In a newly released video from an undercover Project Veritas investigation, a federal attorney who previously defended the FDA in court admitted that the government agency went far beyond its legal authority by attempting to halt the use of ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment during the pandemic.

“It’s okay for FDA to communicate information about the drug, but it’s not okay to take the next step and actually tell people ‘You should not take this drug,’” said Isaac Belfer, a Consumer Protection Branch attorney with the Justice Department.

Belfer can be seen in the Project Veritas video that was shared more than 1.3 million times on X discussing his legal defense in a lawsuit brought by COVID crusader and Houston ENT Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, as well as Drs. Robert Apter and Paul Marik.

The federal suit alleged that the agency interfered with doctors’ ability to treat patients. During the pandemic, the FDA tweeted, “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it,” along with an image of a nurse walking with a horse and a doctor treating a patient. The post linked to an agency article titled “Why You Should Not Take Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19.”

At no point did the social media posts, which were present on nearly every social media platform from Facebook to LinkedIn, disclose that doctors could legally prescribe the drug.

“An agency can only do what it has statutory authorization to do, like the FDA can only do what Congress said it can do. That’s it,” Belfer said in the video.

Bowden et al. brought suit because they claimed this action interfered with their ability to practice medicine. While the FDA does have legal authority to ban drugs, the plaintiff’s counsel contended that the agency’s action constituted an unlawful ban because it did not go through the long statutory process of legally enacting a ban, which includes public notice and comment, among other procedures.

“[FDA] unlawfully attempted to prohibit the use of ivermectin to treat COVID-19, or to otherwise interfere with the practice of medicine,” plaintiff’s counsel wrote to the district court that first heard the case.

Bowden told The Dallas Express that she successfully treated thousands of cases of COVID with no fatalities when she was able to intervene early with the anti-parasitic drug. Ivermectin has been approved for human use since 1987, and its inventor won a Nobel Prize for its use in humans in 2015.

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Belfer and the FDA initially got the case dismissed in the Southern District Court of Texas. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit intervened in September 2023 and remanded the case to the lower court.

As the case progressed, the FDA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services seemed to lose their nerve. They settled the case and agreed to remove the social media posts and article. Had the agency gone to trial and lost, that type of adverse judicial decision would have badly bruised the agency’s reputation.

Notably, when the 5th Circuit made its ruling, Justice Don Willett warned that “FDA is not a physician. It has authority to inform, announce, and apprise — but not to endorse, denounce, or advise.”

Belfer appears to concur in the Veritas video.

He said, “So if what the agency has done is totally beyond the pale, there was no authority whatsoever to do this.”

Then he ominously suggested a broader pattern of similar behavior in the agency: “They’ll often use something like tweets as a vehicle to pursue a broader agenda.”

“What’s behind the agenda item? I don’t know,” Apter told Veritas in the seven-minute-long video.

Bowden said that she thought the agency pursued a “purposeful, coordinated attack” designed to get people to take COVID-19 vaccines.

“The @US_FDA knew it was wrong, but we had to sue them to prove it. Undercover video footage of their lawyer admitting guilt,” she tweeted after the video’s release.

The Dallas Express had previously asked former presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about the lawsuit during a campaign stop at Earth X in Dallas.

“All three of the principal health agencies [CDC, NIH, FDA] suffer from agency capture,” Kennedy said. “I would say 50% of the FDA’s budget is from pharmaceutical companies. NIH scientists are allowed to collect royalties on drugs that they regulate –– which is clearly a conflict of interest. CDC … has devolved into an agency that primarily promotes the mercantile interests of the pharmaceutical companies.”

Kennedy then stated what he would do if elected president.

“I have litigated against all of these agencies, and I know the individuals in the agencies that need to be moved. … I understand the perverse incentives that put agency capture on steroids,” Kennedy said. “I will change those incentives and unravel the culture of corruption that now has turned these agencies against public health.”

While Bowden defeated the FDA, and Kennedy is widely believed to be on the shortlist for prime cabinet positions in the event former President Donald Trump is sent back to the White House, there are lingering concerns about censorship and lawsuits related to the pandemic lockdowns.

Out of obvious concern for the lingering censorship of COVID-19 dissent in X’s algorithm, Project Veritas spelled ivermectin as “Ivermect*n” to throw off the embedded censors.

Alluding to her other legal battles, Bowden tweeted in a thread, “The FDA’s tweets had dire consequences… lives lost, careers ruined. Three years later I am still defending my medical license.”

After dozens of pre-trial orders, a failed settlement offer, and an appeal to the State Office of Administrative Hearing (SOAH), the Texas Medical Board has asked SOAH’s two judges for a seven-month continuance.

The cases arose from a dispute Bowden had with Texas Health Huguley Hospital in Fort Worth in 2021 when she attempted to save the life of a COVID-stricken and comatose sheriff’s deputy, Jason Jones. The hospital ignored the officer’s wife’s pleas for ivermectin and thwarted Bowden’s attempt to treat the ailing man.

Texas Health Huguley never granted Bowden access to Jones and has since relentlessly pursued her for attempting to treat him. Jones was later released from the hospital; however, he never fully recovered and died sometime later.

The Texas Medical Board took up Huguley’s complaint; however, The Dallas Express exposed serious questions about bias within the organization. DX obtained text messages from Sharon Barnes, a member of the board who heard Bowden’s case, appearing ready to share negative personal views of the doctor before she was reigned in by other board members.