Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has demoted Genera Peck and replaced her with his chief of staff, James Uthmeier, as his polling numbers continue to plummet.
- Peck guided his gubernatorial campaign against ex-GOP Gov. Charle Crist last year but wasn’t ready for the prime-time as DeSantis continued to fall in the polls.
Who is Uthmeier?
* Former senior advisor and counsel to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross in the Trump administration.
* First served as General Counsel and Chief Ethics Officer to Gov. DeSantis, overseeing the judicial nominations process. He joined the DeSantis administration in 2019.
* Named chief of staff in the fall of 2021.
* No national campaign management experience, but neither did Peck.
Polling Nightmare for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
DeSantis is falling in the polls while former NJ Gov. Chris Cristis is rising.
An Emerson College survey of 663 likely GOP Primary voters, conducted between Aug. 2 and Aug. 4, shows Trump with 58%, DeSantis with only just 11% support, and Christie with 6%.
- The aggregation of polling figures produced on RealClearPolitics website shows DeSantis’ support among GOP primary voters has been cut in half.
His numbers have fallen from 30.1% on March 30 to 15.7% on Aug. 6.
Who Stole the Texts?
The question being asked in coffee shops, diners and bars is who stole 60,000 personal text messages off the county’s server.
Commissioner Jeff Bergosh asked the county IT department to download data off his personal cellphone to preserve any public records so he could clean and reboot it.
- Bergosh even publicly thanked IT staff during a BCC meeting.
Former county employee, Johathan Owens, said he was given the stolen records on a thumb drive that mysteriously appeared on this desk – which he told the PNJ happened all the time.
- Why Owens didn’t turn over the stolen records to the county attorney or the administrator is not known? He was a county employee at the time.
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- Bergosh beat him the 2020 GOP primary – that might be a factor.
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Who else received the stolen records? Does a current or former county employee still have a copy? Who else did Owens show the records?
- What is Owens’ chain of custody of Bergosh’s personal texts from his desk to Elder’s attorneys?
- What proof do we have that the records weren’t altered or tampered?
- Did he discuss or show the records to his boss, Commissioner Doug Underhill?
The issue isn’t Dr. Rayme Edler’s lawsuit against the county. No, the issue is: who stole the text messages? And why?
(Watch out: DeSantis is a wounded animal who has to slink back to Tallahassee at some point. Forget “slitting throats” and think bloodied hippo. Can’t wait to see which of his boil-sucking oxpeckers he shakes off and crushes under the weight of his failure first.)
Per the stolen text messages, Rick, the issue at the heart of this is how many people beyond Jonathan Owens broke the law.
And the immediate question stemming from that is, Will Underhill’s D2 office finally be held accountable for one of their numerous crimes?
“Mel, you mustn’t use that nasty word ‘corruption’. When you say corruption, that technically means criminal activity people could be prosecuted for.”
Um, when I use the word “corruption,” I’m talking about criminal activity people *should* be prosecuted for.
Make no mistake, every person in that chain of custody leading up to Jonathan has participated in the crime, and anyone after him that uses or discloses any of those private property personal messages in any way is participating in criminal activity also. (Queue the fake Facebook accounts that they believe will be untraceable.)
Turning things over to the County Attorney and/or the County Administrator should have been necessary per the handling of whatever employees were involved internally.
Beyond that, because there was CLEARLY A CRIME COMMITTED, Owens should have immediately referred the matter to the police.
The County Attorney isn’t of course Jeff Bergosh’s personal attorney; she is the Board’s corporate attorney in public County business. If Jeff Bergosh or any other commissioner was mugged, would a witness call Alison Rogers or the Sheriff’s Department?
I really hope that Jeff Bergosh, in his private capacity as the victim of a crime, is pursuing the criminal nature of this apart from, or rather in addition to, the aspect that pertains to the County Attorney’s office. His personal texts have *nothing* to do with County or BCC business, and everything to do with at least one–and very likely more–former and potentially current County employees breaking the law and committing a crime with a sitting commissioner as a victim of that crime.
Let that sink in. And in answer to who else has seen these messages, Jacqueline Rogers and Alex Arduini are falling all over themselves to gloat over seeing them in their constant need to prove they’re the coolest kids in the echo chamber. Both of them need to be brought in for an interview on the stolen property by whatever agency has lead on investigating it.
Andrew McKay should also be questioned on whether there was any discussion about the private text messages and their provenance beyond the phony interview he conducted. Bart Siders should be called in to talk about what possible inadequacies in the systems might have provided an avenue for the theft. Doug has been awfully quiet; time to ask him what he knows and give him another opportunity to perjure himself.
In other words, this should be considered through the lens of criminal activity, despite ECW and Andrew McKay’s typical propaganda attempting to color it as politics as usual. Hopefully for once the feds won’t treat this as a Chinatown issue, and the State’s Attorney’s Office won’t wash their hands of crimes connected to politicians.