FIRST ON FOX: A top Florida official is slapping Anthony Fauci with a subpoena over alleged "profiting" from federal guidance that hurt businesses, residents.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced Wednesday he has issued an investigative subpoena against former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease Director Anthony Fauci.
The subpoena is part of a state probe into Fauci’s awards, incentives and guidance that impacted Florida’s residents and their businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.
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The announcement comes after Uthmeier, along with Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., pledged to have Fauci investigated at the state level following his Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing last week when he pleaded the Fifth 111 times and references were made to his blanket federal pardon from former President Joe Biden.
"We issued a formal subpoena to Dr. Fauci under Florida state law, seeking a breadth of documents ranging to what he knew when he knew it, his doubts about the safety and efficacy of vaccines that he's out there promoting, and we're really focused in on his self-dealing," Uthmeier announced on Fox News.
"Evidence has come to light that he was trying to personally profit off of this. This is outside of his government duties, his official role: He's trying to pursue book deals, awards, get connected with high rollers that might help him come into millions and millions of dollars. This is wrong, and it could go towards a deceptive trade practice, fraud, public nuisance, you name it. I think there's many aspects of Florida law that now are implicated."
Uthmeier said the activities he is being subpoenaed over were revealed largely through his diary – several hundred pages of writings made on a federal server that Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., released last week.
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"We know one award in particular, he made $900,000 on that," he said, appearing to refer to Fauci receiving approximately that amount from the Dan David Prize from Tel Aviv University.
Uthmeier said that when a bureaucrat is issuing directives and mandates he is privately questioning while also deriving a profit from that work, it raises legal questions.
"It starts as a civil inquiry," Uthmeier said. "But we're going to tie in all aspects of Florida common law, things ranging from deceptive trade, fraud, public nuisance, nothing is off the table."
The subpoena asks for awards Fauci applied to, considered or received from any organization, including those within the state of Florida, relating to the pandemic.
It also asks for information on professional opportunities offered to or considered by Fauci, as well as interactions and communications with Florida businesses, media outlets and communities regarding COVID-19 vaccination sites, social distancing and mask orders, and school closures.
A pair of other states expressed encouragement at the news.
West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey alleged Fauci’s refusal to answer Paul’s questions is "concerning" and that the American people deserve to know whether they were misled or "manipulated."
"Both my Office and I support Attorney General Uthmeier’s efforts to uncover the truth," McCuskey said in a statement obtained by Fox News Digital.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill added that the public "deserves answers to about a million questions related to the pandemic, its origins, and the government’s actions in response."
Murrill alleged Fauci had lied and said that "we just don’t know how much" so.
"But he lied about something as basic as keeping a diary. The truth will come out."
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Fox News Digital reached out to Schertler Law, counsel for Fauci, for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.
