The DeSantis administration lawyer who sent out those letters threatening TV stations with criminal charges and jail time over pro-choice ads himself resigned shortly after sending out the letters. The Miami-Herald got a hold of his resignation letter and it appears he didn’t feel like he could back the policy. John Wilson, former chief lawyer of the state Department of Health, wrote: “A man is nothing without his conscience. It has become clear in recent days that I cannot join you on the road that lies before the agency.”
It wasn’t exactly a red-hot resignation letter to Florida Surgeon General, Joseph Ladapo. Wilson wrote that he believed the ads in question were “categorically false” and said he was confident that the lawyers still in place at the agency would “rise to the occasion and provide you the zealous representation you deserve.”
The Herald article leaves it a bit ambiguous precisely what Wilson’s position on the whole matter is. And presumably that’s because the letter itself was. But it sounds like Wilson was directionally on board with the policy but found the threats of criminal prosecution a step too far, though even that is a bit ambiguous. The threat letters are now the focus of a federal lawsuit in which Wilson is himself the subject in his personal capacity, along with Ladapo in his official capacity. So perhaps that played into it as well.
