5 days ago
In apparent desperation, AG Pam Bondi drops a closely watched criminal case
Attorney General Pam Bondi appears to be a little short on friends right now. The Florida Republican has faced fierce criticisms from the left, for example, for being a hyperpartisan Trump sycophant, focused more on purging her own department and peddling White House talking points on Fox News than doing meaningful work on behalf of the nation.
Meanwhile, Bondi has faced comparable criticisms from the right for being incompetent and untrustworthy, over-promising and under-delivering, especially on conspiracy theories important to the right. Even Donald Trump conceded over the weekend that MAGA World is 'going after' the attorney general.
It's against this backdrop that the struggling AG made a striking announcement over the weekend. The Associated Press reported:
The federal government on Saturday dismissed charges against a Utah plastic surgeon accused of throwing away Covid-19 vaccines, giving children saline shots instead of the vaccine and selling faked vaccination cards. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on the social media platform X that charges against Dr. Michael Kirk Moore, of Midvale, Utah, were dismissed at her direction.
For those who aren't mired in far-right fever swamps, Moore's name is probably unfamiliar. But in some right-wing circles, he and the case against him have become a subject of intense interest lately.
The criminal case against Moore was relatively straightforward. The Utah-based plastic surgeon, according to evidence compiled by federal prosecutors, allegedly destroyed over $28 million worth of government-provided Covid vaccines, issued fraudulent vaccination record cards — in some instances, in exchange for cash — and administered saline shots to children instead of the Covid vaccine.
As the AP report added, he and his co-defendants faced up to 35 years in prison after being charged with conspiracy to defraud the government; conspiracy to convert, sell, convey and dispose of government property; and aiding and abetting in those efforts. Jury selection in Moore's trial began last week.
It was around this time when Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia embraced Moore's case as a rallying cry, asking the Justice Department to abandon the case.
Five days later, Bondi did exactly that, insisting that the Utah doctor did not 'deserve' the prison sentence he was facing. The attorney general specifically credited Greene, one of the most right-wing members of Congress in recent memory, for bringing the case to her attention and for having been a 'warrior for Dr. Moore.'
To be sure, it's possible that Bondi would've intervened in the case even if many MAGA activists weren't calling for her ouster, but it's quite a coincidence that the attorney general scrambled to intervene in a case important to the far-right fringe just as she was looking to improve her standing with the far-right fringe.
As for the larger context, the nation's chief law enforcement officer effectively declared that those who commit professional fraud, on purpose, can expect to get away with overt criminal misconduct if (a) conservatives approve of the motivation behind the fraud; (b) the attorney general is feeling politically desperate; or (c) some combination of the two.
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