Ron DeSantis’ office delayed release of public records request linked to Gaetz ally, report says

Gov Ron DeSantis’s office is coming under fire from advocates of Florida’s open government laws after an investigation published by News 6 alleged that staff intervened in the outlet’s public records request into the financial records of former state official Halsey Beshears, delaying their release for two months.

In the documents obtained by News 6, the outlet was able to confirm that the financial records of Mr Beshears, a figure who has been reported by Politico to be connected to Matt Gaetz and the federal agency reportedly investigating him for child sex trafficking, were held up for secondary “review” by the governor’s office.

Since the investigation into Mr Gaetz began last year, neither he nor Mr Beshears, both of whom served in Florida’s legislature together, have been charged with any crimes, while both continue to deny any wrongdoing.

Just recently, Mr Gaetz told an audience of CPAC attendees that he equates the Justice Department, the body carrying out the investigation, to “cheaters” on a par with Russia’s Olympic team.

Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) had, the news outlet reported, in fact prepared Mr Beshears’ financial records within days of receiving the 15 April 2021 request. Some records, they reported from the emails they obtained, were compiled within hours of the request landing on the department’s desk.

The records, instead of going immediately to the requesting news agency, were forwarded to the governor’s office on 4 May 2021 for a “secondary review”, where they stayed for the next two months.

In response to New 6’s reporting, the governor’s office told the outlet that the governor has the authority to review such records when the “the record includes communications with the Executive Office of the Governor, because the record concerns the Governor, or because there is reason to believe that the Governor may be asked about information in the record”, News 6 reported.

The governor’s press secretary, Bryan Griffin, who The Independent reached out to for comment but did not hear back from by the time of publication, told News 6 that: “In accordance with the Governor’s duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, the Executive Office of the Governor may review the record to ensure the accuracy and correctness of the record production.”

Handing over public records requests such as these as “promptly” as they’re prepared is a practice that is enshrined in Florida’s Sunshine Manual, a guide that “helps citizens navigate Florida’s public records laws and access government meetings”, according to Attorney General Ashley Moody, who maintains the document.

Though the guide does not give a specific time limit that records must be turned over, it does say that “delay in making public records available is permissible under very limited circumstances”, and the kind of limited circumstances that are permissible under state law include the “reasonable time” it would take “the custodian to retrieve the record and delete those portions of the record the custodian asserts are exempt”.

News 6’s reporting contends that the governor’s office intervening in releasing their requested documents does not fall within this very specific definition of delaying a released of records under Florida’s Public Record Act.

When public officials or agencies delay a records release, the manual goes on to explain, this “unjustified delay in producing public records constitutes an unlawful refusal to provide access to public records”, which, if done knowingly, is punishable with up to a year in jail, a $1,000 fine and removal from office.

If a person or agency, however, violates this law, they will still be punished but will instead be slapped with a noncriminal infraction and a fine of up to $500.

In the resulting documents that were held up in the governor’s office for two additional months, the news agency reported that there were limited redactions made by Mr DeSantis’s team and that the records revealed Mr Beshears hadn’t misused state money during his tenure as secretary of DBPR.

The outlet had originally requested the forms from DBPR in an effort to better understand a trip he and Mr Gaetz went on while the pair had been working in the legislature together where they travelled to The Bahamas with a group.

This trip is the subject of the federal investigation into Mr Gaetz, which is part of a broader inquiry where investigators are reportedly determining whether escorts were illegally trafficked across state or international lines and whether Mr Gaetz was accepting paid sex in exchange for access or legislative favours, according to CBS News.

Both Mr Beshears and Mr Gaetz continue to deny the basis for this investigation, with Mr Gaetz recently telling Fox News that: “This was an operation to destroy me.”

In an emailed response to News 6, Mr Beshears told the outlet that he has “nothing to comment on the record because there is nothing to comment about,” adding that he believed, “this is not even a story, and it is frustrating to see your paper drag my name through the mud in order to smear the Governor”.

The outlet added that Mr Beshears did not respond to a follow-up email offering him the opportunity to dispute published reports about the grand jury subpoena.

The Independent has reached out to Gov DeSantis’s office for comment.