Inside the grand jury probe of the Hope Florida Foundation

Millions of dollars from a state Medicaid settlement ended up going to a charity effort spearheaded by first lady Casey DeSantis.

But that wasn't its final stop.

A grand jury met in Tallahassee to consider whether the Hope Florida Foundation's spending practices broke any laws. The foundation supports a state program connecting Floridians in need with nonprofit services. The Florida House, led by Republican Rep. Alex Andrade, investigated. The DeSantises deny any wrongdoing.

Miami Herald reporter Alexandra Glorioso has been at the forefront of reporting on how that money ended up being investigated by a grand jury. She spoke with WUSF's Douglas Soule.

The interview has been edited for length:

Alex, how closely connected are the DeSantises to this charity?

Casey DeSantis' name is on the ceremonial checks that they give out to nonprofits, largely churches, and she actually wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal touting the program as the conservative answer to welfare. So it was largely and widely speculated among political insiders that she would use this program to launch her gubernatorial campaign to replace her husband in office who is term limited. It's now believed that it's less likely that Casey DeSantis will run for governor because of the whole saga.

There's a lot of backstory to this saga. But what was one of the pivotal moments?

I got a hold of these really interesting meeting minutes from last October, which showed that the foundation had gotten a $10 million cash infusion. That was from a broader $67 million Medicaid settlement with a health care company called Centene.

That introduced all kinds of issues about whether this transfer of money was legal. And eventually it came out that this money, after it went to the foundation, went to two dark money groups, one connected to the Florida Chamber of Commerce and one that is an organization called Save Our Society from Drugs. And they got two identical $5 million grants. And it appears that they then transferred most of that money, $8.5 million, to a political committee controlled by Gov. Ron DeSantis' then chief of staff, James Uthmeier, who he later appointed as attorney general when there was a vacancy.

So now we're wondering, was money from a Medicaid settlement spent on politics? Because that political committee was created to defeat the recreational marijuana amendment on last year's ballot.

How high up could possible charges go?

It's unclear who could eventually be involved in any kind of indictment or whether the grand jury would even indict. Rep. Andrade did not make Casey DeSantis a focus of his probe. The people who he has accused of wrongdoing are James Uthmeier, the attorney general, and Jeff Aaron, the attorney for the Hope Florida Foundation. And Jeff Aaron has represented the governor in many different other cases.

Beyond the Hope Florida stuff, DeSantis also reportedly used tax dollars to squash the abortion access amendment and the marijuana amendment that appeared on the 2024 ballot. Both did not pass. Why was DeSantis so motivated to achieve that?

The governor has said that it was important to defeat these amendments because he has spent a lot of energy in creating a red state in Florida. These constitutional amendments would send mixed signals and potentially attract more liberal voters to the state, which would be a political problem.

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This story was produced by WUSF as part of a statewide journalism initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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