FloridaBulldog by Dan Christensen
September 26, 2018
Gov. Rick Scott’s blind trust loaned as much as $5 million to a Delaware company privately owned by his daughter Jordan. But you wouldn’t know it by reading Scott’s recent “full and complete” federal financial disclosure form.
Jordan Leigh Scott isn’t mentioned in the 125-page document. Rather, the governor listed the loan as an “accounts receivable from a business,” Seabass Properties LLC. The loan value was reported to be in a range between $1 million and $5 million, earning interest this year for the blind trust of $15,000 to $50,000.
Gov. Scott disclosed his blind trust assets in late July while campaigning against Sen. Bill Nelson. Until then, Florida law prohibited him from having any knowledge or control of the blind trust’s assets. Still, Scott directed the blind trust loan to his daughter’s company, disguising it as a business investment.
This is what Gov. Scott’s campaign had to say when asked why he disclosed this as an investment, and not a loan, and also how he accomplished the transfer of blind trust funds to his daughter’s company.
“It is ridiculous and offensive to question a father making a personal loan to his daughter. It is completely within the purview of the blind trust for the trustee to take out money for expenditures – not for investments ” spokeswoman Kerri Wyland said in an emailed statement. “The Governor cannot, and does not, instruct the trustee on any matters relating to investing, or relating to where money should come from within the trust, for these personal expenditures.”