Ex-U.S. Attorneys Rip DeSantis’s Trump Assassination Probe
‘This governor likes to stick his nose into federal matters for political purposes.’
HARVARD LAW-EDUCATED ATTORNEY Ron DeSantis needs to brush up on his legal research, according to former federal prosecutors and longtime defense lawyers.
On Tuesday, the Florida governor touted his decision to launch a parallel probe into the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump by insisting that the feds lacked the capacity to pursue attempted murder charges against the suspect who allegedly tried to kill the former president at his West Palm Beach golf course.
DeSantis explained that the feds didn’t have jurisdiction to seek the most serious charge.
“If you look at the federal statute, it applies to current federal officials,” DeSantis said at a press conference in which he made similar statements and insinuations at least eight times. “So right then and there, we have the ability to pursue potentially life in prison under state law.”
But DeSantis was citing the wrong federal law, federal defense lawyers and former prosecutors told The Bulwark. Under 18 U.S. Code § 351, it is a federal crime to kill or attempt to kill “a major Presidential or Vice Presidential candidate.” And under another statute, 18 U.S. Code § 115, it is a federal crime to attempt to murder “any person who formerly served” as president.
Marcos Jiménez, a Republican and former U.S. attorney who once led the South Florida office that’s now prosecuting Routh, said the DOJ’s guidelines concerning assassination attempts could essentially preempt state prosecutors if the feds charge Routh with attempting to kill a “major presidential” candidate. Under section 351, Routh could face a life sentence, the same penalty DeSantis said he wants.
Jiménez accused the governor of trying to score headlines and political points by taking the extraordinary step of opening a parallel state investigation into what’s “clearly” a federal case.
“This governor likes to stick his nose into federal matters (recall he sent state law enforcement to ‘secure the southern border’) for political purposes,” Jiménez said. “He probably wants to feed off the conspiracy theories that the Secret Service is trying to get Trump killed. Unfortunately, the recent incidents have given an opening to those who want to use law enforcement for political purposes. In my view, that is an abuse and perversion of authority.”
DESANTIS’S EXTRAORDINARY DECISION to issue an executive order Tuesday inserting the state into a federal case didn’t just spark a legal dispute over competing interpretations of law, it marked his most aggressive move yet to reinvigorate his standing in the MAGAfied Republican party.
Before his effort to unseat Trump as the presidential nominee collapsed in a humbling defeat eight months ago in the Iowa presidential caucuses, DeSantis ran for governor and won Trump’s endorsement in 2018. He did so by building a brand as a vocal critic of the Department of Justice’s investigations into Trump when he was president. Trump called DeSantis his “warrior” at the time.
On Tuesday, the governor essentially picked up where he left off six years ago, attempting once more to tap into the distrust of the DOJ and FBI that has reached new heights in the Republican party amid the multiple criminal cases against Trump and questions about the Secret Service’s botched protection of him.
A DeSantis ally familiar with the governor’s thinking said Tuesday’s executive order could be “thought of in two ways. One: he really means this. He really believes there are these problems with the feds. All Republicans do. And yes, two is that there is a political benefit and he gets right with MAGA.”
Another source close to DeSantis dismissed the idea that the governor’s effort was counterproductive or superfluous because, “at the least, he’s holding DOJ’s feet to the fire to do its job.”
At his Tuesday press conference, DeSantis accused the feds of lacking transparency in their investigation of the first assassination attempt of Trump that took place on July 14 in Butler, Pennsylvania. The governor also questioned the impartiality of the federal government to investigate Routh at the same time that it is prosecuting Trump in South Florida and Washington on unrelated crimes.
“In my judgment, it's not in the best interest of our state or our nation to have the same federal agencies that are seeking to prosecute Donald Trump leading this investigation, especially when the most serious straightforward offense constitutes a violation of state law, but not federal law,” DeSantis said, taking issue with the fact that Routh was initially charged Monday with only federal gun crimes, lesser offenses than attempted murder.
But legal experts say DeSantis should have known that the initial gun charges were just a holding action by the Justice Department, and that other, more serious charges are expected.
Former South Florida federal prosecutor Dan Gelber said the problem with DeSantis’s approach to the most recent crime is that it could interfere with a federal investigation and actually make it harder to build a solid case against Routh.
“If you have competing agencies investigating, it can taint the whole process and be a wet dream for the defense,” said Gelber, a Democrat who is a former Miami Beach mayor and state senator.
“Turf battles are a thing in law enforcement investigations. They happen all the time. But to have them instigated by a governor is just nuts. . . . DeSantis is a former federal prosecutor and a JAG officer. He should know better. And he should know the law better.”
The local prosecutor in Palm Beach County, Democrat Dave Aronberg, told The Bulwark that he didn’t want to be part of DeSantis’s efforts because “we believe in working with our partners in federal law enforcement, we’re not in competition with them.”
Gelber and Jiménez first alerted The Bulwark to Routh’s potential exposure to an attempted murder prosecution under 18 U.S. Code § 351. Former federal prosecutor and career Justice official Chuck Rosenberg agreed with them and added that Routh could face prosecution under 18 U.S. Code § 115. Two other former U.S. attorneys and three top federal defense lawyers agreed Routh could face charges under either statute.
Spokesmen for DeSantis could not be reached. A DOJ spokesman declined comment.
DESANTIS’S QUICK MOVE TO INSERT the state into the Routh investigation comes against the backdrop of his angering both Trump and MAGA Republicans for running for president this cycle. The governor has slowly worked his way back into the former president’s good graces by endorsing his candidacy and then raising an estimated $6 million for a super PAC backing his general election campaign, according to a person familiar with the effort. DeSantis and Trump recently played golf together at Trump’s course in Bedminster, New Jersey, and the former president invited him to play on the Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach.
Amid the rapprochement between the two, Trump advisers have eyed DeSantis with suspicion, but they gave him a grudging attaboy for his actions Tuesday.
“This is the right thing to do,” said one Trump confidant who did not want to be identified. “But Trump can’t turn his back too much on Ron because Ron will try to fuck him again.”
The idea that Florida should take a lead role in investigating the alleged attempt on Trump’s life was first widely promoted by Erik Prince, a top Trump ally and former CEO of the security group Blackwater. In a social media post addressed to DeSantis that he issued three hours after the alleged assassination attempt Sunday, Prince called for the governor to “assume direct control of the investigation into this attempted assassination of DJT.” He argued that the DOJ should “wait in line until Florida resources have done a thorough and transparent look into all the evidence.” Prince also accused federal law enforcement of dropping “the ball thoroughly” in the investigation of the first Trump assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
DeSantis, in his Tuesday press conference, repeatedly highlighted the lack of “transparency” in the Butler investigation and promised that Florida would provide more information to the public, a promise that belies how the secretive governor runs the least-transparent administration in modern Florida history. DeSantis also mentioned the FBI’s handling of the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooter and the mystery surrounding the murderer’s motives. Trump, his supporters, and congressional Republicans have also increasingly faulted the Secret Service for its failures to protect the former president from the first assassination attempt. And they’ve criticized the FBI over its subsequent investigation and the lack of information it has supplied.
“The FBI is not being transparent at all,” Florida Rep. Michael Waltz, a leading congressional critic of the investigation and top Trump ally, told The Bulwark. “We still know next to nothing about [shooter Thomas] Crooks, his encrypted accounts, how he built the IEDs [improvised explosive devices],” said Waltz.
DeSantis indicated the Secret Service needs to answer questions about security at the West Palm golf course, noting that when he played the course with the then-president, he noticed a gap in the foliage along the fence line—the gap where Routh allegedly hid—that provides a line of sight onto the fifth, sixth, and seventh holes.
“That is the soft underbelly,” DeSantis said he thought to himself at the time. “From a security perspective . . . you can’t not notice that when you’re on that golf course. And so I think there’ll be questions to ask.”
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, a DeSantis ally whose office will oversee the investigation, argued that the state was playing a necessary role. It was, she claimed, “very common for state investigators, state prosecutors, to work with our federal prosecutors and federal agents on dual tracks with different purposes, and we may have different charges here.”
Moody’s comments—alongside DeSantis’s—outraged another former federal prosecutor in the area who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. The ex-prosecutor said it is easier to convict in a federal court than in state court because discovery and deposition rules are more defendant-friendly in the latter.
“This is basic stuff,” the former prosecutor said. “These two idiots know all of that. But they are so preoccupied with their ambitions and showboating that they are willing to lie to the public and become the incompetent fools that they are.”
DeSantis is a whore dressed in “Catholic Cloth”- you know, like the majority of the Supreme Court.
“These two idiots know all of that. But they are so preoccupied with their ambitions and showboating that they are willing to lie to the public and become the incompetent fools that they are.” I think this pretty much sums it up.