Well, well, what have we here? A state governor and his team actively participating in Medicaid fraud? With the help of his wife? And a kinda fake-y charity?
How DARE Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and his wife Gw—
Wait, sorry. I’m getting word that this is about Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis and his wife Casey’s lil fake-y charity, Hope Florida.
CBS Miami broke the news Wednesday night that a state grand jury in Leon County found that the DeSantis administration misappropriated taxpayer money when it slid $10 million from a Medicaid settlement over to Hope Florida, which then did another little bit of surreptitious sliding over to a couple of conservative political action campaigns and to the Republican Party of Florida. Then, that money was used for the extremely non-Medicaid-related purpose of helping DeSantis achieve one of his signature political goals: making sure Floridians can’t have legal weed.
What, so it’s illegal now to take Medicaid settlement money and give it to Republicans for whatever they want instead? What is this world coming to?
Related | Florida agency threatens the press to protect shady DeSantis charity
It isn’t actually hyperbole to suggest that the DeSantis administration may try to bring the weight down not on any fraudsters like his wife and pals, but instead on CBS Miami for reporting on it. Indeed, that’s what the Florida Department of Children and Families did in 2025, sending a cease-and-desist letter to the Orlando Sentinel to try to block it from reporting on the scandal.
Or maybe DeSantis will be brick-headed enough to try to go after the grand jury for daring to call him and his band of fraudsters out? Cue Ron frantically googling, “How to fire a grand jury? How to criminally charge a grand jury? How to exile a grand jury?”
Because, oh yeah, CBS Miami published the whole grand jury report: “We were told Hope Florida was chosen as the beneficiary of the initial donation because the Centene settlement was compensation for ripping off sick poor children and Hope Florida’s mission and work aligned with the purpose of serving needy children with health issues.”
Oh yeah, sorry. I didn’t make that part clear. This was a Medicaid settlement with a company that had basically defrauded needy, sick kids in Florida. Then the state took that settlement money and gave it to Casey DeSantis and Hope Florida because of her deep and abiding commitment to caring for sick kids.
But the grand jury, like everybody else, saw right through this, saying they “fail to see the nexus between Hope Florida and the Centene settlement, and even if there was a nexus, it was rendered moot by the fact that the money only stayed in Hope Florida’s account for a couple of days.”
The grand jury ultimately decided it couldn’t bring charges, not because this wasn’t wildly illegal but because no one would take responsibility for the decision to send $10 million of taxpayer dollars for needy kids to the DeSantis family instead. “Virtually everyone involved is a lawyer and acted on the advice of other lawyers. We recognize that this would be an impediment to criminal prosecution.”
Yeah, it isn’t just the DeSantis Duo at fault here. Everything is rotten in the state of Florida when it comes to this deal. The grand jury found that current Florida Attorney General and all-around-clown James Uthmeier had authority over the people involved in this fake settlement. Current U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody, who DeSantis tapped to replace Marco Rubio, was also involved; she was Florida’s attorney general when this all went down.
Indeed, one of Trump’s judicial nominees, former Florida Deputy Attorney General John Guard, was also part of it, as he crafted and signed off on this fake “settlement.”
Perhaps even Trump realized that as this scandal spun out of control, Guard might not get confirmed by the Senate, but no worries—DeSantis gave his good settlement buddy a job on the court of appeals in Florida earlier this year.
Wow, given how comprehensively riddled with fraud the state is, maybe Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will start sternly refusing to extradite felons from Texas to Florida until DeSantis apologizes for all the fraud, especially since he appears to have played a pivotal personal role?
Nah. That only applies to blue states.
Well, and probably only to fake fraud, not this extremely un-fake, extremely gross straight-up thievery here. Diverting money from needy kids over to well-heeled Republicans is pretty much a standard plank of the GOP platform these days, so DeSantis and his crew are gonna be just fine.
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