Criminal Probe Launched Into DeSantis Linked Charity

Summary

Bulwark Takes: Criminal Probe Launched Into DeSantis Linked Charity

Episode Release Date: May 22, 2025

In this episode of Bulwark Takes, host Sam Stein delves into a significant and developing story concerning Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his wife, Casey DeSantis. Joined by Lawrence Maurer from the Tampa Bay Times, the discussion unpacks the unfolding criminal investigation into the Hope Florida Foundation, a charity closely linked to Casey DeSantis. This summary captures the key points, discussions, insights, and conclusions drawn during the episode.

---

1. Introduction to the Investigation

The episode opens with Sam Stein introducing Lawrence Maurer, highlighting Maurer's role in breaking the news about a criminal probe involving Governor Ron DeSantis and Casey DeSantis. The investigation centers on the Hope Florida Foundation and allegations of Medicaid fraud that could potentially derail the political aspirations of the DeSantis couple.

Sam Stein [00:00]: "...it involves Ron DeSantis, Casey DeSantis, potential Medicare fraud or Medicaid fraud... their futures in politics are jeopardized by all this."

---

2. Confirmation of the Criminal Investigation

Lawrence Maurer confirms the existence of a criminal investigation initiated by the Leon County State Attorney's office, which oversees Tallahassee and encompasses state government activities.

Lawrence Maurer [01:17]: "There's actually now a criminal investigation underway, at least involving the Leon County State Attorney's office... they're investigating Hope Florida foundation or relating to it."

This marks the first official confirmation of such an investigation, despite prior calls for scrutiny from various quarters.

---

3. Timeline of the Investigation

The investigation likely commenced around late April 2025, following the turnover of relevant records by a representative named Alex Andrade to the State Attorney's office. However, the exact start date remains unclear.

Lawrence Maurer [02:28]: "They turned over records to them last month... it probably started around then. It could have started earlier."

---

4. Understanding Hope Florida

Hope Florida is a charitable initiative spearheaded by Casey DeSantis, designed to reduce reliance on government services by directing individuals to NGOs and churches for assistance. The foundation operates as a 501(c)(3) entity, ostensibly channeling donations to support these non-profits.

Lawrence Maurer [02:59]: "...Hope Florida itself is this initiative that Casey Desantis, the first lady, came up with... taking people off government services... through things like churches."

Launched in 2023, the foundation's mission is to present an alternative to state-funded social safety nets by leveraging charitable organizations.

---

5. Allegations of Financial Misappropriation

Last October, amidst Governor DeSantis's efforts to defeat constitutional amendments related to recreational marijuana and abortion rights, funds from a Medicaid settlement with Centene, a major Medicaid provider, were directed to the Hope Florida Foundation. The settlement originally amounted to $67 million.

Lawrence Maurer [05:00]: "They took $10 million from a Medicaid settlement, routed it through the charity, and then through two other nonprofits, and then eventually to the chief of staff's political committee."

Contrary to the foundation's intended use, approximately $8.5 million was funneled to 501(c)(4) organizations—often referred to as dark money groups—before reaching a political committee controlled by the governor's chief of staff, raising significant concerns about misuse of funds.

---

6. Governor DeSantis's Response and State's Explanation

The governor's office contends that the additional $10 million was part of the original settlement, asserting that the total was $67 million rather than the $57 million the investigation suggests. They argue that $10.8 million was allocated as part of the damages, separate from the Medicaid funds owed to the federal government.

Lawrence Maurer [06:49]: "They offered an elaborate explanation... The original settlement was $67 million... $10.8 million was... the baseline for damages."

However, critics argue that this $10 million should have been earmarked for Medicaid-related costs, with a portion expected to be refunded to the federal government, which does not appear to have happened.

---

7. Internal Republican Dynamics and Legislative Tensions

Contrary to the perception that the Republican Party in Florida uniformly supports DeSantis, internal tensions have surfaced. Many Republican lawmakers are distancing themselves from the governor, reflecting longstanding frictions.

Lawrence Maurer [08:45]: "There are lawmakers in the state party that do not feel like they need to run cover for DeSantis here."

DeSantis's combative relationship with the legislature, characterized by a lack of collaborative governance and perceived vindictiveness, has alienated many within his own party.

Lawrence Maurer [09:03]: "...he's very vindictive and his administration is... There's been simmering tensions."

---

8. The Role of the Legal System in Florida

The episode examines the impartiality of Florida's legal system in the context of the investigation. Jack Campbell, the Leon County State Attorney, is highlighted as a key figure who has remained relatively uninvolved with political pressures.

Lawrence Maurer [13:19]: "Jack Campbell... has tried to stay out of the political fray."

Despite an accusation from Nikki Freed, a local legislator, regarding DeSantis's misuse of state resources for political campaigns, Campbell's office has refrained from taking action, raising questions about the investigation's progression.

Lawrence Maurer [14:54]: "Last year... Nikki Freed... sent a formal complaint... Jack did nothing with it."

This reticence underscores potential challenges in pursuing the investigation impartially amidst political dynamics.

---

9. Implications for Casey DeSantis's Political Future

The unfolding scandal poses significant questions about Casey DeSantis's potential gubernatorial ambitions. As the investigation intensifies, Casey has maintained a public defense of Hope Florida, actively engaging with supporters and donors.

Lawrence Maurer [15:23]: "She's trying to make her pitch... telling donors how she responds to what appears to be a significant scandal."

The outcome of the investigation could heavily influence her political trajectory, with ongoing developments expected to shape public perception and donor support.

---

10. Conclusion and Forward Look

The episode concludes with anticipation of further revelations as the investigation progresses. Lawrence Maurer emphasizes the story's complexity and the likelihood of continued coverage as more details emerge.

Lawrence Maurer [16:18]: "...it could be that she waits until later this year to announce... the prospect of a criminal investigation going on, it looks like this thing could last a while."

Listeners are encouraged to stay tuned for updates as the situation evolves, with expectations of more in-depth reporting in subsequent episodes.

---

This episode of Bulwark Takes provides a comprehensive overview of the criminal investigation into the Hope Florida Foundation, exploring its implications for the DeSantis political dynasty and the broader landscape of Florida's political and legal systems. Through incisive analysis and expert commentary, Sam Stein and Lawrence Maurer shed light on a developing story with significant ramifications.

Transcript

[Sam Stein]

Hey, guys, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bulwark. And I am joined by Lawrence Maurer. Not Mower Maurer. I got that right. Who works for the Tampa Bay Times and has a really important news break up. It was yesterday. The Post followed it today, the Washington Post followed today. But he and his wife have been on top of this storyline from the jump. It involves Ron DeSantis, Casey DeSantis, potential Medicare fraud or Medicaid fraud, I should say, and the possibility that there their futures in politics are jeopardized by all this. Lawrence, thanks for joining us. I do appreciate it. Before we get into it, subscribe to the feed for those who are watching. When I talked to your wife, I think there was a couple weeks ago this scandal was kind of just coming to the surface. And I do want you to kind of give us the CliffsNotes version of it. But the story today is that a investigation has been launched into this Hope Florida fund, which is Casey DeSantis's initiative to essentially provide services that are traditionally done by the government for a social safety net to do them through things like churches. So let's start with the breaking news, and then let's get into how we got to this place. What is the actual breaking news?

[Lawrence Maurer]

Yeah, the breaking news is that there's actually now a criminal investigation underway, at least involving the Leon County State Attorney's office. That's the state attorney that covers Tallahassee. It covers pretty much all of state government up here. And we know that investigation is taking place. They're not saying what exactly they're investigating, who's involved, that kind of stuff. But we know that they're investigating Hope Florida foundation or relating to it, because we asked for records that we know were given to the state attorney's office. And the state attorney's office came back and said, well, we can't give those to you because there's an open. It's part of an open, ongoing investigation.

[Sam Stein]

When they told you that and your eyes skid across that part of the statement, we were like, holy.

[Lawrence Maurer]

Yeah. Yeah. It was my colleague Justin Garcia was the one who made the request. Yeah. And we're both. And us and Alex were like, huh, okay. That's the first confirmation we've seen that there's actually some kind of law enforcement, you know, investigation going on. Of course, people have called for an investigation, but this is the first confirmation we've had.

[Sam Stein]

Do you know how long the investigation's been going on for?

[Lawrence Maurer]

We don't. Unfortunately not. I mean, we know that that the representative of Alex Andrade turned over records to them last month, looks like late last month. So it probably started around then. It could have started earlier, but at least by then it seems.

[Sam Stein]

Okay, let's talk about how we got to this place. Hope Florida. What is it? Why are they under such scrutiny? Just give us the sort of 30,000 foot version of what is happening here.

[Lawrence Maurer]

Sure. I'll start with Hope. Good luck. Yeah, I know it is complicated. Hope Florida itself is this initiative that Casey Desantis, the first lady, came up with that basically what they're doing is, or they say they're doing or trying to do is take people off government services so that it looks like the state is saving taxpayer money. And the way they're supposed to be doing that is they, somebody will call the state for help. They call this Hope Hotline. This Hope Navigator will say, oh well, you know, we can put you in touch with a local church or a local nonprofit the, that will provide you whatever you basically what you need. Okay. And that's supposed to be going on at the state level. That's a state function across numerous state agencies. Well, they've also created this charity. The state created a charity called the Hope Florida Foundation. And this is literally a 501C3 under the IRS. And it is created by the state, it's controlled by the state and it's supposed to be taking in donations and giving them out to churches and nonprofits that help people. Okay. Yeah, that's basically how it's supposed to work. So that's been going on now since the foundation was launched in 2023. And but things kind of went a little sideways last year in October, around September. October last year, basically the governor was going around trying to defeat these constitutional amendments. Last year there were two amendments in Florida. One to legalize recreational marijuana, one to legalize, or one to overturn the state's six week abortion ban. And the governor was looking for, was spending state money running ads against them. And what it seems to be is that he was looking for more money to do this. And so they found a pot of money with this through this company called Centene. Centene is one of the largest Medicaid provider, I think it's the largest Medicaid provider in the nation. They're the largest in Florida and they had an outstanding settlement dispute. They'd overbuild the state for prescription drugs and they'd overbuild about 20 other states for prescription drugs. And the governor's office, basically they owed 67 million and the governor's office said, well, as we crowd, we're going to agree to $67 million in damages, but as part of the settlement, we're going to tell you to direct $10 million to the hope Florida Foundation. And that's what the settlement ended up being. They directed $10 million to this hope Florida Foundation. Well, the money did not stay with the Hope Florida foundation, and certainly it did not go to pay nonprofits or anything else. Nothing, provide care for kids. Instead, within days, the profit, without most of the board's knowledge or vote, steered the money to. Gave the money away to two 501c4 groups. These are known as dark money groups that don't, you know, don't, you know, disclose their donors, and that those two groups then turned around and gave at least $8.5 million to a political committee controlled by the governor's chief of staff. So to back up a second, they took $10 million from a Medicaid settlement, routed it through the charity, and then through two other nonprofits, and then eventually to get to the chief of staff's political committee.

[Sam Stein]

Now the governor's office says, no, no, no, no. The settlement was actually $57 million. An extra $10 million was sort of decided to buy the companies and team to basically go through this route anyway, I guess. Why would they do it? I don't know. Have they offered an explanation for why. Why the company would do this?

[Lawrence Maurer]

Yes, they offered an elaborate explanation for this. First of all, it wasn't Centine's idea to do this. We got a copy of the original settlement agreement from 2020. I believe it's 2022 that said that. That the original settlement amount was the exact amount, 67 million. They, Centene owed the state, by their calculations, $67 million. And so what the state said is now. Is now saying is that, well, $10.8 million of that is not part of the settlement or is not part of Medicaid damages, because it's kind of like the settlement was broken up in three tranches, basically. And 10.8 million was basically the baseline for damages. Like every state that settled with Centene got a minimum of that much, got a minimum of 10.8, okay. Plus whatever else that the company knew that they owed. Okay? So people we talked to said, this is no doubt that this is Medicaid money. It's part of a Medicaid settlement. And again, like, the federal government is owed a portion of this money. You know, Medicaid is a state federal program, and the feds need Their cut that money. And so if it was 57 million, if this true settlement was 57 million, then the state would be refunding the feds 50 based on the $57 million. They don't appear to be doing that. They appear to be refunding them based on the 67 million.

[Sam Stein]

So a couple questions here. So the state Republican part, Republicans in the state government were investigating this, which I guess from the outsider's perspective, it's kind of interesting because there's been this perception that DeSantis has the state on lockdown, that the Republican party is lockstep behind him. But it's very evident that there are lawmakers in the state party that do not feel like they need to run cover for DeSantis here.

[Lawrence Maurer]

No, not at all. In fact, it's there. You can almost count them on one hand in the legislature who are actively, you know, you know, out there defending the governor on all this stuff.

[Sam Stein]

What happened, because an outsider's perspective, it's a little bit befuddling, right? It's like DeSantis, we assumed, had the state unlocked that they were doing his bidding.

[Lawrence Maurer]

Well, and this is basically long, simmering tensions. I mean, early on DeSantis, I mean, came into office, he had a lot of goodwill. He was very popular and he's still very popular among voters in the state. There's no doubt about that. But you know, he, he, he, he basically is brow beaten the legislature year after year after year and not fostered relationships with the people in the legislature. You know, this is a, an infamously, you know, touchy governor. I mean, he, he's not, he's not somebody who is warm and cuddly. He's not somebody who works to build relationships and consensus among, among people. He tells you like it is. And if you don't go along with that, he, he's, there's a, there will be hell to pay. I mean, there's, he's, he's very vindictive and his administration is. And this has been building in the legislature for years. Privately, they've been telling us that, you know, lawmakers have told us, express frustration to us over this. And it came to a head with this new House speaker and Senate president. Both of them were like, look, you're a lame duck now. These are your two final years in office. We're not going to do whatever you want. And you know, it's not like the governor was kind of operating in a, in a spirit of openness with them. He basically said, I want immigration reform this year. Because that's what the new president is getting. President Trump is getting headlines over, I want immigration reform. Go do it. And they kind of went like, well, what do you want us to do? You're not giving us any proposals. And also, we're about to meet in a month. Can you just give us a month to meet and pass this stuff? And he said no. And it caused this huge rift with the legislature.

[Sam Stein]

So he's clearly burned some bridges. But one in particular, Representative Alex Andrade. Is that how you pronounce it? So he was doing the bulk work of the investigation into what was happening with Hope Florida. According to your article, he abruptly stopped. Is, is it your sense that he stopped the investigation because Leon county prosecutors have taken over the case, or is there another reason to extrapolate from that?

[Lawrence Maurer]

It's not exactly clear, but if you kind of read between the lines, he stopped and he said the ball is now in both the DOJ's court. He gave these records to the DOJ as well, and to the state attorney's. State attorney's office. This is now a criminal investigation. And he read through all the facts it uncovered and accused the chief of staff, who's now the attorney general, and a lawyer working on behalf of the foundation who's very close to the, to the attorney general, accused them of committing federal crimes. And so, yeah, it does seem like there's a specter of, you know, is he doing this just to, you know, to get out of the way and let, you know, the criminal investigators look into this? It could be that it. We've not, like, definitively answered that yet.

[Sam Stein]

Do you expect his office to release any public report about what they found?

[Lawrence Maurer]

Who, the Leon County State attorney Android?

[Sam Stein]

No.

[Lawrence Maurer]

Andronde, maybe. We don't know yet. I mean, he's got, he's requested a lot of records from state agencies about Hope Florida. State agencies, by the way, we've reported in the last few weeks, are not turning them over to him, which is kind of extraordinary. And he's not personally giving up on it. So he's going to be releasing this stuff. He has released a bunch of stuff already. And so, yeah, I do expect there, I don't know if there's going to be a formal report, but I do expect this to continue into the next legislative session. I mean, he's, he's in office again for the next year.

[Sam Stein]

Let's talk about the legal system in Florida. And obviously doj. Pam Bondi is the attorney general, former attorney general of the state of Florida. I don't really under know from any reporting what her relationship is like with DeSantis. But I can say, you know, with some, you know, confidence that the Trump Justice Department is not quite in the business of trying to investigate Republican governors. I think that's fair. What about locally, though, the local attorneys, the state attorneys? Like, what, what, what are the expectations on whether the investigation into what happened will go forward in an impartial manner?

[Lawrence Maurer]

Well, going back to the DOJ part, I mean, it's not like the governor does not have people who don't like him in D.C. i mean.

[Sam Stein]

Well, that's true.

[Lawrence Maurer]

Trump's chief staff is not a fan because.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, Susie Wiles just Santa. Yeah.

[Lawrence Maurer]

You know, just dumped her, you know, at right after she had basically given him help, helped him win the governor's race back in 2018. And we have a new state U.S. attorney here just appointed who's a longtime Rick Scott guy. And Rick Scott also does not have a great relationship with the so we don't know exactly what's going on on the federal level like that. But Jack Campbell himself is a Democrat. You know, Tallahassee, Leon county is a historically blue dog Democrat area. It's a government town. Jack Campbell is not one, though, who's a liberal. Nobody really accused of him of being a liberal. He's clashed actually with the liberal city commissioners here. And, and he's also stayed out of the fray with DeSantis. I mean, last year, Nikki Freed, when accused DeSantis of and DeSantis officials of breaking state law about electioneering, using state resources to electioneer because he was spending all the state money trying to defeat these amendments. And she sent a formal complaint to Jack Campbell's office and Jack did nothing with it. I have an outstanding records request there, and they have not used the excuse that this is an open investigation for me in that case. So he's not someone, he's someone who's tried to stay out of the political fray. You know, he's, you know, historically, you know, it's been a touchy relationship between the local state attorney who's, you know, a Democrat usually because these are blue dog Democrats here, and the Republican controlled legislature. I mean, historically there have been some charges brought against lawmakers, but it's very, very rare and it hasn't happened in a long time. And in this case, you know, who knows what will happen? It seems like at least Jack Campbell has to, you know, evaluate what's going on here because again, the evidence, you know, there's a lot of evidence here.

[Sam Stein]

Last question for you. And this involves Casey DeSantis, because kind of looming over this is whether or not she will run for governor. And obviously this factors into things. What's the latest scuttle on whether or not she'll make a bid and how this impacts it?

[Lawrence Maurer]

Well, they seem to be doubling down on this whole thing. I mean, on Hope Florida at least. And, you know, she's out there. They're giving press conferences defending Hope Florida and, you know, not being shy about it. And Casey, you know, is an excellent retail politician. She's very good out there on the stump, and she's trying to make her pitch. And, you know, it could be something that, like, you know, she's trying to audition for donors or something is, as Alex has mentioned, you know, or, you know, it's. It's. She's just kind of testing the field and telling donors how. How she responds to what appears to be a significant scandal at this point, you know, so nobody really knows what's going on yet. And it could be that, you know, she waits until later this year to announce. Kind of waits this out. But, you know, with the prospect of a criminal investigation going on, it looks like this thing could, you know, could last a while. There are at least going to be a few more news stories out of it.

[Sam Stein]

Well, we're looking forward to reading them in your paper. Lawrence, thanks so much for doing this. Really appreciate it. Glad you finally got the first byline. Compared to your wife, I mean. No, you did. Wait, who had the first byline on that story?

[Lawrence Maurer]

I. I did yesterday. I mean, she's really been the one driving this thing, but, you know, so. I'm glad to get my piece, but. Yeah, I had to leave my. Yesterday.

[Sam Stein]

Oh, man. Yeah. I wonder what the dinner conversations are like when the paper. Lawrence Mauer of the Tempeh Times. Appreciate it, man. Really do. Keep on the story. Keep us posted on what you find. It's fascinating, it's juicy. It's a great story. Thank you for joining us and thank you guys for watching. Please subscribe to the feed and we'll talk to you later.