” the company said in an email Scher posted.
Bulwark reporter Andrew Egger similarly reached out to the Lindner Center to ask about the recording posted by Sortor and Amacher.
“We would never disclose any patient information,” the woman told Egger over the phone. “That would be a HIPAA violation.”
“Didn’t fully deny it, though–just said they *wouldn’t* reveal that information. Beyond that referred me to the center’s comms team, who will be in tomorrow, and who should have a pleasant start to the workweek,” he later added.
He was then attacked by several people, including someone identifying themselves as a California attorney, for categorizing it as “didn’t fully deny it,” even though the company made it clear it would never reveal the information Sortor claims it did.
While HIPAA laws say one thing, another follower pointed out that Ohio’s state laws on healthcare are more strict than the federal.
“(B) Before records are disclosed pursuant to divisions (A)(3), (6), and (10) of this section, the custodian of the records shall attempt to obtain the person’s consent for the disclosure. (C) No person shall reveal the content of a medical record of a person that is confidential pursuant to this section, except as authorized by law,” the law states.
JT Ennis, the spokesperson for the Talarico campaign, commented on Sortor’s recording Sunday afternoon, saying, “This is a lie designed to promote a pathetic conspiracy theory. Last week James Talarico was home in Austin, Texas, recovering from the flu.”