Judge blocks request to depose top DeSantis aides in travel records lawsuit

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — A Florida judge is blocking attorneys from the Washington Post from questioning several current and former aides about a behind-the-scenes fight to keep secret the publicly-funded travel records of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Circuit Judge J. Lee Marsh also agreed to drop DeSantis as a defendant in the high-profile case that also includes a constitutional challenge to a new law that shields public access to the governor’s travel records, including those for trips he’s already taken. The Post’s main lawsuit against the Florida Department of Law Enforcement will still go forward.

Marsh, who ruled from the bench following a more than 90-minute hearing on Wednesday, agreed with attorneys representing DeSantis and the agency that the Post’s effort to question top aides amounted to a “fishing expedition.” He said that the internal deliberations surrounding FDLE’s refusal to hand over records to the news organization may be important to the public, but they were not integral to the legal battle.

“How that decision was made, how the sausage is made, is not relevant to the proceedings,” said Marsh, who was first appointed to the bench by then-Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican.

The legal wrangling over the records started last summer when DeSantis had jumped into the race for president. The Post sued over four separate public record requests, including for records dealing with DeSantis’ publicly-funded travel and records related to DeSantis’ reelection victory party held at a Tampa convention center.

The Post said it had worked out an arrangement with FDLE lawyers to get the records it had requested. But then the agency informed the news organization that it would not turn all the records over and cited various reasons, including the 2023 law passed by the GOP-led Legislature that shields DeSantis travel records.

But documents filed in connection to the lawsuit detailed behind-the-scenes turmoil inside of FDLE. Patricia Carpenter, who was deputy of chief of staff at the agency, on November 28 sent an email to FDLE Commissioner Mark Glass that mentioned a heated discussion between agency employees and the governor’s office over the new law. Carpenter’s email says that during the meeting — which she did not attend in person but learned about from FDLE’s then chief of staff — the governor’s office staff said not to release any records and instead require news outlets to sue the administration, according to documents filed in the lawsuit.

At one point, Anastasios Kamoutsas, a deputy chief of staff for DeSantis, called Shane Desguin, chief of staff for FDLE, and told him not to promote the FDLE general counsel who had recommended turning over the records to the post.

“During the phone call from Kamoutsas … COS Desguin asked why and was told that Janine ‘is not on our team,’” Carpenter wrote in the email. “COS Desguin then asked if he could give her another position and increase and was told ‘no, she is lucky she even has a fucking job.’”

Both Desguin and Carpenter were pushed out of the FDLE after the dispute. The two former state employees were in the courtroom on Wednesday with their attorney.

The Post wanted to depose all the aides involved with the internal dispute as well as Alex Kelly, who was interim chief of staff for DeSantis at the time.

Lawyers representing DeSantis and FDLE argued to Marsh that the push by the Post was designed to come up with “more salacious news articles” in order to “embarrass the governor and FDLE.”

Charles Tobin, the lawyer representing the Post, said the depositions were needed to look at what pressure and influence that the governor’s office brought that convinced FDLE to change course and deny the records to the news organization.

“If the governor’s office drove that decision that’s relevant,” Tobin told the judge. Tobin's firm, Ballard Spahr, also represents POLITICO in some legal matters