Richard Luscombe reports for The Guardian from Miami:
The Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis could face a federal investigation into whether he diverted Covid-19 vaccines to wealthy supporters in exchange for campaign donations.
Gary Farmer, the leading Democrat in the Florida Senate, wrote on Thursday to the acting US Attorney General Monty Wilkinsonand asked him to review the “troubling” reports.
“Over the past few months, several well-documented reports have emerged of exclusive vaccination sites restricting access to paying members of private clubs and residents of affluent gated communities,” Farmer wrote.
“In a number of cases, the creation of these vaccine sites has been preceded or followed by substantial contributions to a political committee headed by Governor Ron DeSantis.”
The latest allegation, Farmer noted, came from a Miami Herald report on Wednesday, which claimed that more than 1,200 residents 65 or older of the exclusive Ocean Reef Club, a private gated community on Key Largo, were in mid-January vaccinated.
At the time, the Herald said, the rest of the state was still struggling to secure an assignment. Just a month earlier, state records show, 17 Ocean Reef residents donated at least $ 5,000 to a political action committee in support of DeSantis’ 2022 reelection campaign. And one, the former Illinois governor. Bruce Rauner, lowered a check for $ 250,000 to DeSantis’ PAC in February after the vaccines were administered.
The paper further claimed that DeSantis has used the state’s vaccine initiative to “send pop-up vaccination sites to select communities,” often affluent, disproportionately white areas.
“Gov. DeSantis’ clear vaccine priority for wealthy individuals appears to be closely tied to political payments, an extremely troubling pay-to-play plan if the allegations are upheld,” Farmer wrote.
He asked Wilkinson’s office to “conduct a full and thorough investigation of possible wrongdoing by Governor DeSantis.”