A few weeks ago, former Senator Benn Sasse quit his job as President at University of Florida. The claimed reason given by Sasse was to care for his wife who has epilepsy, but the timing of things now looks very sketchy.
I’m going to outline the details in real time because this is going to become more critical as Ron DeSantis positions his future ambitions for the White House, again in 2028.
CTH noted a few years ago that Ron DeSantis was positioning for 2024 presidency. One of the supportive datapoints was a $20 million donation by the Republican Governor’s Association (RGA) to Ron DeSantis {LINK}. At the time of the donation to DeSantis, Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts was the RGA chairman.
After the donation was made, Ron DeSantis then used the influence of his office to support Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse for the position of President of University of Florida {LINK}. As noted by Politico: “Sasse’s sherpa through the university search process was Gov. Ron DeSantis’ chief of staff James Uthmeier, who was put in contact with Sasse several months ago after he quietly expressed interest in becoming UF president.“ (link)
After Ben Sasse accepted the position as UF President, former Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts then became Senator {LINK}. Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen announced Thursday that former Gov. Pete Ricketts will fill the Senate seat of Ben Sasse, who officially resigned from Congress this week to return to academia as president of the University of Florida. Ricketts, a Republican, like Pillen and Sasse, will serve two years ahead of a 2024 special Senate election.
The quid-pro-quo was complete. DeSantis took the $20 million from Chairman Ricketts, then opened the path for Ricketts to move to the Senate by using his office to support the movement of Senator Sasse. Despite the activity taking place over 2 years, the sequence of it was transparent to those who paid attention. However, now comes the problem.
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