Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on Monday escalated a long-simmering feud with a Republican lawmaker by calling for his ouster from a House leadership role, citing the legislator’s ties to a law firm defending Planned Parenthood in a lawsuit brought by the state.
Uthmeier will not cooperate with the House Health Care Budget Subcommittee as long as state Rep. Alex Andrade remains its chairman, he said during a Tampa press conference on Monday. His threat is the latest in a bitter saga between the two men, which kicked off last year when Andrade insisted the attorney general had committed fraud and led a months-long inquiry into a DeSantis-affiliated charity linked to Uthmeier.
“Somebody that’s aligned with Planned Parenthood, endangering women and children, they should not be chairing a subcommittee focused on the health of our citizens,” Uthmeier said Monday. “That’s awful. So, I hope the speaker of the Florida House of Representatives will address this.
“I know my office is certainly not going to be cooperating with that subcommittee so long as you have somebody like that involved,” he added.
The speaker’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
READ MORE: Florida is suing Planned Parenthood over its advertising for abortion drugs
Uthmeier filed a $357 million lawsuit against Planned Parenthood in November, accusing the reproductive health organization of driving profits by “misleading” women into believing abortion drugs are safer than Tylenol. Moore, Hill & Westmoreland — the law firm where Andrade works — represents Planned Parenthood in the case.
Andrade said he sees no profits from other attorneys’ cases and is not personally involved in the Planned Parenthood litigation.
“I have no profit-sharing agreements at my firm, I get paid a salary, and I am not involved in the planned parenthood lawsuit,” he told the Phoenix over text. “I don’t know why anyone would take the word of a thief like James Uthmeier at face value.”
Hope Florida and allegations of fraud
Uthmeier and Andrade have been at odds since April, when the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times reported that Hope Florida, a charity championed by First Lady Casey DeSantis, received $10 million from a $67 million Medicaid settlement with the state.
Centene, the firm settling with Florida, had overcharged the state by millions — although stories differ on just how much it owed Floridians.
Soon after receiving the $10 million, Hope Florida made two $5 million donations to anti-drug nonprofits. Those groups then made hefty donations to Uthmeier’s anti-marijuana political committee, founded to defeat a proposed state constitutional amendment to legalize recreational weed.
The administration’s defenders claim Centene had overcharged the state by between $20 million and $57 million, and the $10 million set aside for Hope Florida was just extra offered on top. But critics allege that the $10 million was Medicaid money illegally funneled into Uthmeier’s committee.
Andrade decried the move as “fraud” and used his position as the Health Care Budget Subcommittee chair to haul in agency heads, Hope Florida’s leadership, and the heads of the nonprofits to investigate the legality of the transactions.
“James has been trying to get me removed from my chairmanship ever since I uncovered that he stole $10,000,000 from Florida’s Medicaid program. That’s not news,” he told the Phoenix Monday.
A grand jury began to probe the Hope Florida foundation in October. As of Monday, no indictment has been returned.
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