The settlement agreement requires the Department to provide detailed COVID-19 data for the next 3 years, including vaccination counts, case counts, and deaths, aggregated weekly, by county, age group, gender, and race.
While the litigation was pending, the Department claimed in court that the records requested did not exist. But after the appellate court upheld the trial court’s order requiring the Department to produce a corporate representative for deposition, the records were produced in March 2023.
“The settlement agreement vindicates the position of Rep. Smith and FLCGA. The Department hid public records during the height of the pandemic to fit a political narrative that Florida was open for business,” said Michael Barfield, Director of Public Access Initiatives at FLCGA. “Transparency and accountability are not negotiable. The Constitution mandates it.”
So they kept saying they didn’t have the records, when the court was finally like “Okay send someone over to be deposed for it”, all those records suddenly appeared. Why? Because sending someone over to officially be deposed for it, marks the person responsible for the testimony that is very difficult to escape. That level of deposition, you don’t get a “well I wasn’t aware that Bob over there was hiding documents” or any backsie outsie like that. That official person says “we don’t have the records” and suddenly someone finds the records, that official person’s ass is going to prison.
That’s why these documents suddenly appeared out of thin air, because the court was done with the department and was like, “Okay if you’re so adamant about your position, put someone’s freedom on the line.” And it’s not like a scapegoat can be picked, because that’s also very uncool and very illegal to do that for this kind of deposition and given enough time, had they chosen to go that route, many more would be finding themselves in prison.
That’s literally what it took. For the court to remove all the weaselly “Oh! THOSE documents?! Why didn’t you say so?” chances to get out of being found out. They literally had to be squeezed into a corner from which there was no escape to finally fess up. I’m not in Florida, never live there, never plan on living there, but if I was a Floridian I’d be calling for the Florida Assembly to out everyone involved, all the way to DeSantis.
It’s one thing if no one actually knew about the documents. But for suddenly all that recall to kick into full gear when the Court gets to this kind of position. No part of that looks legit. That’s like a bunch of fuckers thought they could snake their way through all the courts for long enough and suddenly when the shit hit fan and there was nowhere else to go they started screaming “HEY LET’S SETTLE!!”
But I doubt the average Florida voter will even lift a single finger about this. There will be some, but by and large, most of the Floridan voters won’t care that a Governor hid information about deaths and dangers of a virus. Hell even went after that Jones lady for trying to tell everyone that they were hiding the data with police raiding her home. Nope, most Floridian voters will allow this to sweep on by like a category one hurricane.
I don’t think future generations will ever understand how people kept yelling “justice” and this BS is the only kind of “justice” we ever got.