Air DeSantis: The Private Jets and Secret Donors Flying Him Around [View all]

Last edited Sat May 20, 2023, 12:10 PM - Edit history (1)

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/20/us/politics/desantis-private-jets-donors.html
https://archive.ph/bi4qk

Air DeSantis: The Private Jets and Secret Donors Flying Him Around
As the Florida governor hopscotched the country preparing to run for president, a Michigan nonprofit paid the bills. It won’t say where it got the money.
By Alexandra Berzon and Rebecca Davis O’Brien
May 20, 2023, 3:00 a.m. ET

For Ron DeSantis, Sunday, Feb. 19, was the start of another busy week of not officially running for president.

That night, he left Tallahassee on a Florida hotelier’s private jet, heading to Newark before a meet-and-greet with police officers on Staten Island on Monday morning. Next, he boarded a twin-jet Bombardier to get to a speech in the Philadelphia suburbs, before flying to a Knights of Columbus hall outside Chicago, and then home to his day job as governor of Florida.

The tour and others like it were made possible by the convenience of private air travel — and by the largess of wealthy and in some cases secret donors footing the bill.

Ahead of an expected White House bid, Mr. DeSantis has relied heavily on his rich allies to ferry him around the country to test his message and raise his profile. Many of these donors are familiar boosters from Florida, some with business interests before the state, according to a New York Times review of Mr. DeSantis’s travel. Others have been shielded from the public by a new nonprofit, The Times found, in an arrangement that drew criticism from ethics experts.

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