From Seeking Rents blog:
There are, it seems to me, three particularly important points to come out of a grand jury investigation into the Hope Florida affair — a scheme in which the administration of Ron DeSantis took $10 million owed to Florida taxpayers and spent it instead on political campaigns during the 2024 elections.
The first point is that there was clear wrongdoing here — and neither DeSantis nor Attorney General James Uthmeier can conceal that fact any longer, no matter how hard they to gaslight voters and intimidate journalists.
To quickly recap what happened: The DeSantis administration negotiated a $67 million legal settlement with Centene Corp., a Medicaid contractor that had overbilled the state health insurance program for poor and disabled Floridians. But rather than return the full $67 million to the state treasury, the settlement agreement compelled Centene to break off $10 million as a “donation” to the Hope Florida Foundation, a charity set up by DeSantis administration staffers.
The Hope Florida Foundation immediately turned around and passed the cash on to a pair of intermediary nonprofits who then made a series of large campaign contributions. Most of the $10 million, the grand jury found, ended up in a pair of political committees and the Republican Party of Florida — entities that DeSantis and Uthmeier, his then-chief of staff, were using in a desperate effort to defeat a pair of citizen-led constitutional amendments that would have legalized recreational marijuana and ended a statewide abortion ban.
The grand jury empaneled to investigate the plot opted not to criminally indict anyone. But it found that the $10 million at the center of the scandal belonged to Florida taxpayers. These were public funds — not some kind of untethered “cherry on top” or legal “sweetener” that Ron DeSantis and James Uthmeier were free to waste however they wanted.
And that $10 million of taxpayer money was, the grand jury found, “misappropriated as part of a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities.”
That’s not all. The grand jury also found that the nonprofit intermediaries who helped move the $10 million along “mischaracterized” the intended use of the funds, and that senior administration officials intentionally tried to “circumvent” state laws requiring the funds to be returned to taxpayers.
“While we can’t prove who is responsible, we can plainly see that taxpayer money was misused for political purposes,” the Leon County grand jury wrote in the January 2026 report — which some of the most powerful people in Florida tried to hide from the public. The report and findings were finally revealed last week, thanks to the extraordinary work of investigative reporter Jim DeFede of CBS Miami.
The second important point is that — while the grand jury was unable to pinpoint a single culpable party — it broadly laid blame for the misappropriation on one person: James Uthmeier, who DeSantis promoted from chief of staff to Attorney General in early 2025.
As chief of staff, Uthmeier was in charge of administration officials who negotiated the settlement with Centene and the $10 million diversion to the Hope Florida Foundation. But the grand jury also found that Uthmeier personally instructed the leader of one of the intermediary nonprofits to then request money from the foundation. He also personally controlled two of the political committees that received subsequent campaign contributions.
The third important point is that there was another key figure in the affair: U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody, who was then the attorney general of Florida. (DeSantis later gave Moody the U.S. Senate seat that opened up when Donald Trump made Marco Rubio his Secretary of State — which is also what enabled the governor to elevate Uthmeier to attorney general.)
The Attorney General’s Office was one of four state agencies that had to sign off on the original settlement agreement with Centene. The office’s actual signatory on the document was John Guard, who was, at the time, Moody’s chief deputy.
But Guard told the grand jury that he signed only after consulting with Moody and getting her approval to do.
What’s more, Guard also testified that he “esoterically” agreed that the $10 million carved out of the Centene settlement and steered to Hope Florida was money that belonged to the state of Florida. He also testified that he had “political concerns” about spending that money without any approval from the Legislature, concerns that he shared with Moody — who authorized him to sign the settlement agreement anyway.
This was more than some minor bit of bureaucracy. Other DeSantis administration staffers who testified before the grand jury said they relied on the Attorney General’s Office to evaluate the “propriety and legality” of the settlement agreement with Centene and the $10 million diversion to Hope Florida.
For example, Florida Insurance Commissioner Mike Yaworsky, another signatory to the settlement, told the grand jury that when the Governor’s Office asked him to sign the document, he noted the “atypical nature of the $10 million earmarked for Hope Florida.” So Yaworsky consulted with his own general counsel and with John Guard in the Attorney General’s Office.
“After consulting with both and being advised there was nothing contrary to law about the settlement agreement, he elected to sign the settlement agreement,” the grand jury wrote in its report.
Similarly, Andrew Sheeran — the then-general counsel of the Agency for Health Care Administration, which was the state agency that handled most of the negotiations with Centene — told the grand jury that he conferred about the “legality” of the deal with multiple attorneys from the Attorney General’s Office, as well as a lawyer at an outside firm on contract with AHCA.
“Based on those discussions and his own review of the settlement agreement and the law, Mr. Sheeran believed that the settlement agreement in question complies with all Florida laws,” the grand jury wrote.
In other words, if Ashley Moody had objected — if she’d acted on the concerns raised by her chief deputy and refused to approve the deal — the entire scheme could have collapsed right then and there.
But, of course, she didn’t.
Ultimately, the legal effort to hold someone accountable for the $10 million misappropriation and misuse of taxpayer funds was undone by a combination of conflicting testimony and conveniently foggy memories.
The gaps were most apparent on what remains the central question of the entire scandal: Who decided to make Centene pay $10 million to the Hope Florida Foundation — rather than returning the money to the taxpayers to whom it rightfully belonged?
In their search for an answer, grand jurors repeatedly ran into dead ends.
For instance, the chairman of the Hope Florida board testified that he got a phone call from the foundation’s lawyer informing him that the charity was about to receive a $10 million donation.
But the lawyer — an outside attorney named Jeff Aaron, who has personal and professional relationships with Ron DeSantis and James Uthmeier — told the grand jury that he didn’t learn about the $10 million donation until the entire affair erupted in public controversy months later.
The grand jury called the contradictory claims “curious” — though it also noted that it found the board chair’s testimony to be “transparent and credible.”
Similarly, Katie Strickland — a deputy chief of staff in the governor’s office whose portfolio included the Agency for Health Care Administration — said the idea to pull $10 million out of the Centene settlement came from Jason Weida, who was the secretary of AHCA at the time.
Sheeran — the then-general counsel for AHCA — also said the instruction came from Weida, who DeSantis promoted to chief of staff after naming Uthmeier Florida’s new attorney general.
But Weida himself told the grand jury that he couldn’t recall whose idea it was.
Uthmeier — the next person up the org chart at the time— never testified at all. It’s not clear why, although some experts told the Miami Herald that the lack of testimony could mean Uthmeier was a target of the investigation.
“Nobody will take responsibility for deciding the $10 million of taxpayer money would go to Hope Florida,” the grand jury wrote. “This decision was the original misappropriation, and no witness would take responsibility for making the decision or had any memory of who made it.”
And so the grand jury’s work ended with the equivalent of an angry letter rather than a criminal indictment.
But there is still one final opportunity for accountability: At the ballot box.
Ron DeSantis, who is being forced from office by term limits, isn’t up for election this fall. But James Uthmeier and Ashley Moody are.
In the attorney general’s race, Uthmeier faces Jose Javier Rodriguez, a former Democratic state senator who was one of the rare elected officials in Tallahassee willing to stand up to Florida Power & Light, the monopoly utility company that is one of the largest campaign contributors in all of Florida politics.
Moody, meanwhile, faces state Rep. Angie Nixon, the Jacksonville Democrat and community organizer who just pulled off one of the most shocking electoral upsets in recent Florida history when she blew past a candidate with more than 15 times as much money in the Democratic Senate primary.
And despite efforts by DeSantis and Uthmeier to try and spin the Hope Florida scandal into just another partisan squabble — a “witch hunt driven by the Democrats,” Uthmeier claimed last week — there are plenty of serious Republicans who recognize the obvious wrongdoing.
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott told the Tampa Bay Times that the Hope Florida grand jury’s findings were “deeply concerning.”
“Money designated to help poor kids was diverted to political ads,” Scott told the newspaper. “Florida families deserve accountability, not more finger pointing in Tallahassee.”
And Sen. Don Gaetz, a Republican from Niceville who previously served as the president of the Florida Senate, said he was “deeply disturbed” by the report.
“I believe it brings disgrace onto the Florida government and I want to be part of a bipartisan coalition that simply makes sure this doesn’t happen again,” Gaetz said, according to Wear-TV, a television station in Pensacola. “But God forbid it did, there would be serious consequences on those who are in any way involved.”
The grand jury may have decided that it lacked enough evidence to support criminal charges.
But Florida voters will pass the final verdict.
*To paraphrase Barbossa, five is more what you’d call a guideline than an actual rule.
Convenient amnesia
‘No recollection’: Hope Florida grand jury hit ‘wall of silence’ in Tallahassee (Miami Herald) ($)
Buying silence
Where are they now? Key actors in Hope Florida scandal got promoted (Florida Trib)
Because he was?
Florida AG says he wasn’t a grand jury target. So why didn’t he testify? (Miami Herald) ($)
Totally normal behavior from guys with nothing to hide
DeSantis, Uthmeier, warn media against asking about Hope Florida report (Tampa Bay Times) ($)
The rest of the week
New College of Florida is spending nearly $1 million on outside PR consultants(Tampa Bay 28)
See also: Florida schools lose thousands more students. More closures possible.(Tampa Bay Times) ($)
See also: Broward is closing schools to save money. ‘Schools of Hope’ could complicate that (Miami Herald) ($)
See also: Florida seeks to repeal four vaccines from school entry requirements (News Service of Florida)
See also: Duke Energy Florida was approached about huge data centers, among largest in world (Tampa Bay Times) ($)
See also: New state law to protect consumers from data center costs faces its first test(Florida Trib)
See also: New agricultural enclave law revives development plans previously rejected for Brevard (Central Florida Public Media)
See also: The Mormon Church Is Quietly Expanding Its Real Estate Empire Across the US (Bloomberg) ($)
See also: Like other Florida universities, UNF gets one presidential candidate to consider (Florida Phoenix)
See also: Mike Caruso to be freed from jail after Orange County judge points to investigation flaws in child abuse case (Orlando Sentinel) ($)
Perspectives
A scandal’s secrets are lifted for all of us to see (South Florida Sun Sentinel) ($)
Players in Hope Florida saga got promotions; the public got no accountability (Miami Herald) ($)
How to get away with stealing $10 million (Tampa Bay Times) ($)
In Hope Florida scandal, the 10 million bucks stop where? (Florida Times-Union) ($)
No comments:
Post a Comment