DeSantis's Hatchet Man: Larry Keefe

Deposed Hillsborough County, Florida, State Attorney Andrew Warren went to trial this week to try and get back the job that voters twice elected him to, and that Gov. Ron DeSantis removed him from in August over what amounted to political disagreements – one of DeSantis’ most outwardly autocratic acts of 2022. Day one of the trial revealed, through his own testimony, that Larry Keefe, DeSantis’s “public safety czar”, was the “primary driver”  in suspending Warren from office. 

Indeed, Keefe was on-site at the Hillsborough State Attorney’s office on August 4th, along with law enforcement officers, to remove Warren from his own office. It was Keefe who, without a formal investigation, talked to a few of his buddies, some Republican donors, and decided Warren’s “approach to his job was harmful”, and then persuaded the Governor to remove Warren, even writing a politically charged first draft of the removal order itself (which cited conspiracy theories involving George Soros). 

Given his outsized role in Andrew Warren’s removal and his constant presence as DeSantis’ hatchet man, this week’s post is going to take a bit of a deep dive on Larry Keefe. Who is Ron DeSantis’ fascist right hand and nebulously titled “public safety czar”? 

I happen to have known Larry Keefe for years. His old law firm, Anchors & Gordon, is based in Fort Walton Beach, where I’ve lived and practiced law for over 20 years. My first experience was when he suggested with a straight face that his client put a hangman’s noose in my African-American’s client’s work area to show people how to catch an alligator not as a racist symbol stemming from an ongoing racial discrimination matter. He is an aggressive and calculating attorney who is never shy about pushing the envelope. 

Before joining the DeSantis administration, Keefe served as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida, a post Donald Trump appointed him to despite the fact that he had no prior experience as a prosecutor, having worked as a corporate lawyer his entire career. Larry got appointed because he was a mover and shaker among the Republican business crowd in the Florida Panhandle. Specifically, the law firm that used to carry his name, Keefe, Anchors & Gordon, for many years employed a young Matt Gaetz. 

And while it may have gotten him the job, Larry Keefe’s relationship with Matt Gaetz nearly cost him his job. According to Politico, Keefe wanted to exert statewide authority to investigate “election fraud” in Florida, despite the Northern District only covering a small portion of the state. The Justice Department had told him this crackpot scheme was a non-starter, so Keefe had Gaetz take the issue directly to Trump. Then-Attorney General William Barr went ballistic, reportedly telling Keefe, “If I ever hear of you talking to Gaetz or any other congressman again about business before the department, I am going to fucking fire your ass.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, his ass didn’t end up getting fired until Biden took office, and it happened in spite of a lobbying effort by Keefe to stay in the job. But again, Larry’s Matt Gaetz connection paid off. Within a few months of being canned by Biden, Keefe was appointed “public safety czar” by Ron DeSantis, a job so vague that even media reports at the time said it was, “unclear what the role specifically entails.” But it does pay six figures! 

At least one aspect of his job – besides orchestrating the removal of Andrew Warren as State Attorney – involved a multistate kidnapping operation that took two planes of Venezuelan migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, with a stopover in my backyard, here in the Florida Panhandle. Not only do public records released by the State of Florida show that Larry Keefe was the executive director of DeSantis’ migrant kidnappings in September, but some texts suggest he was on one of these flights himself. And the over $3.4 million dollars paid out to Vertol Systems? A former Keefe/Gaetz client. 

Between plotting the removal of a duly elected prosecutor and plotting a human trafficking operation on behalf of Florida’s Governor, Larry Keefe is undoubtedly one of the most powerful dangerous actors in Ron DeSantis’s orbit right now. As DeSantis takes repeated steps towards fascist autocracy, look for Keefe to continue to play a crucial role as the governor’s fixer and hatchet man.