Insight into Ron DeSantis’ politicized impeachment of an elected prosecutor

A memo Ms. Lopez sent out days later echoed that plan, saying, “The legislature makes the law, and we as prosecutors enforce it.” (She testified that she had no recollection of dating anyone other than to have advised their chief of staff.)

Two assistant governors have been dispatched to the Hillsborough district attorney’s office to “make sure there isn’t any weird business going on over there,” foreign affairs director Savannah Kelly Jefferson wrote in a text message to her staff.

Keefe, who stayed on at the prosecutor’s office, called on Melanie Snow-Waxler, the prosecutor’s chief communications officer, to cancel Mr Warren’s press conference on the cold cases, she said in an interview. The office said its chief of staff made the decision.

He overheard on a speakerphone as she called the aunt of a murder victim to tell her not to come.

“I was confused. I didn’t know what was going on,” Ms Snow-Waxler, who was soon fired on controversial grounds, said in the interview. “That’s not someone who was your boss, but it’s not like like I was given an option. It was an order.”

A former DeSantis spokesman, Fred Piccolo, was brought in as a communications consultant for the prosecution. In an interview, Mr. Piccolo said his job is to keep the prosecution on the same page as the governor’s office in the public discussion of Mr. Warren’s suspension. In a text message to colleagues, Ms Fenske said she would be leaning on Mr Piccolo to dismiss Mr Warren’s claim that his suspension was invalid: “We’re going to nail the nail in the coffin.”

Six days later, as the controversy continued to make headlines and Mr. Warren publicly blasted his firing, the Hillsborough County Attorney’s Office received strange news piece of correspondence from the governor’s office, showing documents from an application for public records.

It was from Mr. Treadwell, the governor’s deputy general counsel, who made his first request for information from the prosecution that might reveal whether Mr. Warren had done something wrong.

Jonathan Swan And Frances Robles contributed reporting.