Gov. DeSantis dismissed from travel records case

TALLAHASSEE – A Leon County circuit judge has dismissed Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office from a lawsuit filed by the Washington Post over access to DeSantis’ travel records.

Judge J. Lee Marsh this week issued a nine-page ruling that said DeSantis’ office is not the “custodian” of disputed records held by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. As a result, Marsh ruled that the Post doesn’t have standing to sue DeSantis’ office.

The Post filed the lawsuit in July against the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and an amended version in December that also named the governor’s office as a defendant. It alleged that the state violated a public records law by withholding records about a 2022 DeSantis campaign event and plane records. In part, the amended version of the lawsuit contended that DeSantis’ office has “taken control over FDLE’s compliance with the Post’s requests.”

Marsh wrote that the amended lawsuit “does not allege that the Post submitted a public records request to the EOG (executive office of the governor) for the records. Instead, the Post argued that its public records request to the department, combined with the alleged exertion of control over the response to the records, was sufficient to assert a cause of action against EOG for unlawfully withholding the records because EOG took legal or constructive custody of them. But a public records request to a different agency is not a substitute for a request to the agency for whom the requester seeks records.”

Marsh’s ruling did not dismiss the case against the law enforcement agency. It said the Post “can obtain complete relief for any alleged violation of the law and any award of attorneys’ fees from the department.”

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