LAKE CITY, Fla. — Action News Jax questioned Gov. Ron DeSantis and U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody on Thursday about a grand jury report accusing the governor’s administration of misappropriating $10 million of taxpayer money from a Medicaid settlement.
The sealed grand jury report obtained by CBS Miami, states that:
“The funds were misappropriated as part of a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities.”
Read: Grand jury says DeSantis administration ‘misappropriated’ $10 million of taxpayer money for Hope FL
The grand jury report says the Centene Corporation reimbursed the state of Florida more than $67 million in a Medicaid settlement.
However, the Attorney General’s office signed off on the settlement agreement that allowed $10 million of that money to be distributed to Hope Florida, a nonprofit created by First Lady Casey DeSantis.
Moody was Attorney General at the time.
From there, the grand jury report determined that $10 million was distributed to two political action committees and ultimately used to lobby against a marijuana legalization ballot question, aka Amendment 3, and the Republican Party of Florida.
DeSantis was in Lake City on Thursday to unveil a new statue and dole out large novelty ceremonial checks to counties and municipal governments for projects being funded by the state.
Action News Jax was there to ask the governor about the grand jury’s report. DeSantis denied any wrongdoing and defended his wife.
“The settlement that ACHA did was legally sound. It was appropriate. It advanced the interest of the state. What you just said is a lie,” DeSantis said to Action News Jax’s Madison Foglio.
“There was no diversion of any Medicaid funds. That was a private settlement, where a company made a private contribution to a DSO affiliated with one of the state agencies,” DeSantis said. “Don’t lie. Don’t get it wrong ... we dealt with this.”
DeSantis went on to say that the only crime committed was the grand jury report being leaked to the media. “The whole reason people tried to make hay of this was they were trying to use it to smear the first lady of Florida,” he said.
Action News Jax was not given the opportunity to ask a follow up question about DeSantis’ involvement in diverting the money.
The grand jury report states:
“After consulting AG Moody, she authorized Mr. Guard (her then-Chief Deputy Attorney General) to sign the settlement agreement in its final form.”
Action News Jax asked Moody to explain what her role was in the diversion of the Medicaid funds.
“In order to clarify that I was incredibly disturbed - I guess is the best way to put it - by some misinformation, mischaracterization of not just the attorney general’s but of other agencies that or signatories that had to release claims as part of executing the settlement agreement,” Moody said.
She also told Action News Jax when she was Attorney General, her office didn’t have any knowledge of how the funds would ultimately be spent.
She also posted a statement on X here:
The grand jury report also found that
“James Uthmeier, as the Governor’s Chief of Staff at the time of settlement, was in a position of authority over those involved in settling with Centene. Testimony identified him as having involvement in directing the money after it went to Hope Florida.”
Uthmeier, who is now the state’s current Attorney General, was asked about this Thursday during a news conference. He responded saying:
“Yeah, look, as we’ve said from the beginning, this has been a politically motivated witch hunt driven by the Democrats and a far left Democrat state attorney in Tallahassee.
“This hoax has been debunked time and time and time again.
“I’m not allowed under Florida law to comment on the report, so I can’t say if it’s true or not. But, if it is indeed true, it shows a couple things. First, it shows that there was no probable cause found that anybody did anything wrong.
Also, if this report is true, and it shows that the Democrats had to collude with the press to break the law and release a document that’s not allowed to be released under the law just to show that a far-left Democrat state attorney is incompetent, then I don’t think we have anything to worry about here.”
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Both Sen. Moody and current-AG Uthmeier are running for reelection. What does this grand jury report mean for both candidates as they seek re-election?
Sean Freeder, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of North Florida, offered analysis regarding the report.
“Republicans are going to assume that the Republican candidate has not done anything wrong. Democrats are generally going to assume that there’s something there. So, this is really going to turn into what do independents make of this?” Freeder said.
Freeder said it will ultimately come down to how well the voters understand the controversy.
“The real question for both campaigns is how big is this going to get over the next two or three months now that there is a grand jury report? And that really depends, I think, on the spending strategy and the messaging strategy by Moody and Uthmeier’s opponents in the general election,” Freeder said.
Click here to read the entire grand jury report.
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