Ron DeSantis' security becomes a flashpoint for Florida’s top police agency
Florida's top law enforcement agency is diverting resources toward Gov. Ron DeSantis — for both his protection and his priorities — including adding more agents and spending more money.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida's top law enforcement agency is diverting waves of additional resources toward Gov. Ron DeSantis — for both his protection and his priorities — including adding more agents and spending more money as the governor begins frequent national travel for his presidential campaign.
Top officials insist the increase is not entirely to do with the governor's national political ambitions. Instead, they say, they are simply realigning resources after mismanagement by past leaders.
But that's hitting fierce pushback from some of those same past leaders, including from a former department commissioner and Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., who previously served as governor for two terms.
It’s exceedingly rare for the former Florida Department of Law Enforcement commissioner and the former governor to speak publicly in a way that contradicts the current agency leadership, underscoring the growing nature of the political clash in Florida.
The finger-pointing comes at a time when the FDLE's resources are being spread thinner because of the increased focus on protecting DeSantis as his presidential campaign begins and its increased focus on undocumented immigration — a top political priority for DeSantis that he regularly uses to criticize President Joe Biden, which is fueling the perception that the agency is becoming politicized.
The efforts include stationing agents in the Florida Keys to watch for mostly Cuban migrants approaching Florida’s shores and sending teams of 40 to the southern border in Texas as part of a broader mission DeSantis said is aimed at preventing illegal border crossings.
FDLE officials told NBC News that changes to the agency were a long time coming, a result of recommendations that Commissioner Mark Glass put together shortly after being tapped for the job by DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet in August 2022. It was not, they insisted, in response to DeSantis' national political ambitions.
“Unfortunately, the team Commissioner Glass put together during his transition found that after nearly a decade FDLE had failed to request necessary additional resources in Protective Operations while the threats nationwide have increased, leaving the section critically underfunded, and in many cases, understaffed,” Gretl Plessinger, the department’s communications director, said.
'Simply not supported by facts'
The idea that the department’s so-called protective services — the term for operations focused on protecting the governor, the governor's family and any out-of-state visiting dignitaries — was strained for resources during the past decade came as news to Scott, who preceded DeSantis as governor.Scott, who at times has had tension with DeSantis, told NBC News that during his eight years as governor, he never had issues with the details that protected him.
“I had a great working relationship with FDLE and the agents of the protective detail,” Scott said when asked to respond to FDLE’s statement. “Their protective and investigative work was an important part of Florida hitting record low crime rates over my eight years as governor.”
“The agents of FDLE are dedicated, hard working and committed to their mission to protect all Floridians and I appreciate every employee and agent at FDLE who is focused on making Florida the safest state in the nation,” he added.
Plessinger did not respond to requests for comment on Scott’s statement. She also did not respond to follow-up questions about whether DeSantis' increased out-of-state travel leading up to his May 24 presidential launch put a strain on resources, what the expected current year protective services costs are, or whether changes in policy came after protesters got onstage with DeSantis in April — an exceptionally rare occurrence for any governor. During that event at a fundraising dinner in New Hampshire, two protesters climbed onstage chanting, "Jews against DeSantis."
“Regardless of the number of resources allocated to [protective services], under my tenure, protesters were never allowed to make it onstage with the governor,” said Rick Swearingen, who served as FDLE commissioner from 2014 until his retirement in mid-2022. “Perhaps leadership and management of resources is just as important as the number of resources.”
Speaking publicly for the first time since his retirement, Swearingen said the idea that FDLE failed to request resources for protective operations over the past decade, as FDLE’s current leadership contends, is “simply not supported by facts.”
He pointed to spending cuts the department needed to make on his watch due to the annual state budget process. Even when lawmakers made cuts, he said, the protective services budget was always spared.
“Having dealt with legislative sessions for years, their appetite for spending fluctuated greatly from session to session,” Swearingen said. “In recent years, FDLE was forced to make significant spending cuts including general revenue dollars that impacted investigative services.”
Swearingen announced his retirement just weeks after DeSantis signed legislation allowing the governor and a majority of the Florida Cabinet to appoint a new FDLE commissioner. At the time, it meant that DeSantis and the three-person Florida Cabinet could appoint a new FDLE head without the vote of the then-only Democrat, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried.
