Gov. Ron DeSantis fired back at a reporter's question after a state grand jury found his administration “misappropriated” taxpayer money when it redirected $10 million from a $67 million Medicaid settlement into First Lady Casey DeSantis' Hope Florida Foundation.
The governor snapped while speaking at a press conference in Lake City in Columbia County this week.
"Well, the only crime that was apparent was whoever leaked the grand jury report," DeSantis said. "I mean, the settlement that ACA did was legally sound. It was appropriate and advanced the interests of state. What you just said is a lie."
Gov. DeSantis refuted the reporter's premise that the Medicaid funds were diverted.
"That was a private settlement where a company made a private contribution to a DSO [Direct Support Organization] affiliated with one of the state agencies," DeSantis continued. "And so, don't lie. Don't get it wrong and make sure."
The rebuke comes after a leaked grand jury report unveiled the $10,000,000 was transferred into a pair of political action committees (PACs) and the Republican Party of Florida to lobby against Florida's Amendment 3 ballot initiative legalizing recreational marijuana.
Moreover, Gov. DeSantis called the controversy a "smear" against First Lady DeSantis.
"What has come out, she wasn't involved in anything," DeSantis said. "So, the media, are you going to take those articles where you put her picture, and we're trying to insinuate that somehow, she was involved with something wrong? None of these guys did anything wrong, but like she wasn't involved in any of this, and I think it was why people hate some of the stuff that goes on with media because you try to smear by implication good people and what she's done for this state is without parallel from being a first lady."
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier also commented on the report while taking questions at a press conference in The Villages. Uthmeier, then Gov. DeSantis's chief of staff, was named in the report for allegedly directing the $10 million in funds through Hope Florida to the PACs and Republican Party of Florida to help defeat Amendment 3.
"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," Uthmeier said.
