The government had been investigating a baby formula producer for life-threatening facility contamination. After a half-million-dollar donat
Abbott Laboratories was investigated for poisoning babies. After a $500,000 donation, Trump let them off the hook.
The government had been investigating a baby formula producer for life-threatening facility contamination. After a half-million-dollar donation, Trump’s enforcers just dropped the case.
JUN 29, 2026
By Lucy Dean Stockton, More Perfect Union
The Department of Justice just dismissed a years-long criminal probe investigating potentially life-threatening contamination at an Abbott Laboratories facility, an Illinois-based health care and technology company that donated more than $500,000 to President Donald Trump’s inauguration funds and has extensive financial connections to one of Trump’s top cabinet members.
The DOJ this week confirmed that it had dismissed its investigation into potential negligence from Abbott Laboratories, which manufactures popular formula brand Similac, over its mismanagement of a baby formula production facility that potentially endangered infants’ lives — and may be connected to two infant deaths.
The probe, which began under the Biden administration, followed an incident in which regulators discovered potentially deadly bacteria on equipment in the facility in February 2022. The facility resumed production in June of that year, but tight industry concentration strained the baby formula market, contributing to a national shortage in 2022, which forced families to seek assistance from food banks, friends and doctor’s offices.
According to reporting from The Wall Street Journal, some DOJ prosecutors believed they had evidence to criminally charge the company, but the agency’s top decision-makers closed the probe instead, now opting to pursue financial clawbacks and civil penalties.
Abbott faced another legal battle in January 2023, when Biden’s Federal Trade Commission began formally investigating the company for collusion in the baby formula market. The agency alleged that Abbott may have colluded in bidding for contracts with the USDA’s Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) food assistance program. The company is also facing legal penalties of nearly $500 million in a Missouri lawsuit related to its formula for premature infants.
