The Forward Florida PAC headed by former candidate for Florida governor Andrew Gillum owes $450,000 in legal fees accrued over November and December 2019, a period during which it raised under $10,000, the Tallahassee Democrat reported on Monday.
Gillum served as the mayor of Tallahassee from 2014 to 2018, and was the Democratic challenger to current Governor Ron DeSantis. The election was a tight race between the two candidates, during which Gillum called DeSantis a “racist” and claimed DeSantis had “neo-Nazis helping him out in this state.”
The former Tallahassee mayor has been caught up in wide-ranging corruption scandals and has been the subject of several ethics complaints. The Florida Ethics Commission investigated whether Gillum improperly accepted gifts during trips to New York City and Costa Rica in 2016, and recently he agreed to pay a $5,000 fine over the trips. During the trip to New York City, Gillum and his friends were joined by undercover FBI agents.
In March a federal grand jury subpoenaed records from Gillum’s campaign and other documents dating to 2015.
“As has already been reported, Forward Florida is complying with a broad inquiry into the past work of the committee,” PAC spokesman Joshua Karp told the Democrat. “We continue to move forward and invest in the progressive infrastructure that Florida needs … and that mission is continuing every day.”
Forward Florida was originally founded to help fund Gillum’s campaign. After the election loss, the PAC refocused its efforts on voter registration efforts and helping Democrats win over the state.
DeSantis won the governor’s race by just 33,000 votes. The Governor’s approval rating hit almost 70 percent at the beginning of December 2019.