#BecauseMiami: Follow the Money
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What is the Hope Florida Foundation and how did it receive $10 million?
State lawmakers asking tough questions about how $10 million was funneled into a nonprofit called Hope Florida and not into a state bank account. The charity was spearheaded by First Lady Casey DeSantis. The money was baked into a $67 million settlement between health giant Centene and the Agency for Healthcare Administration. $57 million went back to taxpayers. $10 million went to Hope Florida, a welfare assistance program to help people become less reliant on taxpayer-funded programs.
Cash quickly went out the door to two nonprofits for $5 million grants and promises that the money would be used to further hope Florida's mission, not politics.
How was the $10 million settlement money allegedly diverted?
But those nonprofits later gave millions to a political committee fighting and defeating last year's recreational weed amendment, Keep Florida Clean, a group chaired by former DeSantis Chief of Staff turned Attorney General James Uthmeyer.
Follow the money. That was the great lesson from Deep Throat in the movie version of All the President's Men. I don't think that happened in real life, but it was a great line that the screenwriter came up with. And that has been sort of the mantra of every investigative reporter, particularly in political corruption stories. And no different here.
Who are the key reporters breaking this story and what did they find?
Over the last like 10 days or so, this story has metastasized into a full-blown story. scandal here in the state of Florida and turn the Republican Party against each other into this wild kind of internal battle between what appears to be kind of the Trump Republicans versus really the DeSantis is by themselves, both the governor, Ron DeSantis, and the first lady, Casey DeSantis, who's planning a run for governor in twenty twenty six. And this Hope Florida Foundation has been like her pet project as the Florida first lady. And it's turning into a possible investigation into money laundering and wire fraud. And I just this is a crazy story. And the Woodward and Bernstein of this story are Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times reporters who cover this.
the state capitol in Tallahassee, Florida, Alexandra Glorioso and Lawrence Mower, who are joining us now. And they broke this story about this, we'll call it questionable. When I say questionable, I mean possibly illegal $10 million donation to Casey DeSantis' foundation. First up, Alexandra, what is it that you guys first found that kind of led you to ask this question here about like, what was this money? Where did it come from? Was it legal? What what happened initially?
So I got a copy of Meeting Minutes from October, 2024. And this is a charity sanctioned by the state in state law. So the Meeting Minutes are supposed to be public, but they haven't been. So when I saw the Meeting Minutes, I was really intrigued. And what the Meeting Minutes said was that there was a $10 million allocation to the foundation due to a longstanding dispute between what eventually came out was the State Agency for Healthcare Administration and the state's largest Medicaid contractor, Centene, which had been overbilling the state for prescription drugs, essentially. And they were settling over it. You know, we didn't know everything when we got those minutes, but we knew that the foundation was getting $10 million. And that was the first donation that we knew about to the foundation because everything has been so secretive.
And this was a settlement between the state and this provider of which the money was, I guess, supposed to go to the state. But this $10 million was kind of diverted to the First Lady's foundation. Generally speaking, does this foundation take in that kind of money? Do they commonly get multi, multi-million dollar donations like of this size?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the Hope Florida Foundation and how did it receive $10 million?
0:35–1:13
2
How was the $10 million settlement money allegedly diverted?
1:13–1:56
3
Who are the key reporters breaking this story and what did they find?
1:56–11:24
4
What is the connection between the Hope Florida Foundation and political committees?
11:24–17:53
5
What are the potential legal issues involved with the money flow?
17:53–24:12
6
How did lawmakers react to the revelations about Hope Florida's finances?
24:12–26:11
7
What are the political implications within the Florida GOP regarding this scandal?
26:11–28:57
8
What are the next steps in the investigation and what new evidence has emerged?
28:57–50:35
Speakers
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