South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
FBI cloud hovers over Gillum campaign
What is known and what is being investigated further
As Florida’s race for governor swings into high gear, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum will need to sidestep an obstacle that could derail his campaign: a multi-year FBI corruption probe into the city government in which he earned his political chops.
The investigation has the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. Undercover FBI agents with a private jet at their disposal mingle with politicians and business leaders. Agents posing as out-of-town developers and medical marijuana entrepreneurs navigate Tallahassee’s social scene while keeping their true identity under wraps.
Gillum, 39, a Democrat, insists he doesn’t have a starring role in the plot.
“I am confident that I have done nothing wrong, nothing unethical and nothing illegal,” Gillum told the editorial boards of the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Miami Herald and the Palm Beach Post before he won the nomination.
“If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be running this race.”
But you’ll likely hear a lot more about the FBI probe in the weeks to come as Republicans aim to paint Gillum as a corrupt politician who shouldn’t be trusted in the governor’s mansion.
Gillum’s opponent, Ron DeSantis, has already told Fox News that Gillum is “embroiled in a lot of corruption scandals.”
“The guy … can’t even run the city of Tallahassee,” he said. “There is no way Florida voters can entrust him with our entire state.”
Gillum, though, says he thinks negative ads on the issue will backfire and help turn out more of his voters.
Here’s what we know so far about the FBI investigation:
How long has the corruption probe been underway?
The FBI started its covert investigation into alleged Tallahassee corruption in 2015, according to a search warrant.
The Tallahassee Democrat has reported extensively on the investigation. The newspaper de-
scribed three of the undercover agents as Mike Miller, a developer from Atlanta; Mike Sweets, a medical marijuana entrepreneur; and Brian Butler, the head of an energy efficiency company.
The investigation could be large in scope. Former FBI Special Agent Joshua Doyle boasted in a job application to the Florida Bar that the probe involved 20 agents, a $500,000 budget, a private plane and three cars, the newspaper reported.
What is focus of the investigation?
The FBI has declined to discuss the investigation, but some information has trickled out.
A subpoena received by Tallahassee City Hall requested information about
The Edison Restaurant, which operates in a cityowned building overlooking a park, and other redevelopment projects.
Located in an old city utility building, the restaurant benefited from $2.1 million in local tax dollars for redevelopment.
One of the restaurant’s owners — the lobbyist Adam Corey — was a college friend of Gillum’s. Corey served as the volunteer treasurer of Gillum’s 2014 mayoral campaign.
As a city commissioner, Gillum voted in favor of allocating funds for the Edison project in 2013.
The search warrant also indicates the FBI is looking into payments that Tallahassee City Commissioner Scott Maddox received from his former lobbying firm while it represented a ride-sharing company with business before the city.
Maddox, former head of the Florida Democratic Party, has denied wrongdoing.
Is Gillum under investigation?
No one has been charged in the probe, and none of the subpoenas that started arriving at City Hall in June
2017 named Gillum. “Last week, the FBI approached me about several people and businesses here in Tallahassee,” Gillum said in a written statement released in June 2017.
“I spoke with them and told them they could expect both the city and my personal cooperation with the investigation. They assured me I was not the focus of an investigation and that they would be moving quickly with their work.”
Gillum was first elected to the Tallahassee City Commission in 2003. Only
23 at the time, he became Tallahassee’s youngest city commissioner. He won the mayor’s seat in 2014.
Tallahassee does not have a strong mayor form of government, so Gillum’s role is mainly ceremonial. He is just one vote on the five-member City Commission.
While Gillum has not been named in subpoenas, he faces scrutiny from the media and the Florida Commission on Ethics for trips he took in 2016.
What happened on those trips?
Gillum visited Costa Rica as part of a birthday celebration for his wife, R. Jai Gillum, from May 4, 2016, to May 8, 2016. The couple stayed at a $1,400-a-night villa on the country’s Pacific coast. Also on the trip were Corey, a lobbyist who works for her firm, close friends and other Edison investors, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.
During that trip, Corey sent an electronic invite to Gillum for a May 16 meeting in Tallahassee over “drinks and tapas” with two of the undercover FBI agents — Mike Miller and Brian Butler, according to emails released by the city.
A month later the Community Redevelopment Agency board, which Gillum and other city commissioners sit on, voted to expand the boundaries of the redevelopment district to include properties an undercover FBI agent supposedly was eyeing for development, the Democrat reported. Gillum was absent for that vote.
Gillum traveled to New York City in August for a three-night trip. He said the purpose of the visit was to attend a meeting for his former employer People for the American Way Foundation, a nonprofit organization.
During that trip, Gillum met up with Corey, two undercover FBI agents and his brother, Marcus Gillum. A photo obtained by Tallahassee television news station WCTV-Ch. 6 shows Gillum taking a boat ride with Corey and FBI agent Miller with the Statue of Liberty in the background.
Gillum also has acknowledged he attended a performance of the musical “Hamilton” using a ticket his brother gave him. He said he learned after the outing that his brother had obtained that ticket from Corey in exchange for a Jay-Z concert ticket.
Gillum says he has since cut ties with Corey.
What about the receipts?
Gillum’s campaign has released receipts in response to questions about the trips, but not all of the expenses are documented.
For the Costa Rica trip, Gillum released a document showing he made a $400 ATM withdrawal to cover his share of the accommodations, along with credit card expenses for entertainment during the trip.
The campaign says about a dozen people stayed at the
$1,400-a-night villa. If that was the case, Gillum and his wife’s pro-rated share would have been about
$933. The campaign also released airline ticket information, but it didn’t show specifically who paid for the tickets.
For the three-night New York trip, Gillum’s campaign released an unsigned invoice for a two-night stay at the Ameritania Hotel in Manhattan. On the third night, the campaign says Gillum stayed with his brother at the Millennium Hotel, but the campaign did not offer any documentation of who paid for that room.
The campaign also did not release receipts for any entertainment or meals for the New York trip, including the boat tour.
Christopher Kise, Corey’s attorney, disputed in an interview with The Associated Press the account given by Gillum.
Kise told the AP that Corey won the Costa Rica accommodations through a charity auction, and he has not received any payment from Gillum. Kise said Corey also did not purchase the “Hamilton” ticket or swap it for a Jay-Z ticket.