TALLAHASSEE — The Republican Party of Florida Wednesday withdrew its lawsuit asking a court to ban TV stations from running an ad by the Florida Democratic Party that targets Attorney General James Uthmeier and his involvement in the Hope Florida scandal.
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The lawsuit filed late Friday in a court in rural Highlands County court said the 30-second spot tying Uthmeier to the scheme to divert $10 million from Hope Florida for political purposes violates state law because it refers to the leaked Leon County grand jury report.
The GOP pulled the lawsuit because it achieved its goal, the motion said.
“RPOF’s lawsuit was intended to hold Defendants accountable—that repeating the contents of a grand jury report is not only wrong but also unlawful under Florida law,” the motion to dismiss stated.
The GOP claimed the Democrats pulled the ad, but the ad ran its scheduled run, which ended Tuesday.
And the Democrats this week released a new ad, running exclusively on social media, that doubles down on the accusations against Uthmeier in the Hope Florida scandal and includes Sen. Ashley Moody, who is running to get elected to the U.S. Senate seat she was appointed to by Gov. Ron DeSantis nearly two years ago. Moody, when she was attorney general, authorized her deputy chief to sign off on the settlement agreement that gave $10 million to Hope Florida.
“Republicans raced to court in the middle of the night to silence us, threatened TV stations, and tried to scare Floridians out of talking about Hope Florida,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said in a news release. “After a judge denied their emergency request to pull our ad, they walked away from their own case. Their stunt backfired.”
The motion to dismiss the lawsuit was filed a day after a circuit judge denied the GOP’s request that an immediate temporary restraining order be issued in secret and without notifying those being sued. That included the Florida Democratic Party, which paid for the ad, and its statewide candidates — David Jolly for governor, Javier Jose Rodriguez for attorney general and Annette Taddeo for CFO -– along with 11 television stations, including several in the Orlando market.
The First District Court of Appeal on Oct. 7 ordered the grand jury report — by then already widely publicized in the news media — to be expunged, though that ruling doesn’t take effect until Friday and could be stalled further if an appeal is filed.
The lawsuit was filed several hours after the First DCA rejected a request by Uthmeier to make it illegal for anyone to publish that report, officially called a presentment. By then excerpts of the report had also been published in several court filings, which are a matter of public record.
Uthmeier, the former chief of staff to DeSantis, was appointed attorney general in early 2025 to finish out Moody’s term, after the governor appointed her to an open Senate seat.
Rodriguez, his Democratic opponent, has said that if elected he would reopen the Hope Florida investigation, which has become campaign fodder in several statewide races including governor, U.S. senator and chief financial officer.
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“James Uthmeier,” says the narrator of the contested ad. “Conspiracy. Concealment. Corruption.”
Attached to the GOP lawsuit was a seven-page letter to Florida TV station managers sent out Friday saying that anyone who repeats the claims of the grand jury’s confidential report or its “content, gist, or import” could be subject to criminal charges. The letter said the matter was being referred to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the statewide prosecutor, who reports to Uthmeier.
“Knowingly broadcasting advertisements built on the contents of the confidential Presentment is criminal conduct in Florida,” Benjamin Gibson told station managers.
Several GOP state attorneys also sent a similar letter out to several news stations.
The lawsuit was the latest legal maneuver by the GOP in a months-long battle to keep a lid on the findings of the Leon County Grand Jury, which held hearings last October to determine how and who was behind a decision to siphon $10 million off a $67 million agreement with the Centene Corp. to settle claims of overcharging the state for Medicaid services.
The sealed grand jury report, issued in late January summarized confidential witness testimony and evidence, concluding that the $10 million was “misappropriated as part of a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities” but saying the grand jury did not have enough evidence to charge any of the players with a crime.
A leaked copy of the presentment was reported by CBS News Miami in late August and then became the subject of numerous stories by media outlets across Florida.
The GOP lawsuit backfired and instead drew more attention to the scandal, Fried said.
“More Floridians are paying attention, and the pressure for answers keeps mounting. Who decided to send $10 million from a Medicaid settlement to the first lady’s charity? Why did $8.5 million of it end up in a political committee run by James Uthmeier? And what did the Republican Party of Florida do with its share? Those questions aren’t going away just because Republicans dropped their lawsuit.”
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