Imaginary audits: not just for Donald Trump anymore!
By 
“Fuck you, pay me!” — By Senator Ben Sasse
Sultan of Smarm Ben Sasse responded to the devastating story about how his tenure at the University of Florida involved giving extremely lucrative sinecures to his cronies before he converted the position into a literal no-work one with one of those long tweets you pay Elon for permission to do. I think this was my favorite bit:
“People call me profligate for funnelling money to my friends and McKinsey, but don’t call me irresponsible: I wanted to fire people who do actual work!” (Needless to say Sasse is also a fan of “post-tenure review” which I’m sure he and Chris Rufo would have implemented in a scrupulously non-partisan manner had he not decided he preferred to be paid for doing no work at all instead.)
And, anyway, he claims that his extensive cycle of graft was cleared by auditors:
If you’ve followed the MAGA-era Republican Party, I think you know where this is going:
Former UF president Ben Sasse said a completed audit found no wrongdoing when it came to his spending. But according to public records, the audit never existed.
In an Aug. 16 X post responding to a previous Alligator report on his expenditures, Sasse wrote, “It is my understanding that the Audit Committee of our board did its work thoroughly and without any findings of concern.”
A request from The Alligator for any internal audits requested during the fiscal year 2023-2024 was returned without any indication of a UF presidential audit. Expenditures related to Sasse were not among the 17 audit requests listed in the report.
There is also no documentation of a current, future or completed audit from the state.
The Board of Governors for Florida’s State University System announced Aug. 15 it would conduct its own audit into UF’s presidential office. Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis announced the Florida Department of Financial Services would help the Florida Board of Governors investigate any fraud or wrongdoing in Sasse’s expenditures.
One reason these “anti-Trump ;)” Republicans fell in line so easily is apparently that the only thing preventing them from being as corrupt as Trump was a lack of opportunity.
It’s also striking that it’s been a student newspaper, not any of the major media sources that gave fawning coverage to this transparently phony grifter, that has exposed his misconduct and his lies about it during his UF tenure.