Knowing that Florida Gov. Rick Scott, now running for Senate, is a corrupt plutocrat requires no more than looking at the $1.7 billion Medicare fraud fine against the hospital chain he once ran. But before he was forced out of running Columbia/HCA, he made enough money to pump tens of millions of dollars into his campaigns and to establish some financial arrangements that underline his ongoing status as a corrupt rich guy.
Scott says he put his money in a blind trust as governor of Florida. Not so much:
… an examination of Mr. Scott’s finances shows that his trust has been blind in name only. There have been numerous ways for him to have knowledge about his holdings: Among other things, he transferred many assets to his wife and neither “blinded” nor disclosed them. And their investments have included corporations, partnerships and funds that stood to benefit from his administration’s actions.
Only in late July, when compelled by ethics rules for Senate candidates, did Mr. Scott disclose his wife’s holdings. That report revealed that his wife, Ann Scott, an interior decorator by trade, controlled accounts that might exceed the value of her husband’s. Their equity investments largely mirrored each other, meaning that Mr. Scott could, if he wanted, track his own holdings by following his wife’s.
Scott insists that “I have never made a single decision as governor with any thought or consideration of my personal finances.” Yeah, right. The New York Times documents a series of Scott’s investments in companies that do business with the state of Florida, from pipelines to pharmaceuticals. Scott’s “blind trust” arrangement meets Florida’s ethics rules, but it would not meet Senate standards.
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