A Florida grand jury has found that the administration of the governor, Ron DeSantis, “misappropriated” $10m in taxpayer money from a Medicaid settlement into the Hope Florida Foundation, a charity with ties to DeSantis’s wife, before the money was reportedly “funneled” into “two political action committees”. In the grand jury report, which remains sealed but was obtained and published by CBS News Miami on Wednesday, the grand jurors wrote that “we conclude that these funds were misappropriated as part of a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities” but said that they found “insufficient evidence to charge anyone criminally”. The grand jury report, dated 28 January 2026, states that in 2024, the Hope Florida Foundation received $10m from a Medicaid settlement between the state and Centene, a contractor for the government health insurance program for low-income Americans and children.
The report goes on to say that after the money was transferred to Hope Florida, it was “quickly funneled” from there into two political action committees, and that the money was then reportedly used to lobby against a ballot measure that would have legalized marijuana in Florida, and was sent to the Republican party of Florida. In the report, the jurors write that “nobody will take responsibility for deciding the $10 million of taxpayer money would go to Hope Florida” and “this decision was the original misappropriation, and no witness would take responsibility for making the decision or had any memory of who made it”. When asked by a reporter about the report on Thursday, DeSantis said that the only crime that was “apparent was whoever leaked the grand jury report”.
He described the settlement as “legally sound” and “appropriate” and that it “advanced the interest of state”. Oh, she wasn’t involved in anything,” he said. The grand jurors wrote that no witness admitted or identified who directed the money to go to Hope Florida and noted that testimony also revealed that Uthmeier’s political action committee, Keep Florida Clean, was the “prime recipient of the majority” of the $10m.
The jurors also noted that the office of Ashley Moody, then Florida’s attorney general who is currently serving her second year in the Senate and is up for re-election, knew of the payment, and that her chief deputy signed the agreement “without conducting his due diligence to ensure the proper appropriation of taxpayer funds”. Both Moody and Uthmeier have denied any wrongdoing. On Thursday, at an event at the Villages in Florida, Uthmeier was asked about the report, to which he said that under Florida law, he was not allowed to comment on it.
But he added that “if it is indeed true” it shows that “there was no probable cause found that anybody did anything wrong”. He also said, without evidence, that Democrats had been behind the report, and called it a “hoax that has been debunked time and time and time again”. In a statement to the New York Times on Wednesday, a spokesperson for Moody said that “the reports confirm what we have said all along”, that “neither the Department of Legal Affairs nor the former attorney general had knowledge of how the settlement money would be spent.
Attempts to characterize this any other way are disingenuous.” In the report, the jury recommended that the Florida legislature “enact a law to prevent this situation from occurring”. They suggest enacting “a law that says any monies received by the state from any source must be deposited into General Revenue, and there should be real consequences for anyone violating this law”. On Thursday, the Democratic nominee for governor in Florida, David Jolly, said that if elected, he would “reopen an investigation” into the incident and challenged the Republican nominee for governor, Byron Donalds, to do the same.
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