Schiff opens inquiry into DOJ decision to drop Abbott formula probe

Sen. Adam Schiff opened a congressional inquiry into the Justice Department’s decision to shut down a criminal probe of Abbott Laboratories, pressing acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on why prosecutors’ push for felony charges was rejected. Schiff sent the July 8 letter as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and asked who inside DOJ made the final call, including whether Blanche personally overruled the Criminal Division.

The case grew out of the 2022 Abbott formula crisis, when federal health officials linked the company’s Sturgis, Michigan, plant to a Cronobacter outbreak that involved four infants in Minnesota, Ohio and Texas. The CDC opened the outbreak investigation Feb. 17, 2022, and closed it Sept. 29, 2025, with four confirmed cases and two deaths.

The Food and Drug Administration found insanitary conditions at the Sturgis facility, including five different strains of Cronobacter sakazakii inside the plant. Abbott recalled Similac, Alimentum and EleCare on Feb. 17, 2022, then recalled Similac PM 60/40 on Feb. 28. The Sturgis shutdown lasted five months and helped trigger a national infant formula shortage that hit low-income families especially hard because more than half of infant formula is sold through the Women, Infants and Children program.

Schiff’s office is also examining the role of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Abbott’s outside law firm, after it provided free legal services to the Trump administration in the past year. His letter cited DOJ filings alleging Abbott “repeatedly lied” to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and state agencies during a years-long failure to manufacture compliant powdered infant formula. The Deputy Attorney General’s Office overruled the Criminal Division’s charging decision.

The criminal case ended even as prosecutors had pursued felony charges, including a possible misdemeanor under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and a count for misleading the government, before DOJ chose a civil route instead. A DOJ spokesperson called criminal charges “heavy-handed,” and the matter was being addressed through a parallel civil case focused on Abbott’s profits from formula sales through federal child-nutrition programs. Public docket entries show the government is still working on a civil settlement in a related False Claims Act case, but the terms have not been made public. Abbott donated $500,000 to Donald Trump’s inaugural committee. Abbott says no unopened distributed formula ever tested positive for Cronobacter sakazakii. The FDA found unopened product from the homes of the infants under investigation tested negative.