WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Saturday dropped a case against a Utah doctor accused of falsifying COVID-19 vaccination certificates and destroying more than $28,000 worth of government-provided COVID-19 vaccines. Bondi, in a statement posted on X, said Michael Kirk Moore Jr., of Salt Lake County, Utah did not deserve the jail time he was facing. Moore was indicted by a federal grand jury in 2023 and his trial had begun earlier this month. "Dr. Moore gave his patients a choice when the federal government refused to do so. He did not deserve the years in prison he was facing. It ends today," Bondi said. COVID-19 vaccine skeptics have been embraced by the Trump administration. The Pentagon, for example, has sought to re-enlist servicemembers who were ousted for refusing to be vaccinated during the pandemic. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who for decades has sown doubt about the safety of vaccines contrary to evidence and research by scientists, wrote on X in April: "Dr. Moore deserves a medal for his courage and his commitment to healing!" According to a 2023 statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Utah, Moore allegedly ran the false certifications out of a plastic surgery center. His activities allegedly included administering saline shots to minors, at the request of their parents, so the children would think they were receiving COVID-19 vaccines, the statement said. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a U.S. lawmaker from Georgia and staunch Trump supporter, had championed dropping the case against Moore, who she called a hero in a statement on Saturday. "We can never again allow our government to turn tyrannical under our watch," she said in a post on X. The latest move by Bondi comes amid scrutiny of her firings of senior Justice Department officials who worked on investigations into Trump, stoking accusations of political retribution in a department whose mission is to enforce U.S. laws. (Reporting by Phil Stewart and Barghav Acharya; Editing by Don Durfee and Alistair Bell)
