Courting controversy: Florida's attorney general is no stranger to conflict

Miami Herald

7 days ago

James Uthmeier is no shrinking violet. Florida's new attorney general — currently facing a potential contempt charge from a federal judge in Miami — is no stranger to lawsuits and investigations.
Uthmeier, appointed this year as Florida's top prosecutor by Gov. Ron DeSantis, has been at the center of some of the biggest political controversies to hit Florida in recent years.
Prior to assuming office in February, Uthmeier, as one of DeSantis' top political and policy advisors, helped coordinate flights that carried migrants from the southern border to liberal communities. He led campaigns to defeat marijuana and abortion access at the ballot. And he was involved in a Medicaid settlement that steered $10 million away from state coffers and into a charity created to support the first lady's Hope Florida program.
The 37-year-old Republican, who notably managed DeSantis' presidential campaign last year, is leaning into the attention and notoriety as he campaigns to keep the job the governor just gave him.
A busy first three months
Uthmeier kicked off his tenure as attorney general by announcing a criminal investigation into Andrew and Tristan Tate, controversial, far-right influencers who were charged with human trafficking in Romania in 2022. The investigation opened after the siblings landed in Florida this February. Uthmeier said on X that he had directed the Office of Statewide Prosecution to execute search warrants and issue subpoenas to the Tate brothers.
'Florida has zero tolerance for human trafficking and violence against women. If any of these alleged crimes trigger Florida jurisdiction, we will hold them accountable,' Uthmeier wrote on X.
Uthmeier has made efforts to combat LGBTQ activism and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, launching a lawsuit against Target and pressuring a private gym into reversing a policy that allowed transgender women in the women's locker rooms. Uthmeier cited HB 1521, which was signed by DeSantis in 2023 and makes it a crime in Florida to use a restroom that does not match a person's sex assigned at birth.
Similarly, he launched the nation's first office of parental rights to 'provide justice to parents and families whose rights have been violated' by governments or institutions.
'This first-in-the-nation office is a mechanism for parents and families to seek justice where local governments and school systems seek to 'treat,' indoctrinate, or collect data from students without parental involvement,' Uthmeier said in a press release. 'This new initiative is another way we are making Florida the best place to raise a family.'
Campaigning
Uthmeier was elevated to attorney general thanks to a political domino chain set off when President Donald Trump nominated U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida to be his secretary of state.
DeSantis replaced Rubio with then-Attorney General Ashley Moody. Then he appointed Uthmeier, at the time his chief of staff, to replace Moody and serve out the remainder of her term, which ends in January of 2027.
Uthmeier has already announced plans to campaign to win a full term as attorney general in the November 2026 election.
Just a few days after taking his oath of office and being sworn in, Uthmeier officially kicked off his 2026 campaign in March. He launched the Friends of James Uthmeier political committee.
Since taking on his new role, Uthmeier has kept busy, cracking down on Snapchat predators, convicting undocumented immigrants and taking legal action against a variety of organizations.
Immigration
With immigration policies at the forefront of national controversy, Uthmeier has been a key player in Florida's enforcement of its immigration laws.
Earlier in May Uthmeier made it clear he would 'not tell state law enforcement agencies to obey a federal court order halting immigration arrests under a new state law' despite the judge who issued the order threatening to hold him in contempt of court.
He said he does not believe an attorney general should be held in contempt of court for what he says is 'respecting the rule of law,' the Miami Herald previously reported.
In March, Uthmeier threatened to punish Fort Myers City Council members for rejecting a proposed immigration partnership with the federal government. The partnership program, known as 287(g), allows ICE 'to enhance collaboration with state and local law enforcement partners to protect the homeland through the arrest and removal of aliens who undermine the safety of our nation's communities and the integrity of U.S. immigration laws,' according to ICE's website.
Uthmeier told the City Council members that their decision to not enroll in the program 'constitutes a serious and direct violation' of a Florida law that bans sanctuary cities — localities that limit collaboration on immigration enforcement in a broad variety of ways, the Herald previously reported.
And in 2022, Uthmeier found himself at the center of controversy while serving as the governor's chief of staff for his involvement in an operation to fly nearly 50 Venezuelan migrants from Texas to Martha's Vineyard, an island in Massachusetts. The DeSantis administration tapped into $12 million that the Legislature provided to transport undocumented immigrants from Florida, the Herald previously reported.
Several of the migrants had legal status in the U.S. as asylum seekers and said they were tricked into taking the charter flights with false promises of jobs and other aid. It was also found that Uthmeier had used his personal cellphone in planning the operation.
Text messages released showed Uthmeier communicating with Larry Keefe, a former Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney now serving as Florida's public safety czar, who was in Texas coordinating the migrant flights. Over a week before the first flight, Keefe texted Uthmeier that he was 'back out here.'
'Very good,' Uthmeier texted. 'You have my full support. Call anytime.'
The Bexar County Sheriff's Office in Texas launched a criminal investigation, ultimately turning its case over to local prosecutors, who have not publicly discussed their handling of the matter. No charges have been filed.
Feuding with a judge
Uthmeier's positions and actions on immigration enforcement have continued to put him in the spotlight.
On Thursday afternoon, Uthmeier faced a contempt of court hearing in a politically fraught immigration case before a Miami federal judge who could fine him or send him to jail.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams filed a temporary restraining order in April to stop enforcement of Florida Senate Bill 4C, which became effective in February and makes it a crime for immigrants to enter Florida after illegally crossing into the United States.
Williams previously found Uthmeier violated her temporary restraining order after learning Florida Highway Patrol officers had arrested more than a dozen people – including a U.S. citizen – for illegally entering the state under the new misdemeanor law. Uthmeier also issued a memo to law enforcement agencies arguing that Williams did not have the authority to block them from enforcing the law because they had not been named as parties to the lawsuit over which she is presiding.
The judge put off a decision on whether to hold Uthmeier in contempt on Thursday, but grilled his attorneys over his position on her rulings.
Hope Florida
Uthmeier's fight with a federal judge is far from his only public feud.
Uthmeier's involvement with a $67 million Medicaid settlement that steered $10 million to a charity created to support Hope Florida — a program by Florida's first lady to help get Floridians off of government aid — has drawn accusations of criminal activity.
In April, Rep. Alex Andrade, the Pensacola Republican who launched an investigation into Hope Florida, said he believed Uthmeier had worked with the charity's lawyer, Jeff Aaron, to illegally siphon the millions away from state coffers and into his own political committee.
The foundation split the $10 million between two other nonprofits. Those two groups then gave $8.5 million to the Keep Florida Clean political committee controlled by Uthmeier.
The committee was created to defeat Amendment 3, the failed ballot initiative that tried to legalize recreational marijuana. Text messages obtained and released by Andrade show Uthmeier reached out to the leader of one of the groups that received a $5 million grant prior to her applying.
In an interview released Wednesday, Uthmeier said the allegations surrounding the misuse of funds is all a 'smear campaign and totally false.' Without getting into specifics, he said that his efforts to campaign against the marijuana amendment were all above board and in keeping with laws regulating political committees and so-called 'social-welfare' 501(c)(4) non-profits, which can spend on political issues without disclosing their donors.
'There's nothing that stops outside entities from working with other C4s and non-profits to fight in an issue campaign,' Uthmeier said. 'The rules, you know, you can't use some of those funds for a candidate campaign. But we weren't out there promoting a candidate. We were fighting against a harmful ideology.'
Miami Herald staff writer Jay Weaver contributed to this report.