The Herald reports that after the Herald signaled their intention to file a public records lawsuit obliging the state to release the names of elder-care facilities in which a staffer or resident has tested positive for the virus, DeSantis' general counsel contacted a legal ally inside the Herald's law firm, the well-connected Holland & Knight, after which the firm told senior partner Sanford Bohrer to "stand down and abandon" the Herald suit.

Which the partner was indeed obliged to do, they report. The Herald will still be filing the suit, but they're now forced to do it with a different law firm. Holland & Knight won't be a part of it.

What exactly happened here is still a bit murky. The state has so far given no reason for withholding the information—information which would seem to fall squarely in line with what the public ought to know, during a life-threatening pandemic. The paper was not seeking the names of patients, which could violate privacy, but the list of which facilities had infections at all—part of the paper's reporting on recent senior care deaths in the state.

Why hide that information? We don't know, and DeSantis' government doesn't seem interested in explaining it.

It seems quite possible that DeSantis' counsel told Holland & Knight that if they wanted to keep representing the state in myriad state actions, they would have to abandon the Herald on this one. What's not clear is why DeSantis' team would feel the need to make such a threat. This is not information that can be hidden for long; there is an unquestionable public reason for families of senior care residents to want to know it in a timely fashion.

So the reason for withholding it is ... what? What's the logic? We'll have to add this to the pile of mysteries surrounding DeSantis' behavior during this crisis. Florida's uniquely incompetent handling of the early days of the pandemic has set them up to be a national hotspot for deaths in coming weeks; if that comes to pass, it's not likely even DeSantis' government could cover up the numbers for long.