moody, ashley Sen

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DESANTIS APPT SENATE

see RAGA UTHMeIER REDING QUINONES ~ CASTRO

RETALIATION COMEY BRENNAN

presumably team red BAILEY WILSON

SEE FLORIDA HOPE SHELL $

JAN 6? paxton? SEDITION CAUCUS

VOTER SUPPRESS

bondi? TODD BLANCHE

~ESG

ELIMINALATIONIST?

~ POT

TRAYVON

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note msnbc? jan p? other ag won case; corp sent offer to fla, which sat 3 yrs, carved off 10B 1 sk to send

guard rewrote wd not have name on it? hers now not? nom judge, not 2x

PKO

Kimberly Leonard and Gary Fineout

08/27/2026

JACKSONVILLE, Florida — Democrats are using a leaked grand jury report on Hope Florida as a fresh line of attack against Sunshine State GOP incumbents, seizing on findings that Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration “misappropriated” $10 million in taxpayer funds from a health care settlement intended to help needy children.

The controversy — first uncovered by GOP state lawmakers — has given Democrats an opening to tie two prominent Republicans to a dispute over millions of dollars in taxpayer money that ultimately flowed into a DeSantis-backed political committee.

The long-running scandal involved a charity connected to an initiative spearheaded by Florida first lady Casey DeSantis, called the Hope Florida Foundation, and has entangled GOP Sen. Ashley Moody and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, both of whom were appointed to their current jobs by the governor and are up for elections in November.

On Wednesday, a grand jury report looking into the funds was leaked to CBS Miami. According to the report, jurors concluded that state officials shifted upwards of $10 million as part of a “sophisticated scheme to fund political activities” because the money eventually went to a political committee and the Republican Party of Florida to defeat an amendment that would have broadly legalized marijuana in the state. Some of the money also flowed into a political committee tied to Gov. DeSantis himself, according to the grand jury.

But the report — which was apparently issued in January but has been kept under seal since then — also concluded there wasn’t enough evidence to criminally charge anyone because “nobody will take responsibility” for routing the money to the foundation or “had any memory of who made it.” At the time money was shifted, Moody was state attorney general while Uthmeier was the governor’s chief of staff.

CBS Miami published its story on the grand jury report on Wednesday, the same day state Rep. Angie Nixon, the Democrat running against Moody, launched her campaign kickoff event in Jacksonville. Ahead of her kickoff, Nixon called on Moody to resign and described the funds transfer as “corrupt” and “disrespectful” in an interview with POLITICO. She drew attention to the report in her stump speech before a crowd of around 200 people who gathered for her campaign launch later that night.

“It just came out today,” Nixon said of the news report. “She stole $10 million for medically needy kids in order to defeat two citizen-led ballot initiatives that you all placed on the ballot that would have allowed you all to have healthier lives.”

Asked about this before the revelations in the grand jury report were published, Moody’s campaign pointed to how Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration, which is responsible for setting health policy and planning, negotiated and settled the agreement with health insurer Centene after Centene overbilled Florida’s Medicaid program. The settlement ultimately led to the health insurer paying back the state $57 million, with another $10 million flowing into Hope Florida.

Moody’s Senate office spokesperson, Will O’Grady, said Thursday the leaked report “confirms what we have said all along,” regarding how AHCA negotiated the agreement “and the settlement funds were disbursed according to its terms.”

“Neither the Department of Legal Affairs nor the former attorney general had knowledge of how the settlement money would be spent,” he said. “Attempts to characterize this any other way are disingenuous.” Moody released a similar statement on X, blaming the news on the “political season” where “there may be a tendency to misrepresent the facts.”

But the grand jury report concluded Moody knew about the plans to divert the money to the foundation and “authorized” John Guard — then a top official in her office — to sign the settlement agreement. The report additionally stated Guard worried about the transfer and raised it with Moody, and as a result the settlement was rewritten so that AHCA was directing the funds instead of the attorney general. In her statement, Moody said “multiple agencies” signed the final agreement.

President Donald Trump nominated Guard for a federal judgeship last year but did not renominate him this year. Guard appeared before the grand jury, though Moody and Uthmeier didn’t. Asked about the leaked grand jury report on Thursday, DeSantis said during a press conference in Lake City, Florida, that “the only crime that was apparent” was its leak.

“There was no diversion of any Medicaid funds. It was a private settlement,” he said. The governor also argued that the “whole reason” the investigation came up was to “smear” his wife, though he didn’t raise the fact that the news had reached a fever pitch last year while Casey DeSantis was weighing a run for governor. The first lady is only mentioned in the grand jury report in the context of describing what Hope Florida is, not in regard to any transfer of funds.

Uthmeier was not only the governor’s chief of staff when the money was transferred but was also leading the political committee the governor was pushing to try to convince the public to vote against the pot ballot measure. Asked about the report Thursday, Uthmeier during a press conference in The Villages called it a “politically motivated witch hunt” and “hoax,” and maintained “nobody did anything wrong here.” He accused Democrats of collusion with the press to leak the report, though didn’t offer evidence of how CBS obtained the report, and pointed out how he wasn’t allowed under Florida law to comment on grand jury proceedings.

Democrat José Javier Rodríguez, who’s running against Uthmeier for Florida attorney general, called on his rival to “resign, come clean and turn himself in.” He pointed out that the report also said that Uthmeier was a key figure in the diversion of the funds and later was among those who’d been blocking the release of the report.

“This report pulls back the veil on the corruption Floridians have been seeing for years,” Javier Rodríguez said. “Enough is enough.”

David Jolly, the Democratic nominee for governor, pledged Thursday to “reopen” an investigation “into the laundering of Medicaid funds” if elected. Jolly, in a statement posted on X, noted that those involved — including Uthmeier and Moody — had been appointed to key posts by DeSantis, which he asserted was designed to “further insulate anyone from accountability and hide the truth from Floridians.” The campaign for Rep. Byron Donalds, the Republican nominee for governor, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Nixon said she wasn’t certain whether her campaign would be able to run ads on the matter — she has raised about $2.5 million since launching her campaign in January, an amount that falls far short of what would be needed to run a statewide ad. She added, however, that she would “hit [Moody] hard on it.”

“Kids are probably going to die because they didn’t get the resources that they needed,” she told POLITICO.

Annette Taddeo, the Democratic candidate for Florida chief financial officer, used the report to criticize current CFO Blaise Ingoglia, another DeSantis appointee, for “ignoring stealing in plain sight” and spending time criticizing local government instead of focusing on issues in state government.

Ingoglia was not in his position at the time the transfer occurred, but Katie Strickland, now a top aide for him, worked in the DeSantis administration at the time and was identified by other witnesses “as a participant in meetings and conversations.” The grand jury found her testimony “not credible” and called her testimony “least informative” because “she could hardly recall any details or information” about the settlement. Strickland did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, state Senate Democrats called on both Moody and Uthmeier to resign.

Democrats aren’t the only ones raising concerns. The initial investigation was started by GOP members of the state House before the grand jury took it up. The GOP state representative leading the investigation, Alex Andrade, had sent his records to the Second Judicial Circuit. GOP Sen. Rick Scott, a two-term former governor, had praised the state House’s work and said the money should be paid back. When asked about the latest report, Scott called it “deeply concerning.”

“Money designated to help poor kids was diverted to political ads,” he said. “Florida families deserve accountability, not more finger pointing in Tallahassee.”

Andrade declined to comment on the leaked report.

Former GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, now a host on One America News Network, praised CBS Miami’s Jim DeFede over X for producing a “great scoop” and later drew attention to the fact that Uthmeier had been leading the political committee against the marijuana amendment.

When Uthmeier celebrated a $1.2 million settlement on X with consulting firm Deloitte over its diversity, equity and inclusion practices, Gaetz taunted with, “What PAC are you sending the settlement money to?”

Kimberly Leonard reported from Jacksonville, and Gary Fineout reported from Tallahassee.

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Indictment Of Cuba's Raúl Castro DOJ | Rev

RAUL CASTRO PRESSER SEN MOODY

(09:54)

I'm proud to stand here on this podium with US Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones to my right. Chris Raia, Deputy Director of the FBI.

(10:10)

You're going to get to clap for Jason in 20 seconds. Chris Raia, Deputy Director of the FBI and James Uthmeier, the Attorney General of this great state. And your great US senator is here as well. She's very busy in D.C. but wouldn't miss this for the world. So thank you for being here, Senator Moody.

(10:36)

So I want to thank Jason for his leadership down here in Florida. He's doing a great job beyond today and I'd also ask him to replace me at the podium to say a few words. So thank you, Jason, very much....

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an 1 25

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has selected Attorney General Ashley Moody to succeed U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, should Rubio be confirmed as Secretary of State. Moody, 49, has served under Governor DeSantis for five years. If she chooses to remain in the Senate, she would need to run in a special election in 2026.

Both Lara Trump and Matt Gaetz had been rumored at one time to be interested in consideration. DeSantis’s wife, Casey DeSantis, had also been rumored as a possible replacement. Lara Trump announced she would not seek the appointment. Some political observers suggested DeSantis, who is term limited and cannot run for a third term in 2026, could appoint himself to the role, but he announced he would not.

As Florida’s Attorney General, Moody has taken an aggressive, right-wing stance on key cultural issues.

In 2023, Moody appeared to compare a popular LGBTQ children’s book about gay penguins to “Nazi propaganda.”

After citing “a newrulingin Russia that bans the LGBTQ movement,” MSNBC‘s Ja’han Jones wrote: “In Putinesque fashion, the Florida AG argued that because schools are able to ban Nazi propaganda under ‘value-based judgments,’ they should be allowed to make similar decisions about LGBTQ content.”

“In a legal brief filed over the summer,” Jones noted, Moody had “argued that schools’ homophobic book bans are constitutional because ‘public-school systems, including their libraries, convey the government’s message, and, when the government speaks, it may ‘regulate the content of … its own message.’ ‘”

Moody “once sued Donald Trump for alleged fraud,” The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake reports.

She is currently suing Starbucks, CBS News reported, over alleged “racial quotas” that an investigative agency denies are quotas.

“Moody in May filed a complaint with the Florida Commission on Human Relations alleging that Starbucks had policies that ‘appear on their face to be racial quotas.’ But after an investigation, the commission’s executive director in November issued a determination that there was ‘no reasonable cause’ to believe that the Seattle-based coffee company violated a state anti-discrimination law,” CBS reported.

Moody’s appointment was quickly met with strong criticism.

“Ashley Moody has a long record of opposing abortion rights and even sought to keep an abortion rights amendment off of Florida’s ballot. She went further and supported threatening TV stations who played ads advocating for abortion rights,” according to Nico Delgado, the spokesperson for the liberal Super PAC American Bridge 21st Century. “Moody also sought to get the Affordable Care Act declared unconstitutional, which would hurt over 4.6 million Floridians. Moody also abused her elected position and took a lead role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election and joined the lawsuit seeking to invalidate the results. Moody supported book bans and is in the pocket of Big Oil – while ignoring climate change.”

The Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried declared Moody has “ignored the growing property insurance crisis and let wealthy corporations rip off Floridians. Instead, she spent her time chasing political attention and currying favor with the far right. She worked for over a year to silence the voices of Floridians who wanted Amendment 4 on the ballot, weaponizing state law and the Florida Constitution to score the political points that got her this appointment.”

DeSantis used the opportunity of announcing Moody’s appointment to hold a press conference to say she will “work with President Trump to deliver on the mandate he earned,” is “willing to shut the border” and will “make sure any legal immigration to this country is putting Americans first,” as CBS News reported.

He also, according to the nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet NOTUS, said Moody has pledged that, as a Senator, she will “defund” the United Nations “once and for all.”

Moody told DeSantis she is “ready to show up and fight for this nation and fight for President Trump to deliver the ‘America First’ agenda on Day One.”

NOTUS justice reporter Jose Pagliery, in a social media thread, called Moody a “close DeSantis ally who keeps filing lawsuits for the MAGA cause.”

He adds that Moody “fought mask mandates during COVID,” has “claimed that FEMA was discriminating against Trump supporters,” and “accused the Biden administration of ‘flat out refusing to secure the border.'”

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RECYCLED ANTI-COMMIE?

NOTE DECRIES DEM RHET WHILE USING ELIMINATIONALIST

an 7 25

U.S. Senator Ashley Moody (R-FL) is calling Democrats who oppose the often warrantless raids and tactics used by President Donald Trump’s frequently masked ICE agents, “pawns” of an “anarchist agenda.”

Senator Moody on Thursday (video below) denounced “lawmakers using this really incendiary rhetoric and showing up at ICE facilities and saying it’s ‘inspiring’ that people are going after and targeting ICE, using words like the ‘Gestapo.'”

Telling Newsmax that she is the wife of a law enforcement officer, Moody noted that “we watch them day in, day out, put their lives on the line for us.”

“All they are doing,” she said of those opposing ICE, “by demonstrating these thoughtless, careless words that are inciting violence against officers — they are just showing that they are ignorant pawns of a subversive anarchist agenda, and that has to stop.”

IFrame Content

On Wednesday, she also denounced Democrats opposing ICE.

“Yeah, to my colleagues and other lawmakers around this nation that are using words like ‘inspiring’ and encouraging these acts, I would just say, you have gone well beyond advancing and arguing for political parties.”

“You are now becoming more like agents of our foreign adversaries that want to destabilize our nation and attack our institutions and government.”

Commenting on the Trump Department of Justice now investigating former Obama CIA Director John Brennan and former Biden and Trump FBI Director Jim Comey, Senator Moody referred to them as “radicals” and praised President Donald Trump for “fumigating” those institutions.

“I’m gonna go back to the hypocrisy of the Democrats,” she told Fox News. “They keep talking about that Trump is bringing ‘retribution’ and that he’s using these institutions for political reasons. This is not retribution. This is fumigation.”

“You’ve had radicals roaming in these institutions like termites, destabilizing them, weakening them, the Democrats talk about these institutions being weakened by Trump. He is fumigating these,” Moody continued.

“He is bringing back integrity and accountability, and I believe that these things should be looked at so that the American people can be restored and their belief in these institutions and know that they are, in fact, a government of the people, not a government of a political party seeking to deliver a political agenda.”

Watch the videos below or at this link.

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12 24 appt lara senate?

Ron DeSantis has a dilemma - Alternet.org

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AG ~ legal pot

https://www.alternet.org/drugs/moody-florida/

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am oversight

rECORDS REQUEST TO FLORIDA ATTORNEY GENERAL SEEKING RECORDS FROM RAGA’S ONLINE PORTAL

Records request to the Florida Office of the Attorney General seeking documents, posts, or comments from the Republican Attorneys General Association’s online portal, Briefing Room, concerning, created by, or interacted with by Attorney General Ashley Moody or former Attorney General Pam Bondi.

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https://www.exposedbycmd.org/**2022/09/**06/esg-companies-bankroll-gop-ags-the-very-officials-retaliating-against-their-climate-goals/

alex k

the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) investigation has identified more than two dozen major U.S. companies that are publicly committed to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles yet have recently donated large amounts of campaign cash to a group of Republican state attorneys general that is hyper-focused on eroding air and water regulations, promoting fossil fuel companies, and using state governments to punish companies that try to limit their climate-related risks by divesting from oil, gas, and coal.

Republican attorneys general, along with fellow GOP governors and state financial officers, are weaponizing their public offices to prevent action on climate change. Their latest efforts seek to bar companies that divest from fossil fuels or employ other ESG principles from receiving government contracts.

And yet large U.S. companies such as AT&T, Cigna, Citigroup, Lowe’s, Pfizer, T-Mobile, and UPS—all of which publicly promote their commitment to ESG—have recently funded the political prosperity of these Republican AGs.

Contradictory Takes on Climate Change

“Climate change is one of the most pressing global challenges,” the multinational brewing company Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) acknowledges in its 2021 ESG report for investors. “Our evolved understanding of potential climate-related risks and opportunities across our value chain continues to inform our long-term strategy.”

AB InBev has set an ambitious climate goal for 2025, aiming to reduce its carbon emissions by 25% and purchase 100% of its electricity from renewable sources by then. In joining the international RE100 initiative to switch to 100% renewables, the company intends to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.

But the beer giant is one of the largest corporate funders of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), a group of powerful state officials that has long attacked environmental regulations in the U.S. Members of RAGA—which receives substantial funding from fossil fuel companies to support the reelection campaigns of these AGs—have filed legal challenges against Obama-era air and water pollution regulations. Former Oklahoma AG Scott Pruitt is among those who have worked directly with fossil fuel lobbyists to challenge these laws.

Numerous other corporations have given large sums to RAGA for this year’s elections while publicly committing to ESG principles and, in many cases, to direct climate action.

RAGA recently scored a big win in West Virginia v. EPA when the right-wing justices who now dominate the Supreme Court ruled against the agency, preventing the Biden administration from regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act without going back to Congress for explicit authorization.

Retaliating Against “Energy Discrimination”

As the Right gets more extreme in the U.S., climate-denying Republicans have added a new weapon to their arsenal: attacking financial firms that decrease their investments in fossil fuels.

GOP attorneys general and financial officers are joining state lawmakers in penalizing investment firms that divest from fossil fuel companies. Although they are members of a political party ostensibly committed to a free market, these GOP officials are meddling in corporate decision-making by trying to prevent executives from limiting the enormous financial risk posed by the effects of climate change—likely the biggest economic challenge of the century.

As with their outcry about critical race theory supposedly being taught in American schools, GOP politicians are attempting to cast climate action as a culture war issue, branding routine practices such as ESG disclosures to investors and divesting from a waning fossil fuel industry as “woke.”

In 2021, Texas enacted a law to root out alleged “energy discrimination,” seeking to prevent investment firms that decrease their stakes in oil, gas, and coal from managing the state’s pension and other funds. After the law passed, the energy task force of the ultra-conservative, corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) approved a model bill with similar language, directing state treasurers or comptrollers to maintain a list of firms that have divested from fossil fuels and to only issue government contracts to businesses with more than 10 employees that verify their allegiance to fossil fuels.

In the past year or so, similar legislation has been introduced in at least 15 states and has already passed in four. On Aug. 24, Texas released its first list of firms that allegedly “boycott energy companies,” including BlackRock, Credit Suisse, and UBS.

Dubious Claims

On Aug. 4, 19 GOP attorneys general sent a letterto BlackRock CEO Larry Finkaccusing his firm of making ESG investments that “force the phase-out of fossil fuels, increase energy prices, drive inflation, and weaken the national security of the United States.”

Claims like this are histrionic and often baseless. For example, BlackRock has invested more than $108 billion in Texas-based energy companies, and this year it plans to support proportionally fewer ESG shareholder resolutions than it did last year. And while Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and his allies from other states claim that ESG investing hurts their pension funds, academic studies like a recent one undertaken by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago refute this. In fact, since Texas passed its anti-ESG law last year, the UPenn/Fed study indicates that it has already cost the state between $303 and $532 million, as Kate Aronoff points out in The New Republic.

Other evaluations of ESG investing are mixed, but when researchers from the New York University Stern Center for Sustainable Business and Rockefeller Asset Management analyzed over 1,000 relevant research papers from 2015–20, they found that a majority of the studies indicated ESG investing leads to either neutral or improved financial performance. The meta-analysis points out that “improved financial performance due to ESG becomes more marked over longer time horizons.”

Despite these findings, Republican state AGs and other officials have accelerated their attacks on climate action—a central tenet of ESG investing—in the past few years.

In August, Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and the trustees of the State Board of Administration voted to ban its investment managersfrom using ESG considerations in managing its portfolio of roughly $245 billion, primarily from the Florida Retirement System Pension Plan. Florida’s AG Ashley Moody (R) joined the governor in supporting the move.

In May, Kentucky’s AG Daniel Cameron(R) issued an opinion barring investment managers doing government business from employing ESG principles. On Sept. 1, Indiana’s AG Todd Rokita (R) did the same.

Meanwhile, right-wing entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is cashing in on the GOP’s anti-ESG and anti-woke craze, as CMD recently reported. His firm Strive Asset Management (DRLL) is trying to pull business away from the Big Three asset managers in red states. It recently announced that it hasraised $250 million thanks to large investments from far-right tech mogul Peter Thiel and his affiliated groups.

Not only are GOP AGs targeting asset managers that reduce fossil fuel investments, but they’re going after regulators and ratings agencies as well.

In June, Paxton spearheaded a letterfrom a group of 12 Republican AGs to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)opposing its proposed corporate disclosure requirements around sustainability. The rule would require firms to back up their claims of purportedly green or socially aware investments. Twenty-one GOP AGs sent another letter of opposition to the SEC on Aug. 16.

“The woke left is going full throttle in their mission to change every facet of American life… and erode our democratic institutions to suit their liberal agenda,” said West Virginia’s AG Patrick Morrisey (R).

In late July, Missouri’s AG Eric Schmitt (R) launched an investigation into whether Morningstar, a financial research and rating company, violated a state consumer-protection law by evaluating ESG issues. A few weeks later, 18 other AGs joined the probe. Schmitt and 16 other attorneys general are also trying to block California from setting its own vehicle emissions standards.

At the same time, the nonprofit State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF) and its members are doing all they can to prop up fossil fuel companies and punish firms that divest from oil, gas, and coal. In West Virginia, state Treasurer Riley Mooretold five financial companies—the banks Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo, as well as BlackRock—that they would no longer be eligible for state contracts because they have reduced financing for coal projects.

Corporate Code of Silence ...

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crew 1/22

corporate and industry PACs have also continued to support the Republican state attorneys generalwho attempted to invalidate the election results in four battleground states by falsely claiming that election procedures in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin violated federal law. Twenty companies including Boeing, Walmart, and Home Depot have donated $60,200 through their federal PACs to 12 attorneys general involved in the lawsuit, which was led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall collected the most in donations, bringing in $14,500. He is the head of the Rule of Law Defense Fund, a dark money organization that paid for robocalls promoting the “Save America” rally held on January 6 before the insurrection....

Corporate and industry PACs have also contributed to the Republican state attorneys general who attempted to invalidate the election results by joining a lawsuit, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, against four battleground states won by Biden. Twenty industry donors including Boeing, Walmart and Home Depot have donated $60,200 through their federal PACs to Paxton and eleven other attorneys general who joined that lawsuit, attempting to decertify the results. The four states received historic turnout from voters of color.

Steve Marshall, attorney general of Alabama, has raised the most from these donors, taking in $14,500. He is the head of the Rule of Law Defense Fund, a dark money organization that paid for robocalls detailing when and where individuals should meet for the “Save America” rally held before the insurrection took place at the Capitol. His efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election perpetuated the myth that it was stolen, while robocalls by RLDF urged rallygoers to “march to the Capitol” and “call on Congress to stop the steal.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxtonpulled in $6,000 from the Texas Farm Bureau and Valero Energy since leading the charge to invalidate millions of people’s votes. Attorney General Sean Reyes of Utah backed the lawsuit, further eroding confidence in this country’s democratic system. He pulled in $7,500 from two donors, including Home Depot.

Companies that cut checks to these election objectors had also made commitments about confronting systemic racism in this country. Only their efforts to curb racism apparently don’t include their political giving. Cigna, which shared its “resolute belief in diversity [and] inclusion” and described intolerance “as not only unacceptable, but as the antithesis of everything [they] stand for,” offered contributions to Florida Attorney General and former RLDF board member Ashley Moody. Walmart, which committed $100 million over five years to build a “center on racial equity” to address systemic racism, contributed to Marshall. Home Depot gave $1 million to the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law “in support of its vital work to secure civil rights and equal justice for all,” then turned around and donated to Reyes.

These billion dollar corporations have contradicted their public commitments to racial justice by bankrolling attorneys general sowing doubt about a fair election in states like Georgia, which have historically suppressed Black voters. By funding these officials, the same companies claiming to support racial justice are giving political power to an anti-democratic and racist agenda.

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/transparent-political-ploy-florida-attorney-general-asks-fbi-to-investigate-bloombergs-efforts-to-restore-felon-voting-rights/

florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, a Republican, has asked the FBI and the state’s Department of Law Enforcement to investigate former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg‘s efforts to help felons in the state regain their voting rights by paying their court fees, citing “potential violations of election laws.”

Bloomberg has over the last week raised more than $16 million from individuals and private organizations, which he said would go towards paying down fines and fees for nearly 32,000 Black and Latinx Florida voters with felony records. A controversial Florida law forbids former felons from voting unless and until they pay off all money they owe the courts or other legal parties. Critics have called it a “modern day poll tax.”

Florida attorney general Ashley Moody said in the letter that the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis had asked her to look into the issue, CNN reported Wednesday.

“After preliminarily reviewing this limited public information and law, it appears further investigation is warranted,” Moody wrote in a letter to the agencies....

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https://billmoyers.com/story/gop-led-legal-inquest-into-bloomberg-helping-florida-felons-vote-condemned-as-attempted-voter-suppression/

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody’s call for state and federal investigations into billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s effort to raise millions to pay off court fees to help Florida felons restore their voting rights was a “gross abuse” of power, “voter suppression,” “a fear-mongering tactic used before” and based on a “fundamental misconception” of anti-corruption laws, according to experienced campaign lawyers and former federal election regulators.

“It’s not just that an investigative process and grand jury proceedings would likely extend past Election Day, but also that we’ve seen this fearmongering tactic used before,” said Jonathan Diaz, legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, D.C., founded by Trevor Potter, a Republican and ex-Federal Election Commission (FEC) chair. “There are countless examples of elected officials or law enforcement announcing ‘bombshell’ investigations like this with no evidence of actual wrongdoing (for example, recently in Texas and Georgia) and indeed, no actual conclusions that any misconduct has taken place.”

It’s “outrageous and likely an extortionate threat designed to suppress the vote and deny citizens their constitutional right to vote,” said Benedict Kuehne, the Miami attorney whose team recently won a settlement to save digital images of ballots if there’s a presidential election recount. “Not at all unexpected. But still an abuse of power.”

The fray is the latest development in one of the nation’s most important voting rights battles. Two years ago, a majority of Floridians approved Amendment 4, which restored voting rights for nearly 1.4 million former felons. Florida’s Republican-led state government responded by passing laws and going to court to impede the rights’ restoration, mainly by requiring former felons to pay off all court fees and fines before being eligible to register to vote.

As legal battles are continuing in the courts—where delays mean that these Floridians won’t necessarily be eligible to vote this fall unless they pay fees that typically are between $500 and $5,000—many celebrities and philanthropists have been making donations to the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC), which led the Amendment 4 campaign, to help pay the fees.

The FRRC raised about $6 million in the past year for that effort, the Miami Herald reported, noting that celebrities like NBA star LeBron James contributed.To date, FRRC has helped about 4,000 people pay off their fines, NPR reported, noting that an estimated 775,000 former felons have unpaid fines.

But a September 22 Washington Post report that said Bloomberg had raised $16 million to help about 32,000 people clear those debts prompted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to ask the state Attorney General Ashley Moody (both are Republicans) to launch federal and state anti-corruption investigations into Bloomberg’s effort.

Political Theater

Beyond the obvious election-year politics, the issue is what constitutes illegal vote-buying.

“I sent a letter to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation into potential violations of election laws,” Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said via email. “And I have instructed the Statewide Prosecutor to work with law enforcement andany Statewide Grand Jury that the Governor may call.”

On September 23, Moody asked state and federal authorities to investigate whether Bloomberg’s efforts, as reported in the Washington Post, violated state and federal laws that make it illegal to give another person anything of value in exchange for their vote. That Washington Post report quoted an unnamed Bloomberg adviser who said that paying the fines “immediately activates tens of thousands of voters who are predisposed to vote for Joe Biden.”

“Governor DeSantis has asked that my office review recent allegations found in the enclosed September 22, 2020 Washington Post article and relevant law,” began Moody’s letter to the FBI and Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The letter cited a 2016 advisory opinion from Maria Matthews, Florida Division of Elections director, to a now-defunct political committee, saying that “[e]ven otherwise innocuous offering of an incentive simply to vote could run afoul” of corruption laws. Moody concluded, “it appears further investigation is warranted.”

The preceding paragraph in that 2016 opinion, which was not cited in Moody’s cover letter but was found in attached documents, said that the Division of Elections had concluded in the 1980s that Florida law “does not prohibit a person from giving an elector ‘a gift certificate or other consideration if the consideration is not intended to buy or corruptly influence another’s vote.’”

That advisory opinion identifies a tipping point—whether a gift is tied to an explicit vote. Its ambiguity—“[it] could run afoul”—is the hinge upon which Florida Republicans have launched an investigation into Bloomberg, implying, but not concluding, that he has crossed a line into vote-buying. That peg was all that right-wing media needed to start attacking Bloomberg.

On the other hand, the clearer prior precedents in Florida Department of State advisory opinions, and Florida and federal laws that absolve Bloomberg of any wrongdoing, are what has drawn extraordinarily strong denunciations of Moody’s actions by voting rights attorneys, former campaign finance regulators and Florida Democrats.

“Let’s not forget that Florida has spent the last year telling federal courts that these legal debts are simply criminal penalties that have nothing to do with voting and are therefore not a poll tax—but as soon as someone like [former New York] Mayor Bloomberg shows up and offers to help pay them, Florida turns around and accuses him of illegally buying votes,” said the Campaign Legal Center’s Diaz. “The state can’t have it both ways: either it’s charging people to vote in violation of the Constitution and this is a poll tax, or it’s not, and Mayor Bloomberg has done nothing wrong by donating funds to help people become eligible [voters].”

Another former Federal Election Commissioner, Karl Sandstrom (appointed by President Bill Clinton), said that Florida Attorney General Moody was misapplying legal standards by citing an ambiguous state agency opinion to launch a federal and state anti-corruption probe.

“The Florida attorney general’s reading of the relevant statutes flies in [the] face of the rule of lenity which is [a] well-established principle of criminal statutory interpretation that requires a court to apply any unclear or ambiguous law in the manner that is most favorable to the defendant,” he said. “Under her interpretation, a corporation that gives employees time off to vote would be guilty of a felony if the corporation expected that were likely to prefer one candidate over another.”

“This [gambit] raises voter suppression to a whole new level,” said Chris Sautter, an election lawyer specializing in post-election recounts. “What next? Will they start prosecuting voter protection lawyers who advise voters on their rights to cast a ballot?”

Democrats and Florida Lawyers React

Outside of Florida, other seasoned election lawyers said that Bloomberg’s effort was legal.

“I’m not a neutral expert on this,” said Joseph Sandler, one of the Democratic Party’s top campaign lawyers. “But we do advise on this issue all the time, and there’s no doubt in my mind this is legal because payment of the fine is not tied to whether the person agrees or promises to commit to vote at all, let alone to vote for a particular party or candidate. The relevant statutes—which go to corruptly influencing a person to vote a certain way—do not remotely apply. The threats of prosecution for this are indeed a gross abuse [of power].”

Inside Florida, Democrats made the same point. Moody was wrong on the vote-buying law.

“I think the fundamental misconception (whether inadvertent or deliberate) is that enabling people to cast a vote is the same thing as telling them, or demanding of them, to vote in a particular way for a particular candidate. That is just not what is happening here,” said Joseph Geller, a Democratic state legislator and veteran of Florida’s 2000 presidential recount. “These potential voters are being freed to vote, but there is no insistence or requirement as to how they will exercise their discretion as to which candidates they will vote for.”

Of course, it is impossible to separate the timing of Moody’s call for state and federal investigations from the 2020 election cycle. Her action’s purpose was to deter voting by the roughly 32,000 former felons for whom Bloomberg was poised to clear the existing court fees.

“Our thoughts are: yes, donors can pay off the fines and fees of Floridians. The Florida AG’s outrageous letter is a blatant voter suppression tactic that has no basis in law,” said Corey Goldstone, a Campaign Legal Center spokesman. “We’re treating it more like a press release than a serious legal filing. None of these people have to vote, no one has been induced to take any particular action. The donors who are contributing to the Florida Rights Restoration Council merely allows people to be eligible to vote—something that most people enjoy cost-free.”

TOPICS: DEMOCRACY & GOVERNMENT

TAGS: 2020 ELECTION, AMENDMENT 4, ASHLEY MOODY, CRIMINAL JUSTICE, ELECTION REGULATION, FELON DISENFRANCHISEMENT, FIGHT TO VOTE, GOP/RIGHT WING, LAW, MEDIA, MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS, VOTER SUPPRESSION, VOTING RIGHTS

STEVEN ROSENFELD

Steven Rosenfeld covers national political issues for AlterNet, including America's retirement crisis, democracy and voting rights, and campaigns and elections. He is the author of Count My Vote: A Citizen's Guide to Voting (AlterNet Books, 2008), and the co-author of Who Controls Our Schools: How Billionaire-Sponsored Privatization Is Destroying Democracy and the Charter School Industry (AlterNet eBook, 2016)

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Here’s a revealing glimpse of Bill Barr’s vision for the future of law enforcement

Written by Filter January 27, 2020

by Rory Fleming

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President Trump threw US Attorney General William Barr a big bone in the form of a January 22 executive order to establish a Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice. As Filter reported, the framing of this venture promises to undermine criminal justice reform.

AG Barr has been all over the news lately, complaining about the handful of reform-minded elected prosecutors working to incrementally decarcerate their jurisdictions.

Now, through the composition of his Commission, we are getting a clear look at the kind of law enforcement official Barr deems laudable.

Most of the 18 commissioners are rural white southern sheriffs or police chiefs, while a handful are heads of federal law enforcement agencies, like the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). There’s David Bowdich, the FBI’s deputy director, whose bio notes that he “served as a SWAT Team operator and sniper.” The lawyers on the list include Commission Vice Chair Katharyn Sullivan, a senior official in Barr’s own office, whose resume includes presiding over a drug court.

The dominance of cops over prosecutors in the commission is inappropriate because cops are not decision-makers in terms of the bigger criminal justice picture. However, it’s informative to look at the prosecutors who are present, because Barr knows them personally, so it shines light on who he really likes.

Here are three of the commissioners whose records I find particularly telling.

Chesapeake City, Virginia Commonwealth’s Attorney Nancy Parr

Nancy Parr, the elected prosecutor of Chesapeake, Virginia, is the president-elect of the hopelessly out-of-touch National District Attorney Association, which champs fake forensic science in court and continues to argue that marijuana legalization will cause its underage use and use while driving to skyrocket. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know Washington, as she was an honored speaker at a 2015 hearing on “America’s growing heroin epidemic,” held by the House Subcommittee On Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations.

There, Parr told the Congressional body that, “For the past 30 years as a prosecutor, I have learned a lot about distributing drugs, and I have learned about simply possessing drugs. There is a big difference.” Specifically, in her view, that difference is “Dealers should be incarcerated”—demonstrating her ignorance of the reality that people who sell and use drugs are commonly the same people. She also furthered the false and harmful stereotype that people who use drugs tend to be thieves.

Parr did say, “I also know that we all want to save lives,” but harm reductionists who help people stay safe while using drugs would immediately call her bluff.

In one of her cases, Parr obtained a felony drug possession conviction for a woman whose boyfriend called 911 after he found her unconscious on a motel room floor from what turned out to be a fentanyl overdose. Prosecutions like these cause people who use drugs together not to call for help, which leads to death.

When not working to persecute people who use drugs, Commonwealth’s Attorney Parr is doing things like waiting until members of Congress demand accountability to charge security guards for slaying unarmed, elderly Chinese immigrants for playing Pokémon Go. Or illegally registering homeless people as “habitual drunkards” to enable their incessant harassment by police.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody

Just in case anyone still thought Trump was serious about rolling back the drug war after signing the First Step Act, consider the appointment of Commissioner Moody. As a former federal prosecutor who was individually praised by the Drug Enforcement Agency for her “excellence” (she’s also married to a DEA agent), Moody shares many of that agency’s regressive views.

After becoming Florida’s youngest criminal court judge, Westlaw Edge search results show that Moody convicted and sentenced a man for a burglary he pleaded guilty to in 2012, but without first checking if his plea was voluntary and competent. While the burglary was a part of a robbery spree and this count would not have likely affected his overall sentence, it raises professionalism issues and caused the Court of Appeal to reverse the decision.

Fitting with the trend that Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” defense really only works if the shooter is white and the victim is a person of color, Judge Moody also gave incorrect jury instructions that led to a conviction for manslaughter for Trevor Dooley—a Black man who shot a white man when the latter tried to grab his gun during a physical scuffle on a basketball court in 2010 (Dooley later won the right to a retrial, which has yet to happen). That decision is particularly notable when Moody has extremely close ties with the NRA.

Currently, as Florida’s Attorney General, Moody is using taxpayer dollars to protest letting recreational marijuana legalization go to a popular vote. She also recently opposed letting people with nonviolent felony convictions regain their right to vote, which almost 65 percent of Florida voters approved. And as if taking a cue from Breitbart, her office runs an official website dedicated to “Black-on-Black” crime.

Pinellas County, Florida Sheriff Bob Gualtieri

Another resident of the Sunshine State, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri is a far-right conservative who apparently moved to the South to self-actualize as another Joe Arpaio. The sheriff demonizes immigrants by cherry-picking rare stories of undocumented people committing sexual assault.

In 2018, Gualtieri refused to arrest a white man—described by a prominent civil rights lawyer as a “self-appointed cop wannabe”—after he shot and killed a Black man, in another example of the curiously differing applications of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law. When Reverend Al Sharpton came to town to talk to locals about that situation, Gualtieri told him to “go back to New York.” Gualtieri himself is from New York.

Sheriff Gualtieri is also known for posting mugshots on Twitter like they’re a badge of guilt?—even for children.

Ultimately, Gualtieri seems to want to treat America like a war zone, rather than a country that, like any other place on Earth, experiences some violent crime. Should we arm teachers? To the sheriff, the answer is a resounding yes.

This article was originally published by Filter, a magazine covering drug use, drug policy and human rights. Follow Filter on Facebook or Twitter.

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Attorney General Ashley Moody, a fifth generation Floridian, was born and raised in Plant City, Florida. She attended the University of Florida where she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting and law degree. She later attended Stetson University College of Law earning a Masters of Law in International Law.

General Moody began her legal career with the law firm of Holland & Knight where she practiced commercial litigation. In her spare time, she volunteered assisting domestic violence victims seeking protection in court.

She subsequently joined the United States Attorney’s Office prosecuting drug, firearm, and fraud offenses. While a federal prosecutor, General Moody was commended by the DEA for prosecutorial excellence and outstanding initiative in drug law enforcement. She was also recognized by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for her lead of “Operation Round-Up,” a targeted prosecution of violent and repeat offenders.

In 2006, at the age of thirty-one, General Moody became the youngest judge in Florida when she was elected Circuit Court Judge of the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit in Hillsborough County.As a judge, she founded the Attorney Ad Litem program recruiting volunteer attorneys to stand in the place of parents who did not appear in court with their children. She also developed a mentoring program for at-risk children within the juvenile delinquency system.

General Moody served as an adjunct professor at Stetson University College of Law and on the judicial faculty for Florida’s New Judges College, Advanced Judicial Studies, and the Circuit Judges Conference. She was a frequent lecturer on crime and justice as well as best practices for Florida attorneys. In 2015, General Moody was recognized by the National Legal Services Corporation for her significant contributions to pro bono legal service and was awarded the Florida Supreme Court’s Distinguished Judicial Service Award.

On January 8, 2019, General Ashley Moody became Florida’s 38th Attorney General. Since taking office as Attorney General, General Moody has been recognized as a national leader having been appointed to the Executive Committee of the National Association of Attorneys General and to the Board of Directors for the Rule of Law Defense Fund. General Moody is the Chair of Florida’s Statewide Council on Human Trafficking and was recently appointed by the Governor as Chair of Florida’s Statewide Task Force on Opioid Abuse.

General Moody and her husband, Justin, a federal law enforcement agent, have two sons, Brandon and Connor.

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