DeSantis tries to stifle reporter investigating Hope Florida

File photo: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2024.

On June 6, the “Orlando Sentinel” reported receiving an unsigned “cease and desist” letter from the Florida Department of Children and Families, which was also posted to the social media site X by the agency and subsequently reposted by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The letter read:

It has been reported to the State of Florida Department of Children and Families that Orlando Sentinel reporter Jeff Schweers has been contacting Florida foster families and both falsely and with malicious intent asserting that the families are implicated in fraudulent activity by accepting financial assistance from Hope Florida Foundation, Inc., a charitable Direct Support Organization affiliated with this Department. After hurricanes Helene and Milton, these foster families had home restoration work admirably gifted to them by the Hope Florida Foundation to restore their living conditions so that they could continue to care for their foster children in their homes. It is believed that Mr. Schweers’ threats and accusations were used as coercion to get the families to make negative statements about Hope Florida for his reporting, and/or to dissuade them from accepting future assistance.

Foster families are the backbone of Florida’s child welfare mission, taking into their home abused or neglected children and providing them a stable family setting with which to grow and thrive. Here, the two (that we know of) families contacted were aided by Hope Florida Foundation, Inc., in rebuilding their foster homes after a devastating storm to ensure their caregiving was uninterrupted. To harass and intentionally cause distress to foster families by threats and coercion is abhorrent.
Cease and desist the above-described intimidation of these families.

Schweers has been reporting on the flow of funding in and out of Hope Florida. As recently as Monday, Schweers reported inconsistent information in the nonprofit’s late IRS filings.

Prosecutors have opened an investigation related to the Hope Florida Foundation, the nonprofit behind the welfare program that has been touted as the signature achievement of first lady Casey DeSantis, according to an AP report.

In an editorial Monday, the “Orlando Sentinel” said the DCF letter was an “attempt to bully our newsroom away from a story is clearly intended to be chilling, but it won’t impact our reporting.”

Additionally, the paper’s editorial pointed out that “Hope Florida has already had a lot of questions raised about its funding and grants not just by the Sentinel and other media in Florida but also by state lawmakers.”

According to the editorial, Schweers is still looking into the grants distributed by Hope Florida “to organizations, families and individuals” and “still interviewing people and analyzing records so we can have a complete and fair story.”

“Schweers is a reporter, and he is doing what all of our reporters do — he’s looking for facts. But at no point did Schweers attempt any of the deeds ascribed to him in the letter, and he certainly hasn’t harassed or threatened any of Florida’s foster families. And to our non-lawyer eyes, it seems the anonymous writer of the letter is wrapping those accusations in faux-legal jargon and veiled threats as an attempt to stop this particular story.”

“Sentinel” Executive Editor Roger Simmons issued this statement in response to the DCF letter: “We stand by our stories and reject the state’s attempt to chill free speech and encroach on our First Amendment right to report on an important issue. The state’s characterization of our reporter’s conduct is completely false.”

In comments to the AP, Clay Calvert, a law professor emeritus at the University of Florida and nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said the letter is attempting to intimidate the “Sentinel” from publishing what may be unflattering news about Hope Florida in what is known as prior restraint.

Prior restraint efforts, he noted, typically are unconstitutional.

If he were the “Sentinel’s” attorney, Calvert said, he would tell the agency “to go pound sand.”

“DCF can send all the cease-and-desist letters it wants, but the ‘Sentinel’ isn’t obligated to follow any of them,” he said. “This is really trying to silence any negative coverage before it comes out.”

David Cuillier, director for the Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications wrote of the letter, “It’s all and well and good if the State of Florida would request that a newspaper ‘cease and desist’ in publishing a story and make its case to the editors to consider their position. It’s a free country and even government officials have the right to express themselves. Kudos to them for expressing themselves.”

“But,” Cullier added, “that doesn’t mean the newspaper has to cease and desist. It’s up to them. That’s what the constitution says. The government can’t stop a story, or exert a prior restraint, except for extremely exceptionally terrible circumstances that would lead to immediate and irreparable harm to society.

“Is that the case there?” he continued. “If so, the State of Florida could try to make that case to a court and likely waste a lot of taxpayer dollars doing so. Or, they could have a civil conversation with the editors. In the end, rather than suppress speech, a free society embraces open, transparent discourse. Let truth and falsity grapple, and truth will eventually win out.”