This week, reporting from The Daily Beast and Floricua on Ron DeSantis’s financial disclosures uncovered that he’s accepting thousands of dollars in donations from members of an infamous mafia family as well as the CEO of the Trump-friendly news outlet OAN.
DeSantis seems like he’s willing to take money from just about anyone to build his presidential war chest for 2024.
According to new reporting by Floricua, the DeSantis campaign and his PAC received over $115,000 from men with alleged mafia ties.
“In the 1980s and 1990s, the FBI alleged that John Rosatti and John Staluppi were members of the Colombo crime family, one of the five Italian American mafia families in New York City… Now, they are both exorbitantly wealthy businessmen and are using some of their money to fund Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ reelection campaign.” Read the full report here.
Earlier this week, Justin Baragona of the Daily Beast wrote: “it appears as though the network’s [OAN] founder and boss is playing footsie with the ex-president’s top potential 2024 primary rival [DeSantis].”
While DeSantis seems perfectly fine with accepting money from crime families and conspiracy theorists, he is reluctant to talk about all of the American Rescue Plan funds he’s been spending in his official capacity as governor. In a speech earlier this week, DeSantis’s hypocrisy was on full display by announcing bonuses for Florida’s first responders while failing to credit the Biden administration and congressional Democrats for providing the federal funding which made not only those bonuses possible – but Florida’s economic recovery from COVID possible, as well.
Published: Sep 23, 2022