Wednesday, May 29, 2024

Inside Ron DeSantis’s Politicized Removal of an Elected Prosecutor


A memo that Ms. Lopez despatched out days later reflected that plan, pronouncing, “The legislature makes the law and we, as prosecutors, enforce it.” (She testified that she didn’t recall consulting with any individual rather then her leader of body of workers.)

Two aides to the governor have been dispatched to the state lawyer’s workplace in Hillsborough to “help make sure there’s no funny business over there,” Savannah Kelly Jefferson, director of exterior affairs, wrote in a textual content message to her body of workers.

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Mr. Keefe, who had caught round on the state lawyer’s workplace, advised Melanie Snow-Waxler, the workplace’s leader communications officer, to cancel Mr. Warren’s news convention at the chilly instances, she mentioned in an interview. The workplace mentioned its leader of body of workers had made the verdict.

He listened in on a speaker telephone as she referred to as one homicide sufferer’s aunt to inform her to not come.

“I was confused. I didn’t know what was going on,” Ms. Snow-Waxler, who used to be fired quickly after for causes which can be in dispute, mentioned within the interview. “This is not someone who has been your boss, but it’s not like I was given an option. It was an order.”

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A former DeSantis spokesman, Fred Piccolo, used to be introduced in as a communications marketing consultant for the state lawyer’s workplace. In an interview, Mr. Piccolo mentioned his task incorporated conserving the prosecutor’s workplace at the identical web page with the governor’s workplace in publicly discussing Mr. Warren’s suspension. In a textual content message to colleagues, Ms. Fenske mentioned she would lean on Mr. Piccolo to ward off on Mr. Warren’s competition that his suspension used to be invalid: “We’ll put the nail in the coffin.”

Six days later, as the talk persisted to generate headlines and Mr. Warren publicly blasted his dismissal, the Hillsborough County state lawyer’s workplace won a curious piece of correspondence from the governor’s workplace, paperwork from a public data request display.

It used to be from Mr. Treadwell, the governor’s deputy common suggest, making his first request for information from the prosecutor’s workplace that may divulge whether or not Mr. Warren had completed the rest improper.

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Jonathan Swan and Frances Robles contributed reporting.



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