A Republican state lawmaker in Florida is moving to subpoena Gov. Ron DeSantis' attorney general over his purported role in a scheme to steer dark money into the Hope Florida Foundation, a charity run by the governor's wife, reported the Tampa Bay Times this week.
"Rep. Alex Andrade told the Times/Herald Monday night that he decided to issue a subpoena to the state’s top prosecutor after speaking to the leaders of two dark money groups that received $5 million grants from the foundation last year," reported Alexandra Glorioso and Lawrence Mower. Per Andrade, one of those leaders said AG James Uthmeier "directed her to ask the foundation for the grant, and the other didn’t deny it ... Both groups subsequently gave millions to a political committee controlled by Uthmeier to help fight a recreational marijuana amendment."
The amendment in question won a majority of votes, but fell short of the 60 percent threshold necessary to be enacted.
"Andrade claimed that he has 'confirmed definitively that James Uthmeier reached out to these 501(c)(4)’s personally and directed them to submit $5 million requests to Hope Florida," according to the report.
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Hope Florida, a project of Casey DeSantis, aims to connect low-income people to faith-based and other private charities to reduce their dependence on state cash and health care assistance programs.
Earlier this month, another report found that $10 million from a state health care settlement was mysteriously diverted into Hope Florida as well. State officials say this transfer was legal because the settlement "was not paid to the state," although the DeSantis administration has declined to reveal what the settlement even was, making it difficult to verify that claim.
Casey DeSantis has often been credited as managing her husband's politics behind the scene and engaging in charity work, although this is not the first time she has faced questions about the nature of those charitable activities; two years ago, reports indicated that $9 million of the money she raised to aid Hurricane Ian relief was sitting unused.
Since then, DeSantis' relationship with the Republican-controlled state legislature has deteriorated, as they are fighting over exactly how far to go in aiding Trump's mass deportations, and how much power DeSantis has over state university appointments.