'Desist': Dept run by DeSantis orders reporter to stop probing wife's charity

The Florida Department of Children and Families sent a cease-and-desist letter to Orlando Sentinel capital bureau reporter Jeff Schweers over his efforts to investigate the operations of the Hope Florida Foundation, the embattled private welfare substitute charity founded by First Lady of Florida Casey DeSantis.

"It has been reported to the State of Florida Department of Children and Families that Orlando Sentinel reporter Jeff Schweers has been contacting Florida foster families and both falsely and with malicious intent asserting that the families are implicated in fraudulent activity by accepting financial assistance from Hope Florida Foundation, Inc., a charitable Direct Support Organization affiliated with this Department," said the letter, noting that two families who received home restoration services after Hurricanes Helene and Milton were contacted.

"It is believed that Mr. Schweers' threats and accusations were used as coercion to get the families to make negative statements about Hope Florida for his reporting, and/or to dissuade them from accepting future assistance," the letter continued. "To harass and intentionally cause distress to foster families by threats and coercion is abhorrent. Cease and desist the above-described intimidation of these families."

Some reporters, however, did not buy the agency's account of what had happened, and suspect a more sinister intent behind the letter.

"The DeSantis administration is refusing to turn over public records about Hope Florida and now threatening reporters who are trying to know more about it," wrote Lawrence Mower of the Tampa Bay Times.

Hope Florida, a pet project of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his wife to connect low-income families to private and faith-based sources of assistance and reduce government dependency, has been increasingly mired in scandal since it was revealed the DeSantis administration diverted $10 million from a Medicaid settlement into the charity. That money then went to a pair of "dark money" groups that later gave $8.5 million to a political committee run by DeSantis' chief of staff.

Republicans in the legislature have condemned this arrangement as possibly illegal, and state prosecutors have opened an investigation. The governor, for his part, has blasted the scrutiny into Hope Florida, saying he continues to stand behind the program and calling the scandal "manufactured."