Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is termed out of office in 2026, but he is not letting a pesky thing like the law stand in the way of achieving his lofty ambitions.
Ron wants his wife, Casey, to be his heir apparent as governor to officially establish his political dynasty in Florida, with the goal of eventually supplanting his rival President Donald Trump as figurehead of the Republican Party. Casey DeSantis is set to face off against Congressman Byron Donalds, President Trump’s endorsed candidate, in a heated gubernatorial primary race next year.
But a shocking corruption scandal is already upending the grandiose schemes of the DeSantis clan. It was recently revealed that Casey’s “Hope Florida” charity received a $10 million payout as part of a settlement with the state’s largest Medicaid provider at the behest of Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) – in a clear conflict of interest.
The money was moved into Hope Florida from the AHCA as part of a $67 million settlement between the AHCA and Medicaid provider Centene regarding alleged overpayments made to pharmacy benefit managers. $57 million of this settlement money went back to the taxpayers while $10 million went to Casey DeSantis’ nonprofit, as compelled by the AHCA in the documentation. The AHCA denies that this payout involved “the expenditure of state funds” in a peculiar and deceptive claim designed to dispel legitimate inquiry into the developing scandal.
“There was no civil action and this settlement did not require the expenditure of state funds, so no notice was required,” AHCA Deputy Chief of Staff Mallory McManus said in an email to Politico. “This was a pre-suit settlement in AHCA’s favor that was directed, in part, to the direct support organization which serves a population of individuals traditionally served by AHCA.”
McManus is a DeSantis hack using weasel words to obfuscate the facts of the matter. The settlement money was clearly meant to go to the people, and yet it ended up in the coffers of Hope Florida. If the AHCA thought this money should be dispersed to nonprofits, why was this money not dispersed to different public health nonprofits? Why was it not evenly distributed between different nonprofits engaged in this sort of work? The answer, of course, is due to political connections.
The state has been tight-lipped about divulging any further details about the settlement and which parties were involved, only adding to the intrigue and sending signals that the DeSantis family has much to hide. New reports indicate that the $10 million may have been funneled into the coffers of an anti-cannabis campaign supported by Hope Florida’s partners at the Florida Chamber of Commerce.
Records show that Hope Florida gave a $5 million grant to the Florida Chamber’s ‘Secure Florida’s Future’ front group and an additional $5 million grant to the ‘Save our Society from Drugs’ organization after receiving the controversial settlement. Both of those organizations then funneled substantial sums of money, close to the amount they received from Hope Florida, to the Keep Florida Clean committee to defeat Amendment 3, a measure to legalize cannabis in Florida, in last year’s election.
Republican lawmakers, whose state-mandated oversight of these funds was sidestepped, are not convinced by the DeSantis spin and continue to demand answers into what very well may be an illegal payout.
“I’m still unclear about Hope Florida’s mission and purpose,” Rep. Alex Andrade of Pensacola told the Miami Herald. “Without details and transparency, I can’t say if this transfer was done for a proper purpose or not.”
“So far it looks as though it could be illegal,” House Speaker Daniel Perez of Miami-Dade said on Wednesday
DeSantis did not help matters after he described the corrupt deal as a “cherry on top” in a bizarre statement that only makes he and his wife seem more guilty.
“When you do settlements, you can try to get as much money as you can, but this was in addition to what they were getting. This is kind of like a cherry on top where they agreed to make an additional contribution, and so we were served well by what ACHA did,” DeSantis said during a news conference.
As intrepid journalist Laura Loomer points out, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s silence has been deafening on this issue. Uthmeier was quick to virtue signal against Andrew and Tristan Tate for mainstream media plaudits, vaguely threatening lawfare on the controversial duo for returning to the U.S. where they have citizenship, but when it comes to actual political corruption that would take courage to tackle, Uthmeier looks the other way. This is the typical craven behavior that is a feature of a DeSantis toady.
It is important to note that Casey’s $10-million bilking of the Florida public is not a mere aberration or misunderstanding. It is a feature of the DeSantis pack. It is a tell as to their true nature. DeSantis puts on a great front for the masses. He comes off as a strong, MAGA-style Republican leader to the untrained eye. But peering closely in at his record, it becomes clear that something is awry.
DeSantis opportunistically jumped about the MAGA train after having a mediocre neoconservative record as a U.S. Congressman because it was his only chance to become a major political figure. There are certainly laudable acts DeSantis has achieved for the state of Florida as Governor, but these acts are a devious smoke screen for his cynical gambit to promote his own fame and ambition. With DeSantis, every move is calculated and nothing is authentic as he attempts to worm his way up the ladder.
