Why the Hope Florida scandal isn’t going away, and why it could get worse

April was nothing short of a disaster for Casey DeSantis.

Sure, her husband, Gov. Ron DeSantis, has been spinning the scandal into a narrative painting the state’s First Lady as the victim of a witch hunt fueled by detractors who don’t like the family. And they can keep spinning all they want. But as long as Casey DeSantis floats the idea of running for Governor, Hope Florida will be an anchor around her potential candidacy.

At issue is a $10 million donation from Centene, Florida’s largest Medicaid contractor, stemming from a 2023 settlement with the state for $67 million as a result of overbilling. Centene wired the $10 million to the Hope Florida Foundation. That money was then sent out by the Foundation and split between Save Our Society from Drugs and Secure Florida’s Future.

Those groups then provided millions into the campaign to oppose a statewide amendment seeking to legalize recreational marijuana, which the Governor fiercely advocated against. Adding to the scandal, the Governor’s then-Chief of Staff James Uthmeier chaired the anti-pot political committee, Keep Florida Clean, that advocated against Amendment 3.

Republican Rep. Alex Andrade led a House panel looking into the Hope Florida scandal. That probe ended last month, but outlined a series of damning revelations about the flow of money from Centene’s settlement to the Hope Florida Foundation and then through dark money channels that supported Uthmeier’s anti-pot committee.

While the House may have finished its inquiry for now, many questions remain unanswered. Andrade has promised to resume his oversight of Hope Florida when legislative committee hearings begin in the Fall. And he’s not holding back on his sweeping rebuke.

“In the real world, if someone defrauded the state or a charity out of $10 million, they’d go to prison,” he told Florida Politics. “Certain bad actors within the DeSantis administration lied about the use of these funds and conspired to funnel this money to a PC. Those people deserve to go to prison.”

Among other questions needing answers, Andrade must now ask whether any of the funds sent to the Hope Florida Foundation ended up in the Florida Freedom Fund, funding the DeSantises’ political ambitions. POLITICO reported that before Keep Florida Clean ceased, it sent more than $1.2 million to the Florida Freedom Fund.

There’s also this: Casey DeSantis appeared in an anti-Amendment 3 ad funded by the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) in October, according to POLITICO. Keep Florida Clean gave the RPOF $11.5 million that same month.

Inquiries have also still not fully fleshed out evidence suggesting that the Foundation has been operating in violation of state law since 2023, as no audit was completed.

On top of the continued uncertainty about just how deep the grift goes in this scandal, there is also an abundance of hypocrisy. As CNN’s Steve Contorno reported this week, Hope Florida’s Portal was built by a vendor named Unite Us, which proudly promotes its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Maybe the DeSantises aren’t as keen on making Florida the place where woke goes to die as they let on.

To add insult to injury, it’s also possible the Foundation needed a little grift, considering it once held a fundraiser at the Governor’s Cup and lost money, according to the Foundation’s 2023 Form 990.

And while the Governor defends Hope Florida, the First Lady and her possible gubernatorial ambitions, note that lawmakers this Legislative Session declined to enshrine the Office of Hope Florida into law. Even if the few DeSantis supporters remaining in the Legislature wanted to, how could they given the massive amount of potential impropriety raised?

At the end of the day, this scandal is turning out to be the smelliest, most tear-inducing onion that may have ever existed, and the more we peel back the layers, the more our eyes water.