Utah Republican House Speaker Mike Schultz stood arm-in-arm Monday with Dr. Michael Kirk Moore on the steps of Salt Lake City's federal courthouse, where the Utah plastic surgeon faced charges of destroying COVID-19 vaccines and orchestrating a fake vaccination card scheme.
Federal prosecutors allege Moore and three associates destroyed $28,000 worth of COVID vaccines by squirting syringes into sink drains. The group also allegedly handed out more than 1,900 fraudulent vaccination cards for either $50 cash or donations to a charitable organization they operated.
Moore’s trial was set to begin Monday morning at the federal courthouse in downtown Salt Lake City.
Speaking to a small group of supporters gathered outside the courthouse where Moore’s trial was set to begin, Schultz railed against restrictions imposed by the government during the COVID-pandemic.
“We were treated like second-class citizens if we didn’t get the shot, we didn’t get the vaccine,” Schultz said. “You had to have a vaccine passport to walk down the streets and go into a shot, to go to a Jazz game, to go to a restaurant. That was unbelievable. It was wrong.”
“Thank you for supporting us. Now it’s time to band together and support Dr. Moore,” Schultz declared before Moore entered the courthouse.
Two other Republican members of the Utah House - Rep. Karianne Lisonbee and Rep. Trevor Lee - also showed up to support Moore on Monday morning.
Schultz did not respond to questions from Utah Political Watch about his support for Moore.
The House Speaker's show of support aligns with his enthusiastic embrace of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s agenda. Last month, Kennedy named several vaccine skeptics to a vaccine policy advisory committee, including Dr. Robert Malone, who has promoted baseless conspiracies about the COVID vaccine.
In May, Schultz traveled to Washington, D.C. for the release of a report from Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” commission. That report was widely criticized for basing its conclusions on fabricated research and scientific evidence that does not exist.
Joining Schultz on the Washington trip was freshman Rep. Kristin Chevrier, a longtime anti-vaccine activist who has no medical or healthcare background. Chevrier founded the organization Vaccine Freedom Utah, which has been renamed as Your Health Freedom.
One of the organizers of Monday’s rally was former Republican congressional candidate Jason Preston, who now hosts a podcast that features far-right conspiratorial content.
After thanking Schultz and the other members of the Legislature for attending, Preston launched into a religious themed treatise about a tyrannical and corrupt government.
“We have a government that has become run by secret combinations. I firmly believe that,” Preston said, a reference to clandestine societies in the Book of Mormon “bound together by oaths to carry out the evil purposes of the group.”
In 2022, Preston hired several people with connections to the far-right Proud Boys militia to run his congressional campaign. He also hired Republican political provocateur Roger Stone as a “strategic advisor.” Preston was knocked out of the Republican nomination race after failing to advance out of the GOP convention.
