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You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Even By Florida Standards

Even By Florida Standards

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Even by Florida standards, this is grotesque:

A push by some Florida Republicans to use taxpayer money to help pay for former President Donald Trump’s multiple legal battles quickly fell apart after Gov. Ron DeSantis threatened to veto the legislation.

State Sen. Ileana Garcia, a Miami Republican who endorsed Trump’s reelection, has filed a bill for this year’s legislative session that could allow the state to hand out up to $5 million to the embattled Republican front-runner for president. The legislation has already won the endorsement from Jimmy Patronis, the state’s Republican chief financial officer, who for months has been publicly calling for taxpayers to pay to defend Trump from criminal charges.

How much actual contempt must you have for the voters of your state that you would spend their tax money defending that piece of shit? Thank god most of the Republican legislators in WV are functionally illiterate and won’t read about this but might have heard about it when it reached Fox News, but now won’t. Because it would have passed here and would not have been vetoed.

Reader Interactions

51Comments

  1. 1.

    Ryan

    If he wants to not pay for a defense in a case in Florida, he can try to get a public defender like everyone else!

  3. 3.

    Seanly

     Isn’t Trump supposedly extremely wealthy?
     On the other hand, isn’t Trump famous for not paying vendors including his lawyers?

    Either way, why should the residents of Florida foot the bill for him?

    I can’t complain though as here in Idaho they have a state fund to fight all the lawsuits for unconstitutional crap the legislature passes. Actually I do complain about that…

  4. 4.

    Betty Cracker

    Here’s a bonus detail that makes it even more grotesque: The moron who sponsored the bill, Ileana Garcia, originally won her seat due to election fraud. A GOP operative paid a man with the same last name as the incumbent Democrat to run as an NPA candidate, and it fooled enough voters that Garcia won by a few dozen votes.

    Garcia denied knowing about it (yeah right), refused to resign when the operative was arrested and the plot was exposed, and of course DeSantis didn’t force the issue with a special election and allowed her to retain a seat gained via fraud. A couple of years later, she coasted to reelection on incumbency and the increasingly fascist leanings of the South FL electorate.

  5. 5.

    Baud

    How much actual contempt must you have for the voters of your state that you would spend their tax money defending that piece of shit?

    In fairness, consider whom a majority of those voters voted for.

  9. 9.

    dmsilev

    Patronis — who is in charge of Florida’s treasury accounts — asserted there are financial reasons for taxpayers to pay for Trump’s legal bills.
    “If we can help and support a Florida candidate for the White House, that’s just good from a dollars and cents perspective,” Patronis said. “From all the decisions the federal government makes with regard to military installations, to roads, to disaster aid — it’s in Florida’s best interest to make sure their champion for the President is allowed a fair shot at the White House without being taken down by some fake witch-hunt. Moreover, if Governor DeSantis makes another run at it, he has said that he too could face the same legal headwinds that President Trump is facing.”

    So, there’s a set of several dozen felony charges that are about to descend on Governor DeSantis? Fascinating, please tell us more.

  11. 11.

    Suzanne

    @dmsilev:

    So, there’s a set of several dozen felony charges that are about to descend on Governor DeSantis? Fascinating, please tell us more.

    O PLEEZ O PLEEZ O PLEEZ.

    Trash, is it taking itself out again?!

  12. 12.

    Derelict

    Trump is a billionaire . . . who can’t afford his lawyers. I’m pretty sure that whatever taxpayer money the state gave him would go right in his own pocket and he’d stiff his lawyers anyway.

  15. 15.

    Old School

    But it wasn’t just for Trump – Betty could have gotten a piece of the action too!

    It was never clear if the legislation — which would hand out money to presidential candidates who are Florida residents and “subject to political discrimination” — was destined to go very far even before DeSantis announced his opposition.

  16. 16.

    satby

    @Derelict: absolutely. He raises funds but doesn’t pay anyone out of them, one of the PACs is. Trump is just stockpiling cash for himself.

    @John: How much actual contempt must you have for the voters of your state that you would spend their tax money defending that piece of shit?

    They have nothing but contempt for the people who vote for them, they show it constantly except on Fox and NewsMax.

  17. 17.

    Alison Rose

    @Scout211: I haven’t done it yet but am going to shortly. I shall report back :P

    One thing I’ve noticed is that it also sometimes won’t play the text notification, either. But…if the text comes from an iPhone, it seems to function normally.

  19. 19.

    geg6

    OT, but the full appeals court upheld the Chutkan gag order (with revisions by the 3 judge panel).

  20. 20.

    eversor

    I think that the recent years (elections?) prove that social issues should be settled by ballot initiatives or whatever other means.

    It’s the only off ramp we have.

  21. 21.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, … RollCall.com:

    A dispute over humanitarian aid for Gaza and the West Bank has become the latest snag in efforts to reach a bipartisan deal on a war funding and border security package.

    Senate Democrats have long pushed for humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians as an integral part of a national security package and it was included in the Senate’s $110.5 billion bill that stalled last month.

    Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday that a deal must include “humanitarian aid for the Palestinians in Gaza and humanitarian aid to other places around the world.” But Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., pushed back against Gaza aid, saying the Palestinians had no reliable governing entity that could be trusted with it.

    […]

    Cardin said Tuesday that humanitarian aid is “desperately needed, including in Gaza,” and he rejected McConnell’s argument that there was no responsible entity in Gaza to distribute the aid.

    “I think we have shown, and Israelis have shown, that we can get humanitarian [aid] to the people that need it through networks that we have vetted very carefully,” Cardin said. “There are different entities at the border that we have worked with.”

    […]

    A Democratic aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the new line of attack suggests a lack of party discipline among Republicans who are struggling to find unity on the war funding and border package.

    “They are trying to throw things at the wall to see what sticks,” the aide said. “This is the first time McConnell has ever indicated that humanitarian aid should be some red line or anything like that. It is fallacious.”

    […]

    I take all this posturing as a sign that they’re coming close to a framework to get the Supplemental through. (If they had no intention of passing anything, they wouldn’t bother with the theatrics.)

    We’ll see.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  23. 23.

    gratuitous

    Sounds like Sen. Garcia of the Stolen Seat was angling for a job in the next it’ll-never-happen Trump administration. She probably doesn’t realize that failing to pass the bill makes her a loser in her Lard and Savior’s eyes. Also, she was proposing to put money into his lawyer’s pockets, and not in her Chee-toh Messiah’s pocket. Double loser!

    So sad when something blows up like a novelty cigar in the face of one of these eedjits.

  24. 24.

    Tony Jay

    @Geoduck:

    Or he intends to grift as much of Florida’s money as possible for himself before he dissolved back into the nutrient soup from which his alien controllers hatched him, and tossing billions in performative tribute at the feet of Stinky Pants just doesn’t help him do that. 

  26. 26.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    This makes no sense. Trump isn’t an elected Florida official or anything. He’s just a resident, like everybody else. Why should the rest of the populace pay his legal fees?

  27. 27.

    Scout211

    @Alison Rose: One thing I’ve noticed is that it also sometimes won’t play the text notification, either. But…if the text comes from an iPhone, it seems to function normally.

    Hmm. Did the SMS/MMS settings get turned off inadvertently? (Just another wild guess).

  28. 28.

    eversor

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Let me give you a hint.  Laws and rules… it’s all made up bullshit.  What matters is what you can, and cannot do.  Which is why religion exists.

    And since we have religion, laws and rules… don’t matter.

  30. 30.

    waspuppet

    The chef’s-kiss part is that the state CFO is the sole decider of whether you’re the victim of “political discrimination,” and there is no appeal process.

    I’m not sure how many more signs people need before they realize Donald Trump is flat broke. Every dime that comes in goes straight out to Putin, MBS, any number of Chinese bankers, etc. Re-acquiring access to the US’s most sensitive secrets so he can sell them (more accurately, knock a few million off his various tabs) is his only hope. He’s not running to stay out of jail; he’s running to stay out of the trunk of a car.

  32. 32.

    mrmoshpotato

    How much actual contempt must you have for the voters of your state that you would spend their tax money defending that piece of shit?

    Apparently even more contempt than DeathSantis has for the voters of Florida.  Didn’t think it was possible, but, I guess it is!

  34. 34.

    catclub

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Why should the rest of the populace pay his legal fees?

     

    Why not? you can get the rest of the populace to build a Football stadium for some billionaire.  If the legislature  approves it that is their business.

  35. 35.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Geoduck:

    It is interesting that DeSantis helped put a stop to it. He’s still got a scrap of self-respect after bending the knee? 

    It’s not “bending the knee;” it’s sucking the orange ass.

  38. 38.

    Sloegin

    Anyone with cable has to fork over about $20 annually to FOX whether they want to or not, so a tax for the Orange felon probably wasn’t a big stretch for the legislators.

  39. 39.

    Jackie

    @Gretchen: I agree. Pudd’n Boots endorsement was… shall we say lukewarm at best? I don’t expect to see him campaigning for TIFG. He was notably missing last night among all the newly conceding toadies.

  41. 41.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Geoduck:

    No, he’s pissed because he’s not as evil as the Orange Criminal and just got his ass handed to him by TGF and a brown woman. If he was still in kiss-ass mode with TFG you bet he would be throwing taxpayer money at him.

    Let the hate flow… Yes… Yesssss…..

  44. 44.

    Ruckus

    @Ryan:

    Does he qualify for a public defender?

    I would think not, seeing as how he must be worth billions. Of course if he did get a public defender he’d likely get better representation.

    But think about him asking for a public defender. SFB ask for help from the government? I believe it would be quite possible to die laughing at that.

  45. 45.

    Betsy

    I like how Cole referred to  WV as “here”.

    You can take the boy out of the By God, but you can’t take the … etc.

  47. 47.

    Joelle

    Cole made garlic 🧄 knots last night so I could take them into a keto coworker and renew her reason for living.

  49. 49.

    Paul in KY

    @Tony Jay: Klargar the Engulfer has taken all the humiliation one Zolflack can possibly stand! Soon he will return to Vornack 12 and will have many concudrones to enjoy and consume.

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