Newly released records show top DeSantis adviser used private email and alias to coordinate migrant flights
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ top safety official helped write language that helped a former legal client secure a state contract to oversee a controversial program to fly migrants from the southern border to Martha’s Vineyard.
In the process, the official, Larry Keefe, used a non-public email address that made it appear that emails were coming from “Clarice Starling,” the main character from “The Silence of the Lambs” novel.
The newly released records show that Keefe, who served as a U.S. Attorney in the Trump administration, used encrypted messaging apps and a private email address from “Clarice Starling” when communicating with James Montgomerie, CEO of Vertol Systems, a Destin, Fla.-based company the administration paid at least $1.5 million to coordinate the migrant flights. They also show Keefe helping Vertol, who he represented when in private legal practice, draft invoice language the company used when submitting its proposal to the Florida Department of Transportation.
The bizarre twist in the ongoing saga was revealed in records released by the DeSantis administration last Thursday, just days before the holiday weekend. The records were first reported by NBC6 . They shed light on the layers of secretive steps the DeSantis administration was taking when coordinating the flights, which included sending about 50 mostly Venezuelan asylum-seekers from the southern border to Martha’s Vineyard in mid-September. Additional flights to Delaware, the home state of President Joe Biden, were planned, but never occurred.
“This appears to be a purposeful attempt to evade Florida’s public records laws. It’s not surprising that the Governor’s office wanted to keep these records secret because they suggest that a public official helped draft a bid by a private company for government services,” said Ben Wilcox, co-founder of Integrity Florida, a nonprofit government watchdog. “That’s bid-rigging and it’s potentially illegal.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/28/records-desantis-adviser-used-private-email-to-coordinate-migrant-flights-00075677
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ top safety official helped write language that helped a former legal client secure a state contract to oversee a controversial program to fly migrants from the southern border to Martha’s Vineyard.
In the process, the official, Larry Keefe, used a non-public email address that made it appear that emails were coming from “Clarice Starling,” the main character from “The Silence of the Lambs” novel.
The newly released records show that Keefe, who served as a U.S. Attorney in the Trump administration, used encrypted messaging apps and a private email address from “Clarice Starling” when communicating with James Montgomerie, CEO of Vertol Systems, a Destin, Fla.-based company the administration paid at least $1.5 million to coordinate the migrant flights. They also show Keefe helping Vertol, who he represented when in private legal practice, draft invoice language the company used when submitting its proposal to the Florida Department of Transportation.
The bizarre twist in the ongoing saga was revealed in records released by the DeSantis administration last Thursday, just days before the holiday weekend. The records were first reported by NBC6 . They shed light on the layers of secretive steps the DeSantis administration was taking when coordinating the flights, which included sending about 50 mostly Venezuelan asylum-seekers from the southern border to Martha’s Vineyard in mid-September. Additional flights to Delaware, the home state of President Joe Biden, were planned, but never occurred.
“This appears to be a purposeful attempt to evade Florida’s public records laws. It’s not surprising that the Governor’s office wanted to keep these records secret because they suggest that a public official helped draft a bid by a private company for government services,” said Ben Wilcox, co-founder of Integrity Florida, a nonprofit government watchdog. “That’s bid-rigging and it’s potentially illegal.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/28/records-desantis-adviser-used-private-email-to-coordinate-migrant-flights-00075677
Nothing to see here. Move along.
