Empower Oversight today submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regarding potential conflicts of interest in the Department’s administration of the National Human Trafficking Hotline. The hotline, operated since 2007 by Polaris through millions of dollars in federal grants, is currently under renewed scrutiny as attorneys general from across the country express concern and a whistleblower makes protected disclosures to Congress.
Empower Oversight’s FOIA request highlights conflicts of interest involving Katherine Chon, co-founder of Polaris and currently Director of HHS’s Office on Trafficking in Persons, which has oversight of the National Human Trafficking Hotline and may be responsible for determining whether Polaris’s grant is renewed.
“This is a matter of urgent public safety and accountability,” said Empower Oversight President Tristan Leavitt. “The hotline’s integrity is paramount, and these serious allegations demand full transparency from HHS. The public deserves to know whether the grant process has been compromised.”
Empower Oversight represents a Polaris employee who made protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress detailing widespread failures in Polaris’s handling of critical tips, including instances where reports of child sex trafficking were not shared with local law enforcement. The whistleblower disclosures came after a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general raised their own concerns in 2023 and 2025 about Polaris’s reporting failures. On May 5, 2025, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley wrote to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. requesting further information related to the whistleblower’s disclosures and asking what steps HHS has taken to address Ms. Chon’s conflicts of interest regarding Polaris.
HHS must quickly consider whether to continue funding Polaris or select a new provider. The grant application deadline is May 30, 2025. Following Grassley’s letter, Empower Oversight pressed HHS to extend the contract deadline for applications to operate the hotline. HHS has not yet responded.
The FOIA request can be found here.