DeSantis revels in ‘the biggest judicial smackdown that I have ever seen’

The Florida First District Court of Appeal courthouse in Tallahassee. (Credit: Michael Moline)Gov. Ron DeSantis claimed vindication Thursday in light of a state appellate ruling handed down the day before expunging the Hope Florida grand jury report that harshly criticized much of the state’s Republican leadership.

He called for prosecution of whoever leaked the report to CBS News Miami. The document alleges “misappropriation” by his administration of $10 million from a $67 million Medicaid overbilling settlement to advance the governor’s political goals.

“This process has now culminated in what I think is probably the biggest judicial smackdown that I have ever seen in my entire career as an elected official. All the narratives crashed and burned with this opinion by the 1st District Court of Appeal,” Desantis said during a Miami news conference.

“Whoever leaked this report needs to be prosecuted,” he continued.

“If you leak the report, you violated the law knowingly, willingly, or at least recklessly. And there are people in that report who are private citizens, there are people in that report who are midlevel government employees who should never have been subjected to this,” the governor said.

Attorney General James Uthmeier, who’d been the governor’s chief of staff at the time and central to funneling the money into the campaign against a citizens’ initiative to legalize recreational pot, joined the news conference and seconded the motion.

“Yeah, I think this is something law enforcement’s looking at. I don’t have an update from them at this point, nothing to share,” he said.

“But, upon a finding of a violation of law, that’s something that state attorneys could prosecute. If it crosses over circuit lines — you know, which is very possible, given CBS Miami engaging in perpetrating the fraud — then it could involve the statewide prosecutor,” he continued.

“If somebody shows a violation alone, no matter where it is, I pursue it. I enforce the law. Everywhere, from retail theft to election crimes, child predators, you name it. Somebody broke the law, they should be prosecuted.

The ruling

Judge Lance E. Neff of the 1st DCA in Tallahassee wrote the opinion. He cited a Florida law that requires any grand jury report, or “presentment,” that doesn’t include an indictment to remain confidential until named parties have a chance to block release.

“A grand jury may investigate and report, but it may not declare conduct unlawful and then decline to charge it, and it may not condemn people by name without indicting them,” the 19-page opinion reads.

“Nor may the State release a confidential presentment before those it impugns have had the opportunity Florida law guarantees to seek its repression or expungement.”

The Florida Democratic Party, which has been using the grand jury report and its findings on the campaign trail, blasted the DCA ruling , noting in a written statement sent to the news media Thursday that it “doesn’t change what happened.”

“The grand jury heard testimony, reviewed evidence and concluded that the $10 million was misappropriated as part of a scheme to fund political activity. Erasing the report does not erase those findings,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said.

“The questions remain: Why was $10 million carved out of a Medicaid settlement and sent to Hope Florida? Why was it moved into political organizations? And why have the people involved fought so hard to keep Floridians from seeing what happened?

The probe into the Hope Florida Foundation originated when the Republican-controlled Florida House held hearings in the spring of 2025 amid speculation that First Lady Casey DeSantis — who started the Hope Florida initiative — might run for governor. The program is intended to divert welfare recipients into community-based assistance through churches and other providers.

Rep. Alex Andrade, a Pensacola Republican, turned over information to the Tallahassee prosecutor that became the catalyst for the grand jury investigation.

The grand jury said the foundation “quickly funneled” the money to two nonprofits that directed some of it to the campaign to defeat the pot amendment.

The panel blasted several top state officials, including Uthmeier and Jason Weida, a former Agency for Health Care Administration secretary, now chief of staff to DeSantis, but the report did not result in anyone getting charged.

The report was written in January 2026 but remained confidential until it was leaked to CBS Miami, which posted it on its website.

The report says U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody, state attorney general at the time, knew about the money transfer.

Money not ‘misappropriated’

In opining that the grand jury erred in its findings, Neff relied on two laws, one of which bars expenditure of negotiated court-settlement funds absent a legislative appropriation and requires settlement money to be placed in the general revenue fund or another trust fund. The second law the grand jury relied on also governs court actions but applies only to money paid to the state.

Neff said the agreement between ACHA, the Attorney General’s Office, and Medicaid managed care plan Centene, was “settled before any civil action was filed. Because no ‘civil action’ had been filed in court,” he continued, the “$10 million was paid to Hope Florida, not the State.”

“While some may question the propriety of settlements with payments to third parties, the Florida Legislature has not made such action illegal, as the grand jury’s recommendations implicitly acknowledge,” Neff wrote.

“Indeed, Florida’s attorneys general from 1996 to 2020 executed 107 settlements in which third-party payments were directed to entities other than the State. The federal government has also engaged in this practice.”

Judges Ross L. Bilbrey and Ross L. Bilbrey, both appointed to the appeals court by former Gov. Rick Scott, concurred with Neff’s conclusions. DeSantis had appointed Neff.

In a separate, opinion, Bilbrey cited a different law, one stating, “Grand jury proceedings are secret,” and that a grand jury or interpreter “shall not disclose the nature or substance of the deliberations or vote of the grand jury.”

He noted that copies of the presentment had been shared with two people involved in the grand jury who were not accused of any wrongdoing — a forensic accountant who assisted the grand jury in sorting through bank records and a Bank of America representative.

“Here, various people, companies, and organizations who were not ‘the individual concerned’ were given the Presentment that was not related to them before actual related and concerned individuals had a chance to challenge the Presentment,” Bilbrey wrote.

 Unlike Neff,  Bilbrey agreed thqt the report should be expunged but he reached that conclusion without “reaching the substance of the Presentment.”

‘Hostile’ venue

DeSantis focused largely on the harm he believes was done to witnesses identified by the grand jury report. Circuit Judge James Lee Marsh had ordered their descriptions expunged, as well as additional information that totaled 112 of the original 116 pages, according to the written opinion.

Those witnesses,  “went in front of a judge who’s hostile to our administration and the judge agreed none of those people should have had that derogatory information published. It was unlawful to have a report with that in it,” he said.

He criticized Leon County’s role as the venue, too, noting that the county preferred Democrat Charlie Crist, his 2022 reelection challenger, by 20%  points while DeSantis himself won the state by that same margin.

“They’re not representative of the state of Florida. The idea that you’re going to go into these areas that have political hostility and you’re going to conduct oversight?”

The governor singled out an employee from CBS attending his news conference.

“CBS, are you here? Anyone from CBS?” he asked.

“Oh, they didn’t send a reporter? Do you want us to send you a copy of this opinion so they will read it and see the results and how that conflicts with some of the narratives they’ve been spewing?

“I think you have a responsibility to correct the record. I think you have a responsibility to show that there has been some adult supervision that has been rendered with the 1st DCA and that the kangaroo court is over, and that this is the law, these are the facts, and it’s the same that we said a year and a half ago.”

‘Nothing changes’

The governor brushed off the whole controversy as politics, even though it was state House Republicans who launched the probe into the transfer.

“There was a cabal in the Legislature,” said DeSantis, who has butted heads with House leaders over the past two years.

“There was an attempt to weaponize this using the legal system,” he said.

Angie Nixon, the Democrat running against Moody for U.S. Senate, has attempted to use the grand jury report against her opponent. Casey DeSantis is also being smeared, DeSantis alleged.

“Nothing changes the fact that on thieving Moody’s watch, sick children were robbed of the $10 million dollars they desperately need for their care. Nothing changes the fact that we all have to wonder how many kids will die because of her corruption and insatiable desire for power and control,” Nixon insisted in a written statement.

“Stealing from kids to fund political ads in order to silence the voices of Floridians voting for policies to improve their own lives is disgusting. And absolutely nothing changes the fact that Moody refuses to answer for these shameful actions in a debate with me because she’s scared to be held to account in the court of public opinion.”