President Donald Trump has been handed a golden opportunity to exact revenge on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis if he so chooses, the Miami Herald reported on Wednesday.
Once steadfast allies, with Trump having interceded in the 2018 Florida primary to get DeSantis elected in the first place, the two fell out when DeSantis launched a bid for president competing with Trump's own, which led to a bruising fight that left DeSantis estranged from the Trump orbit and broadly diminished in power within his own state.
At issue is the Hope Florida Foundation scandal, where state attorney general James Uthmeier, a DeSantis appointee, was accused of funneling $10 million from a state Medicaid settlement into a charity set up by DeSantis' wife to connect lower-income people to private and faith-based alternatives to public assistance programs. Republicans in the Florida legislature opened an investigation into the matter, and recently concluded it with damning allegations against the governor.
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"Rep. Alex Andrade, a Pensacola Republican, led the Florida House probe into the matter," reported Dan Sullivan. "It ended last week before many of the players involved testified. Still, Andrade said he was 'firmly convinced' that Uthmeier and Hope Florida Foundation attorney Jeff Aaron 'engaged in a conspiracy to commit money laundering and wire fraud.'"
He added, “This is looking more and more like a conspiracy to use Medicaid money to pay for campaign activity. If I’m the U.S. attorney for the Northern District (of Florida), I’d be very concerned about that.”
The question now, said the report, is whether Trump or his subordinates will use this opportunity to launch a criminal investigation into the matter themselves, as payback for DeSantis' disloyalty to the MAGAverse.
"Trump already endorsed U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds to succeed DeSantis as governor, even though Casey DeSantis is reportedly mulling a run," said the report. "Could Trump use the Justice Department to intimidate him? Darryl Paulson, a professor emeritus of government at the University of South Florida, said he doubts it, but the threat is there. 'We may be a nation of laws,' Paulson said, 'but the president often decides which laws are enforced and which are ignored.'"
Since Trump has taken office, the legal system has sharply turned toward his political priorities; he issued mass pardons for the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, and his administration recently arrested a Wisconsin judge on questionable charges of obstructing immigration officials.
