DeSantis, Trump, and the Rule of Law | Opinion

As ethics lawyers in Republican and Democratic White Houses respectively, the first thing we look for when a political leader bursts onto the national scene is their record for integrity and commitment to the rule of law. That is why six years ago, we led the way in warning that Donald Trump posed an ethical and legal danger to our country.

Today, we have the same concerns about Trump's main competition for the MAGA mantle—Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Our concerns about him may be even more profound.

With Trump, the problem wasn't just ignoring the law—he also found clever ways to get around it. As we pointed out in 2020, Trump used a combination of law avoidance (technically legal but ethically dubious sidestepping of the law) and law evasion (illegal in the same way as tax evasion). We call that law "avoision" and Trump's presidency was characterized by it. That culminated in the 2020 "election avoision" of his attempted coup, a blend of legal but unethical actions such as filing dubious election litigation and outright wrongdoing such as pushing Georgia to just "find 11,780 votes."

Like much other Trump avoision, that failed—but the danger is that DeSantis, a Harvard-educated lawyer, seems to be much better at avoision than Donald Trump. He has a long and documented record of bending and breaking the law that has no place in a democracy. DeSantis' ethical and legal transgressions may not be as blatant or well-known as Trump's, but his record of sidestepping and outright violating the law is an ominous harbinger of what a DeSantis presidency would bring.

To take the most recent example, serious questions exist as to whether DeSantis is already using avoision techniques in his presidential campaign. The Campaign Legal Center filed an ethics complaint against DeSantis for transferring $80 million from his state PAC to his federal super PAC, even though transferring such "soft money" from state to federal campaigns is arguably illegal under federal law.

It gets worse. Officials in DeSantis' administration reportedly texted contribution solicitations for his campaign to lobbyists with business before the state. They also reportedly solicited endorsements of DeSantis from lawmakers, apparently confusing their official state work with a presidential campaign that has nothing to do with the business of Florida. Some lawmakers apparently feared he might veto their bills or spending projects if they did not support his campaign.

Florida law prohibits state employees from participating in any political campaign "while on duty." These employees may argue that they were off duty when they engaged in political activities, but regardless, it appears they were using the authority of their offices to benefit DeSantis' campaign.

Analogous federal law, the Hatch Act, was repeatedly flouted in the Trump administration by Kellyanne Conway and others, and Trump arguably coerced federal employees into supporting his campaign in violation of it. DeSantis' use of state employees to further his presidential bid shows he is no more serious than Trump about complying with ethical principles that separate the affairs of politics from the affairs of state.

Then there are DeSantis' private plane trips to meet politicians and donors. Billionaire Harlan Crow may not be providing free transportation for the governor, as he has for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, but we know some wealthy donors are. We don't know who they are because it's all done in secret. DeSantis has been flirting with violations of campaign finance laws since before his campaign began.

To hide the details of his conduct, DeSantis signed into law a bill to shield his travel records. This sets a terrifying standard: If the governor doesn't like an ethics law, he uses his power to change it. That should concern us all.

Even more worrisome is how DeSantis uses the law to attack his enemies. We are concerned by his retaliation against Disney for exercising its First Amendment rights—and even more alarmed by his undermining law enforcement by suspending prosecutors he doesn't like. They're the very prosecutors who might investigate him or his administration for breaking the law. We should all remember that firing prosecutors was similarly Trump's first line of defense against criminal investigations of himself and his campaign—even though the use of presidential power to remove a prosecutor and corruptly obstruct investigations is itself criminal.

DeSantis has taken the remarkable position that he has the right to preemptively remove prosecutors he fears won't enforce the law—including laws that do not yet exist—or for exercising discretion in ways he views as improper. Last August he suspended elected State Attorney Andrew Warren because Warren said he would exercise case-by-case discretion regarding any abortion law. Warren sued, and a federal court found that his firing by DeSantis was illegal (although the court erroneously concluded it lacked the power of reinstatement). The case is now pending in the 11th Circuit and the Florida Supreme Court.

DeSantis views the law as so unimportant that he can distort it to his will. We have seen this pattern before with Trump, and like the former president, DeSantis doesn't measure up to our standard of ethical and law-abiding officeholders. He would be just as bad, or even worse, in the White House—and a serious threat to our Republic.

Ambassador Norman Eisen (ret.) is a senior fellow in governance studies at The Brookings Institution and served as the White House ethics czar for former President Barack Obama.

Richard W. Painter is a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and was the chief White House ethics lawyer under former President George W. Bush. He is the author (with Peter Golenbock) of American Nero: The History of the Destruction of the Rule of Law in America and Why Trump is the Worst Offender.

The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.