Florida senator withdraws proposal to use $5 million in state funds for Trump legal fees

Gov. Ron DeSantis has hopped on the Trump train, but he indicated Monday he was not on board with a bill proposing Florida taxpayers pony up $5 million to help pay former president Donald Trump's legal fees.

Then, within just over 90 minutes Monday night, bill sponsor Sen. Ileana Garcia announced she would be withdrawing the bill.

News reports circulated Monday about the proposal, dubbed "Grants for Victims of Political Discrimination" by Garcia, a Miami Republican who had previously launched Latinas for Trump. One of the publications, Politico, posted on X, formerly Twitter, about how some Republicans were supportive of the bill.

"But not the Florida Republican who wields the veto pen," DeSantis tweeted in response.

Garcia soon followed with her tweet dropping the bill, which didn't name Trump, but used qualifiers that only applied to him.

"My concern was the political weaponization against conservative candidates," Garcia wrote, "and while (Florida CFO Jimmy Patronis) brought me this bill at a time when all candidates were committing to campaign through the primary, one frontrunner now remains, and he can handle himself."

Trump spending millions on legal fees

Trump, who lost to President Joe Biden by 74 electoral votes in 2020, has been spending tens of millions of dollars on legal fees in four criminal cases. Trump has been indicted on 91 felony counts including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government for his insistence that the 2020 election was stolen with no evidence to prove such a claim.

The former president is also facing a racketeering case in Georgia related to his urging of state officials that they help him "find" the votes to overturn Biden's victory there.

Trump faces 40 federal counts alleging he retained classified documents after his presidency had ended, then obstructed investigators in their attempts to recover the documents.

And in New York, he faces other charges of falsifying business records related to hush payments made to pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels.

Patronis: Prosecution of former president 'outrageous'

Watching the criminal cases develop, Patronis had pitched the idea of Florida helping Trump last November. He followed up with a news release Monday making the case for a Florida Freedom Fighters Fund. He attempted to make a case that the prosecutions of Trump is a Democratic plot.

"The Left is really good at weaponizing the courts, and because President Biden is so unpopular, they’re not just trying to beat Trump at the ballot box, they’re trying to throw him behind bars, which is outrageous," Patronis said in a news release. "We need this Freedom Fighters Fund because as the Free State of Florida, we’re facing an onslaught of attacks from the federal government against the Sunshine State."

Patronis said helping get a Floridian into the White House is "just good from a dollars and cents perspective," considering federal funding that could be reaped in return.

He said the creation of such a "Freedom Fund," might benefit DeSantis, too, in a hypothetical 2028 run.

"Moreover, if Governor DeSantis makes another run at it, he has said that he too could face the same legal headwinds that President Trump is facing," Patronis said.

In the same release, Garcia said "left wing prosecutors" are trying to steal the election.

Patronis said the legislation would have used $5 million from the state's public campaign financing program, then "backfill" it with "voluntary donations via driver's license registrations."

Florida Democrats reacted to the bill's proposal by calling it a "disgrace" and a "victim-card bill" that "should inflame" residents who care about where their tax dollars are being spent.

Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried wrote on X: "Back at home …people can’t afford their property insurance, kids will go hungry over the summer, teacher pay is 48th in the nation, yet this is how the Republicans want to spend YOUR money."

What does this say about DeSantis relationship with Trump?

DeSantis' extraordinary tweet has some wondering if the détente between Trump and DeSantis might not last long.

After the veto threat, some political commentators wondered where this aggressive DeSantis was during his campaign against Trump.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump aide who has turned against the ex-president, said on X: "This is arguably the boldest position against Trump that DeSantis has taken … and of course it’s now that he’s out of the race."

Trump, who has said has said nice things about DeSantis since he dropped out of the presidential race on Sunday, has not commented on the legal fees flap.

David Jackson of USA TODAY contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: DeSantis' veto threat spells end to bill funding Trump's legal bills