Suspended Florida prosecutor takes fight to DeSantis in opening day of federal trial

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Suspended prosecutor Andrew Warren took his battle
against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to a federal court on Tuesday in the
first day of a trial that’s exposing the machinations in how the
governor’s office operates.

DeSantis suspended the Hillsborough County state attorney in August over a
handful of moves the Democratic elected official made, including signing a
pledge in June that he would not enforce the state’s abortion laws.
Florida recently enacted a ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy
without exceptions for rape or incest.

Warren contends that DeSantis’ move to suspend him in early August
violated his First Amendment rights, and in the trial’s opening day he
testified for more than three hours, including recounting the day he was
suspended. On that day, Warren said he was met at his office by Larry
Keefe, the governor’s public safety czar, who was accompanied by sheriff’s
deputies and a demand that he leave immediately.

Keefe, who took the stand later in the day, however, provided some of the
most illuminating testimony, saying he was the “primary driver” in getting
Warren’s suspended. His inquiry started in the wake of DeSantis asking
during a December 2021 meeting whether there were any Florida prosecutors
not enforcing the law.

Keefe contended during his testimony that Warren was “crossing the line”
for signing the statements on abortion — and another one saying he would
not prosecute anyone for providing gender affirming care to transgender
patients even though the state does not have any criminal laws dealing
with that. Florida approved a rule banning gender-affirming treatment for
minors several months after Warren was suspended.

“This wasn’t a one-off,” said Keefe, a former U.S. attorney who also
directed the DeSantis administration’s contentious relocation of migrants
from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard. He said this statements regarding Warren
were part of a “very problematic” trend from the ousted prosecutor. “I
absolutely believed he needed to be suspended.”

But Keefe acknowledged several times on the stand that he never called
Warren directly or communicated with anyone in Warren’s office to ask
about the prosecutor’s statements. Warren and two top officials still
working in the state attorney’s office said there wasn’t a blanket policy
against prosecuting abortion or gender-affirming cases and they have not
handled any such prosecutions. Warren’s team even noted a written policy
that tells prosecutors to evaluate individual cases.

Keefe, who said he conducted a review of Warren’s actions but not an
actual “investigation,” brushed aside the written policies. Instead, he
contended that Warren was a “state attorney whose approach to his job was
harmful” and that he was antagonistic to law enforcement, an opinion based
on conversations he held with several people, including the current
Hillsborough sheriff and the former Tampa police chief.

Warren had adopted policies that recommend against the prosecution of low
level crimes such as trespassing and disorderly intoxication or moving
ahead with charges that stem from initial police encounters where a
pedestrian or bicycle rider is stopped for a non-criminal violation.

Keefe went so far as to suggest that there were problems with “violent”
and “rampant crime” in Tampa and that keeping Warren on the job would lead
to “chaos.”

Florida’s Constitution gives the governor the power to suspend elected
officials for various reasons, including neglect of duty and malfeasance
or commission of a felony. Previous governors have primarily suspended
local officials who have been arrested, but DeSantis has embraced a wider
use of the suspension powers. He first used it to remove Scott Israel, the
Broward County sheriff, over how his office responded to the Parkland
shooting. Under the Constitution, a suspended official can ask to be
reinstated by the Florida Senate.

Warren, however, opted to fight the governor in federal court, a move that
caught DeSantis’ own legal team off guard, according to depositions that
have been filed ahead of the lead up of the trial. Most of Warren’s time
on the stand included going over the operations of his office — as well as
his stance on abortion and gender-affirming care and why he chose to sign
onto statements that were put out by an advocacy group called Fair and
Just Prosecution. The organization bills itself as a group that brings
together local prosecutors promoting changes to the criminal justice
system, but it has come under fire from conservatives because it is linked
to a group that receives funding from billionaire donor George Soros.

Warren defended the abortion statement by saying he was more concerned
about all-out bans on abortion and said he backed the one on gender-
affirming care as saying he was opposed to discrimination against trans
youth.

Moments before he entered the federal courthouse Tuesday morning, Warren
told reporters that “there’s so much more at stake than my job. We’re not
just fighting for me to do the job that I was elected to do. We are
fighting for the rights of voters across Florida to have the elected
officials of their choice. We’re fighting for free speech, the integrity
of our elections and the very values of our democracy.”

During opening statements, Warren’s attorneys cited documents and tweets
by the governor’s staff, including one by then-press secretary Christina
Pushaw, who posted the night before Warren was suspended that stated:
“Prepare for the liberal meltdown of the year.” George Levesque, an
attorney with a private law firm assisting the governor’s defense,
responded during his opening statement that Pushaw was taken to the
“proverbial woodshed” by DeSantis over her tweet.

Levesque argued that DeSantis had legitimate reasons to suspend Warren
because he decisions to sigh the statements on abortion and gender
affirming care were “tantamount to a functional veto” of state law.

The trial is expected to last at least two more days. Warren wants U.S.
District Judge Robert Hinkle to restore to his job and place a permanent
injunction against DeSantis’ executive order that suspended him.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/29/florida-prosecutor-desantis-
trial-00071274