Calls Grow For DeSantis To Be Held In Contempt For Defying Court Order

A group in Florida is demanding that governor Ron DeSantis be held in contempt of court for refusing to comply with court order to turn over state records related to the migrant flight stunt that he pulled a few months ago. The courts had already made it clear that DeSantis had to comply with the state's open records laws, but he is simply refusing to do so. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

A watchdog group this week asked a judge in the state of Florida to hold Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in contempt of court for his refusal to comply with a court order from a month ago, in which Governor DeSantis was given 14 days to turn over records that had been requested by the Watchdog Group as part of Florida's open records laws. Now, the information that this group was seeking, the records they wanted were text messages and other correspondence related to the migrant flights that Ron DeSantis had the state of Florida pay for. And specifically they wanted information from, uh, uh, what is his name here? I'm sorry I can't find it. It's uh, uh, James UT Meyer, I believe. I believe it's James. Yeah. Uh, that's Rhonda San Chief of Staff. By the way, they wanted his text messages that he was having with Perla Huerta, the woman responsible for recruiting the migrants onto the flights.

They also sought information from, uh, uh, Larry Ke, who is the public safety are here in the state of Florida. They wanted his communications, cuz of course he was in on this scheme as well. And, uh, Ron Des Sanchez's administration gave him a few of them, right? Didn't give 'em all of them, but they gave 'em some of them enough to, you know, implicate the folks by the way. Uh, but they didn't give all of them, which of course, as the judge had previously ruled at the end of October, was in fact a violation of Florida's Open Records Act. And he told to san's administration, listen, under the law, you have to do this. You have to give these communications. These are state devices that they're texting from. These text messages are not personal. It's not on their personal device. They don't pay for the device.

These are Florida property. Every bit of data transmitted on those is property of the taxpayers of Florida. You have to turn it over and see. That's where a lot of confusion by the way, comes in sometimes on these open records requests. Right? Like, how can they go to the state and say, give us this guy's text messages. That's not fair. Listen, nobody's asking for text messages from these individuals personal cell phones. That would require subpoenas. It would require warrants, it would require all kinds of things. But when they're using a device issued to them by the state, whether it's a a, a, a laptop, a telephone, a car, whatever it is, those are all subject to open records requests. So you can say, Hey, they're sending emails from this computer that we, the taxpayers paid for. I wanna see all those emails and they have to let you because that's how open records laws work in states that actually have them. It's a good thing we need

That kind of transparency, but unfortunately, in order to get the transparency, you actually have to have a government that wants to comply with it, which Ron DeSantis is not doing. So of course this group, as I mentioned, is seeking him to be held in contempt from the judge. Uh, as of, uh, uh, Friday, obviously the judge has not yet issued a ruling on this. DeSantis has not yet turned over the rest of the information, so we'll see what happens. But I think it's pretty cut and dry. DeSantis is not complying even though the judge told him to. So definitely illegal, but let's wait and see if the powerful individuals actually get held accountable for it.