State ethics complaint filed against Ron DeSantis

The complaint was filed by the Campaign Legal Center (CLC), citing as evidence a story published by The New York Times in May.

That story reported that DeSantis traveled to almost a dozen speaking engagements in eight states via a plane provided by And to the Republic, a Michigan 501(c)(4) issue advocacy organization, in February. The total costs of those flights are unknown. This trip was taken months before DeSantis officially declared that he was a candidate for president, although his travels across the country were hardly a secret at the time.

The Florida Commission on Ethics requires state government officials to report any travel gifts over $100 within the last day of each calendar quarter. The Campaign Legal Center says that gave the governor up until Friday, June 30, to disclose the travel contribution. But no gift disclosure was listed on the commission’s website as of July 5.

“This lack of disclosure from Gov. DeSantis appears to be a clear violation of state laws that are necessary to maintaining public trust,” said Kedric Payne, CLC vice president, general counsel, and senior director of ethics, in a written statement.

“Floridians have a right to know that government officials representing them are acting in the public’s interests — not their own personal interest or the interests of the wealthy special interests who give them gifts. The Florida Commission on Ethics must investigate whether Gov. DeSantis did, in fact, omit travel gifts from ATTR from his financial disclosure form and take appropriate action.”

Tori Sachs, executive director with And to the Republic, told the Times that she did not consider the trips to be either political contributions or gifts.

The CLC has filed two previous complaints with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) related to DeSantis as a presidential candidate. The first alleged that DeSantis violated federal election law when he transferred more than $82 million from a state political action committee to a federal super PAC. The group alleges that was a violation of federal election law.

The group filed a second complaint to the FEC last month, alleging that Canadian hedge fund ECN Capitol Corp. violated federal campaign finance laws prohibiting foreign national contributions regarding gifts to the past two gubernatorial campaigns for DeSantis, as well as to his state political committee, Friends of Ron DeSantis.

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