Mayor Andrew Gillum got visibly upset with Republican gubernatorial opponent Ron DeSantis when he pressed him during an Oct. 21 debate on who paid for the Hamilton tickets. | Daniel Ducassi/POLITICO Undercover FBI agent got Gillum ‘Hamilton’ tickets, texts show

TALLAHASSEE — Florida Democratic gubernatorial nominee and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum accepted tickets to the Broadway show "Hamilton" from an undercover FBI agent leading a probe into the city’s economic development agency, according to 150 pages of documents turned over to the Florida Commission on Ethics.

The records, released two weeks ahead of Election Day, are from Adam Corey, a lobbyist and longtime ally of Gillum. The commission subpoenaed the documents as part of its investigation into trips Gillum and Corey took to New York and Costa Rica.


Also on the August 2016 New York trip was a man identified as Mike Miller, a person now believed to be an FBI agent leading an investigation into Tallahassee’s Community Redevelopment Agency. Gillum has not publicly been accused of wrongdoing as part of that probe, but the cloud of the investigation has hung over his campaign. That dynamic will only grow after release of records including text messages and invoices, on Tuesday.

“Just checking in with you. Mike Miller and the crew have tickets for us for Hamilton tonight at 8 p.m.,” Corey texted Gillum on Aug. 10, 2016.

Gillum’s text message reply: “awesome news about Hamilton.”

On Tuesday, Gillum explained that he believed the tickets from the undercover agent were reserved for him but that his brother, Marcus, had paid for him — a notion Republicans mocked.

The issue has already been front and center in the tight gubernatorial race, in which Gillum became the surprise Democratic nominee. The document drop comes as more than 1 million voters have already cast ballots by mail, or at early voting sites, but one day ahead of Wednesday’s final gubernatorial debate, an event that will now likely place a statewide focus on Gillum’s role in the Corey records.

The new revelations dovetailed with a major theme of Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis’ campaign — that Gillum is corrupt and unethical, charges the Democrat denies.

Gillum supporters were largely mum about the new revelations, but those who discussed them publicly were skeptical that it would have a big political impact on his campaign.

“I think Comey has desensitized us to the FBI, and Trump has to everything,” John Morgan, an Orlando trial attorney and Democratic fundraiser, said, referring to former FBI Director James Comey and President Donald Trump. “I’m just not sure a ticket, or whatever, is going to change many minds.”

Florida Democratic consultant Screven Watson said that with two weeks left, the race is more about “turnout than persuasion.”

“Think someone will sit at home in Broward County because of discussion of 'Hamilton'?” he asked.

The ticket issue had already touched a nerve with Gillum.

Gillum became visibly upset with DeSantis when he pressed him during an Oct. 21 debate on who paid for the "Hamilton" tickets.

“The question is, did you pay for the ‘Hamilton’ ticket, or did the undercover FBI agent pay for the ‘Hamilton’ ticket?” DeSantis asked at the debate.

“I didn’t take free trips from anybody,” Gillum responded. “I’m a hardworking person. I know that may not fit your description of what you think people like me do. But I’ve worked hard for everything that I’ve gotten in my life, and I don’t need anybody handing me anything for free.”

Gillum, in a statement issued by his campaign, said the records released Tuesday show he paid for what he should have.

“These records vindicate and add more evidence that at every turn I was paying my own way or was with my family, for all trips, including picking up tickets from my brother, Marcus, who was with a group of his own friends,” Gillum said.

In a Facebook video address, Gillum re-upped his comments from the Sunday debate and sought to make the Republican criticism of him a racial issue.

“All along,” Gillum said, “they’ve wanted the people of this state to believe somehow I haven’t deserved what I’ve gotten, I’m unethical, participated in illegal and illicit activity. I mean, you name it. The goal is obviously to use my candidacy as a way to reinforce, frankly, stereotypes about black men.“

Gillum, however, didn’t echo his other criticism of DeSantis, a former congressman, accused by the Democrat of trying to “obstruct” the federal investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign. That investigation has yielded multiple indictments, convictions and cooperative plea deals. Meanwhile, no one has been criminally charged in the Tallahassee corruption probe.

Gillum has long maintained his innocence. He said he’s not a “target” of a federal investigation and that he spoke freely with agents when they interviewed him in the summer of 2017.

But Bruce Zimet, a former federal prosecutor and current South Florida attorney who has defended public corruption cases, pointed out that the word “target” has a special definition in federal statute.

“A ‘target’s’ defined as somebody who the DOJ believes there’s probably cause that they’ve committed a crime and that they intend to charge that person,” Zimet said. He declined to say whether Gillum could be called a suspect because “it’s hard to know without more information. I hate to speculate about people like that. It just casts a wrong shadow or cloud over them.”

What’s clear about the case, however, is that Gillum’s travel to New York with undercover federal agents looking for dirty deals was a highly staged affair for the FBI, whose agents likely wore wires.

“There’s a hierarchy to get approval within the FBI if there’s an investigation,” Zimet said. “Generally speaking, if there are any public officials involved, there’s communication with the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice itself, and they’re usually working in conjunction with the FBI.”

Zimet said the acceptance of gifts by Gillum is “probably not” a federal “theft of honest services” crime “if there’s not some quid pro quo attached to it,” and a quid pro quo can either be a vote “or a promise to do something that gets you closer to criminality.”

During the gubernatorial debate, DeSantis also pressed Gillum on whether he paid for the “villa in Costa Rica,” a reference to his accommodations on that trip, which did not include Miller. Gillum has said he and his wife paid cash for the May 2016 Costa Rica accommodations, a contention refuted in the newly released emails.

In one of the emails, from June 2016, Corey promised his accountant a breakdown of an $8,868 credit card charge. Corey’s assistant later responded with a list of people to invoice.

That list shows that Gillum and his wife, R. Jai Gillum, were responsible for $941.95, but that line was crossed out. A note next to it said, “HOLD ON BILLING.” Gillum’s email address was not included in a subsequent list of people who were invoiced for taking part in the Costa Rica trip.

In September, Kise said his client never received money from Gillum.

The trip was to celebrate R. Jai Gillum’s birthday. Emails show Andrew Gillum requested one of his wife’s favorite cake flavors.

The emails also show Gillum used his American Express card to pay for airfare to Costa Rica.

“Thank you re: cake,” Gillum wrote in an email to Corey staffer Cody Schwartz. “You’re the best. She likes regular white cake, red velvet cake (or cupcakes), and pound cake.”

The text message exchanges that are part of the records released to the ethics commission stretch from June 2016 through the August 2016 trip to New York. They show that Miller, the undercover FBI agent, and Corey were regularly in contact to discuss, among other things, Gillum.

“I wanted to thank AG for his support last week,” Miller texted. “Should I text or call him?”

Corey passed along Gillum’s cellphone numbers, noting “I would just call him.”

Kise, the attorney for Corey, said the records show “no criminal activity took place“ involving his client.

“Mr. Corey seeks, as he has sought in the past, to remove himself from the center of rampant and untoward speculation,” Kise said by email. “Hopefully, the disclosure of the actual facts will now permit him to do so, and to move forward with his life and career.”

Kise has a background in Republican politics, including serving as an attorney on Gov. Rick Scott’s transition team when he was elected, being appointed by Scott to the board of Enterprise Florida and giving more than $30,000 in contributions to Republican candidates over the past decade. Kise has also given to Democrats, but to a much smaller degree.

Marc Caputo contributed to this report.