Gov. Ron DeSantis\u00a0spokesperson Jeremy Redfern announced on his X account<\/a> that the DOJ has set aside its investigation into the Hope Florida Foundation<\/a>. The probe was looking into controversial funding decisions that have bedeviled the Governor and Uthmeier for much of the past year.<\/p>\n \u201cWe appreciate the DOJ putting this sideshow to bed once and for all,\u201d Redfern said.<\/p>\n Uthmeier called the entire episode a \u201cnothing burger\u201d at a news conference in Tallahassee.<\/p>\n Hope Florida came under scrutiny last year after news broke that the organization was funneled $10 million<\/a> from a Medicaid settlement that was supposed to go to state coffers. Much of that money later ended up in the Keep Florida Clean committee chaired by Uthmeier to fight the marijuana legalization effort in 2024. Uthmeier was Chief of Staff for DeSantis at the time.<\/p>\n Uthmeier said it\u2019s no surprise the DOJ is ditching the investigation.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of the day, I think it\u2019s a good result. We\u2019re tired of the distractions,\u201d Uthmeier said.<\/p>\n There is still a grand jury in Florida looking into the case. Uthmeier said he would defer to prosecutors for further comment on that end.<\/p>\n Uthmeier has also blamed much of the Hope Florida flap on Rep. Alex Andrade<\/a>, a Pensacola Republican, who has said Hope Florida \u201cdefrauded\u201d the state.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of the day, you had a complaint by a legislator with nefarious motives,\u201d Uthmeier said.<\/p>\n The tension between the two Republicans has been rising in the past year. On Monday, Uthmeier called for Andrade to be removed<\/a> as Chair of the\u00a0House Health Care Budget Subcommittee<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘At the end of the day, you had a complaint by a legislator with nefarious motives.’ Attorney General…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4065,8232,45972,28,30,29,4455,4260,66411,412,26468],"class_list":["post-144536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-alex-andrade","tag-attorney-general","tag-doj","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-hope-florida-foundation","tag-james-uthmeier","tag-jeremy-redfern","tag-ron-desantis","tag-u-s-department-of-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/20250658_FINAL_FloridaPolitics_728x90.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/BHM_Display_728x90_Unit_FL_Politics.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n