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WATCH • ACCOUNTABILITY

When taxpayer money meant for children goes to political schemes

By David Jolly Published: 2025-05-26 Last updated: 2025-05-26
Hope Florida Press Conference in Pensacola

Key moments

0:00

There's a clear violation of the law, and the grand jury says that. But for the lack of cooperation, it suggests an environment where they knowingly created the opportunity to deny what happened.

0:38

A legislator told me: you understand why Republicans do this in Tallahassee? It's because they can get away with it. They've insulated themselves.

1:48

Where you smell corruption, you pursue it. I don't trust our sitting attorney general to do that. The office of the governor should reopen a fact-finding investigation.

Context

A grand jury found the DeSantis administration led a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities with taxpayer money meant for children's health care. The people involved later moved to positions where they could insulate themselves from accountability.

What's said

David Jolly argues the state deserves additional fact-finding. The sitting attorney general is a subject of the investigation, and the office of the governor should pursue the corruption the grand jury identified.

Transcript

Auto-generated transcript from YouTube.

0:00 There's a clear violation of the law and the grand jury says that but for the lack of cooperation or admission it actually suggests an environment where they knowingly created the opportunity to deny what happened, pointing to each other.
0:18 And you can see even the admission that the spirit of the law was broken. I believe the state deserves additional fact finding.
0:26 And I believe we can use the office of the governor to pursue additional fact finding.
0:30 You know, I had a legislature say to me about a year ago, you understand why Republicans do this in Tallahassee? It's because they can get away with it. They can get away with it. They've insulated themselves.
0:45 And consider the very people involved. One was the chief of staff to the governor, later appointed to be our attorney general.
0:54 One was the attorney general of the state of Florida whose office had to sign off on this, later appointed to the United States Senate, fully insulating the governor and the first lady's charity.
1:09 I just think where you smell corruption, you pursue it. I don't trust our sitting attorney general to do that. Clearly, he's a subject of this investigation.
1:18 I think the office of the governor should reopen a fact finding investigation into exactly what happened and to see if the holes that the grand jury identified as needing additional support and information can be provided by additional fact finding.

Related questions

What did the grand jury find?

The grand jury found a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities with money meant for children's health care. The administration's lack of cooperation suggested they knowingly created an environment to deny what happened.

Why hasn't anyone been held accountable?

The people involved moved to positions that insulate them. The governor's chief of staff became attorney general. The attorney general who had to sign off on the scheme was appointed to the U.S. Senate. See the video at 0:45 for the full context.

What should happen next?

The office of the governor should reopen a fact-finding investigation to fill the gaps the grand jury identified. The sitting attorney general is a subject of the investigation and cannot be trusted to pursue it. See 1:48 in the video.

Why does this matter to Florida families?

This was taxpayer money meant for children's health care. When that money gets redirected to political schemes, families lose. Accountability isn't partisan. It's a basic test of government.

More on accountability

Accountability starts with asking the right questions

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