Gov. Ron DeSantis’s close legal advisers ordered the Florida Department of Health to send unconstitutional threats regarding an abortion ballot measure, according to a federal court filing. Ordered to keep sending letters warning TV stations of criminal charges if they continued airing an advertisement promoting the abortion measure, the agency’s top lawyer resigned in protest earlier this month, he wrote in an affidavit that was filed on Monday.

John Wilson, the now former general counsel for the state Health Department, wrote in his affidavit that DeSantis’s general counsel and his underlings drafted the letters and ordered Wilson to send them. “I did not draft the letters or participate in any discussions about the letters prior to October 3,” Wilson wrote.

By the time he resigned on October 10, the agency had sent threatening letters to approximately 50 stations around Florida. At least one station stopped running the ad, according to court filings.

The measure, Amendment 4, would amend the Florida Constitution so that the state legislature could not pass abortion bans or other restrictions before fetal viability. It would also prohibit bans that do not have exceptions for the health of the patient, as determined by their health care provider.

The affidavit was filed as part of a lawsuit brought by Amendment 4’s sponsor, Floridians Protecting Freedom, over the threats to TV stations. The letters were just the latest drastic step DeSantis and other Florida officials have taken to oppose Amendment 4, including asking the Florida Supreme Court to keep it off the ballot entirely.

“This affidavit exposes state interference at the highest level,” said Lauren Brenzel, Floridians Protecting Freedom’s campaign director for Amendment 4. “It’s clear the State is hellbent on keeping Florida’s unpopular, cruel abortion ban in place. Their extreme attacks on Amendment 4 are an anti-democratic tactic to keep Floridians from being able to make their own choice about whether Amendment 4 should become law.”

DeSantis’s office and the state health department did not respond to questions about the lawsuit. The Intercept was not able to reach Wilson for comment.

“It’s the First Amendment, Stupid”

On October 1, Floridians Protecting Freedom, started airing a TV advertisement featuring a Tampa woman, Caroline Williams. Williams needed an abortion 20 weeks into her pregnancy because of a brain tumor that required chemotherapy. She got an abortion in April 2022, weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.

A Florida patient under similar circumstances today faces far more restrictions. Under a ban signed by DeSantis, which went into effect in May 2024, Florida prohibits abortions after six weeks unless two doctors certify that the procedure is necessary to “save the pregnant woman’s life or avert a serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment.”

“Florida has now banned abortion even in cases like mine,” Williams says in the advertisement. “Amendment 4 is going to protect women like me.”

Two days after the “Caroline” advertisement first aired, on October 3, the Florida Department of Health sent letters to TV stations across Florida. So far, three of the dozens of stations that received a letter have been identified: WINK, a CBS affiliate in Fort Myers; WFLA, the NBC affiliate in Tampa; and WCJB, an ABC affiliate in Gainesville.

“The advertisement is not only false; it is dangerous,” reads the letter, which was signed by Wilson. The letter alleged that the advertisement posed a “sanitary nuisance” because it misrepresented the state’s abortion ban, and it threatened criminal proceedings against the stations. At least one of the stations, WINK, decided to stop running the ad after getting the letter, according to a court filing.

The Federal Communications Commission quickly denounced the letter. “Threats against broadcast stations for airing content that conflicts with the government’s views are dangerous and undermine the fundamental principle of free speech,” said FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel in a statement on October 8.

Floridians Protecting Freedom sued the Florida surgeon general last week, claiming that the ad was accurate about the restrictions the current ban puts on doctors and patients like Williams. “Under Florida’s current law, I would not have provided this abortion because it could be viewed as a crime to terminate Caroline’s pregnancy,” a doctor wrote in an affidavit filed with the lawsuit. “As the cancer was terminal, the abortion would not have saved the patient’s life and therefore could be illegal under Florida law.”

Floridians Protecting Freedom also argued that the department’s letters were an unconstitutional attempt to limit voter outreach for Amendment 4. In less than 48 hours, the federal court agreed that the state’s letters were likely unconstitutional, rejecting the state’s arguments to the contrary as “Nonsense.”

Mark E. Walker, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, ordered Florida’s surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, to stop “taking any further actions to coerce, threaten, or intimate repercussions” against broadcasters who air the advertisement.

“To keep it simple for the State of Florida: it’s the First Amendment, stupid,” Walker wrote. “The Surgeon General of Florida has the right to advocate for his own position on a ballot measure. But it would subvert the rule of law to permit the State to transform its own advocacy into the direct suppression of protected political speech.”

A Protest Resignation

The new filing from Wilson, the health department’s former top attorney, makes clear that DeSantis’s office orchestrated the letters, despite pushback from Wilson.

In his affidavit, Wilson claimed that Ryan Newman and Jed Doty, DeSantis’s general counsel and deputy general counsel, gave him the orders to send the letters. A third attorney from the governor’s office, assistant general counsel Sam Elliott, sent drafts of the letters to Wilson earlier on October 3, his affidavit claims.

Wilson resigned on October 10 “in lieu of complying” with directives from the governor’s office to “send out further correspondence to the media outlets,” according to his affidavit.

“A man is nothing without his conscience,” Wilson reportedly wrote in his resignation letter, according to the Miami Herald. “It has become clear in recent days that I cannot join you on the road that lies before the agency.”

Wilson’s affidavit to the federal court also claims Newman ordered him to execute contracts for outside attorneys “to be retained by the Department to assist with enforcement proceedings” threatened in the letters to TV stations. The health department signed contracts worth up to $1.4 million with two law firms, according to purchasing documents filed as part of the lawsuit.