By Thomas Kennedy

The City of Miami is an absolute dumpster fire. Aside from the evergreen issues of chronic flooding, lack of public transportation, skyrocketing housing costs, and rampant corruption, the city is being consumed by nonstop scandals.

A few weeks ago, one of the most perennially corrupt characters in Miami politics, Commissioner Joe Carollo, lost a lawsuit against the owners of a venue in Little Havana called Ball & Chain and was ordered to pay a total of $63.5 million dollars, on top of legal fees, for weaponizing city agencies against them and their tenants due to their support for one of Carollo’s political opponents. The City Attorney (who was deposed and is a witness in a second lawsuit against the city by the owners of Ball & Chain) has been implicated in a corruption scandal involving a Miami-Dade County program that is supposed to sell properties of ‘incapacitated’ people but was being abused by her husband to reap big profits. The redrawing of the commission was thrown out after a lawsuit due to transparent racial gerrymandering and self-dealing by the commissioners. Last but not least, Mayor Francis Suarez is now under FBI investigation after secretly taking up to $170,000 payments from a developer that later thanked Suarez in an email for intervening with the zoning director to cut red tape for one of their projects.

Just saw Miami Mayor aka Ponzi Postalita Francis Suarez outside the Trump arraignment and asked why he is here and not addressing the FBI investigation on the bribes he took to advance developer projects. Miami Police pushed me against a wall despite me being peaceful. pic.twitter.com/P4VlusGzsT

— Thomas Kennedy (@tomaskenn) June 13, 2023

Residents in the City of Miami are hurting. We have real issues to take care of that are simply not being attended to and the quality of life for many of us is declining or we are simply being priced out, all while the people in charge are grifting and using their public office for their own political and financial benefit.

You would think that if you were the Mayor of Miami, actively being investigated by the FBI for a corruption scandal and presiding over a dumpster fire of a municipal government, the last thing on your mind would be a presidential run, but you are not Francis Suarez. This week, nepo baby failson Suarez (he is in that position largely because his father was the former mayor) announced that he is running away from Miami, and mounting a campaign for president of the United States.

Suarez has never been the sharpest knife in the drawer nor has he demonstrated good judgment when making decisions. Up until the recent crypto-market crash, he was mostly known for his obsession with cryptocurrencies and for peddling a grift-coin called “MiamiCoin,” which I have written about in the past and that lost 99% of its value and was permanently suspended from trading. Suarez’s promotion of this grift reached such a ridiculous crescendo that he actually claimed during an appearance on Fox & Friends that the revenue generated by the City of Miami’s stake in MiamiCoin would be given “as a dividend to all of our residents in Bitcoin” through a “digital wallet.” Even more absurdly, he added that “if this thing continues to grow, there is a world under which we can actually run the city without taxes.”

Needless to say, none of that happened and investors lost a lot of money.

Investment is not the only field in which Suarez seems to lack judgment. His former aide Rene Pedrosa, pleaded guilty for child pornography and molesting a 16 year old boy in the conference room of Miami City hall. He has accepted unethical gifts from entities that have business before the Miami Commission, like $30,000 Formula 1 tickets and similarly high priced tickets to Miami Heat Games.

The reason that Suarez has made it this far politically and why he feels emboldened despite all of these scandals surrounding and involving him, it’s because he has largely been treated with kid gloves by a mostly compliant and sycophantic press that refuses to challenge or question him in his obvious corruption and grift. 

Here is an embarrassing example. A Washington Post article from September 2021 provides an uncritical and shallow portrayal of MiamiCoin, stating that Suarez has a plan to transform the city into the world’s “cryptocurrency innovation hub” and presenting his claim that it could result in a “metropolis free from taxes” as a “lofty idea” that goes unchallenged throughout the piece. It reads like a press release by Suarez’s team with no questions regarding sustainability, conflicts of interest, or regulatory red flags. This type of coverage was commonplace until recently, with notable exceptions of course

Suarez has long been able to behave with impunity and bullshit his way out of trouble. Just look at this video of him from when he worked on his dad’s mayoral campaign. An “F. Suarez” witnessed fraudulent absentee ballots. Suarez claimed F. Suarez wasn’t him. His dad was ultimately thrown out of office by a judge for election fraud.

Video of Francis Suarez from when he worked on his dad's mayoral campaign. An "F. Suarez" witnessed fraudulent absentee ballots. Francis claimed F. Suarez wasn't him. His dad was ultimately thrown out of office by the judge for election fraud. pic.twitter.com/O0QRfet4C8

— Thomas Kennedy (@tomaskenn) June 17, 2023

The grift seems to be catching up to Suarez though. He looks like a deer in headlights when confronted with even slight pushback from reporters, something he is not used to in Miami. Politicians can’t intimidate national media outlets the same way they do to local ones in Miami, threatening to withhold advertising money and calling editors to get reporters fired when they publish criticism of corrupt public officials.

Every time Miami Mayor Francis Suarez (aka Ponzi Postalita) opens his mouth, he humiliates himself and the entire city. He can’t answer ONE question without dissembling. Forget prime time, this con man isn't even ready for Saturday morning cartoons. #BecauseMiami pic.twitter.com/BInzJlZvkN

— Because Miami (@BecauseMiami) June 15, 2023

People have asked me why Suarez is embarking in this quixotic run for president. The first thing I tell them is that a lot of these people (not all) who run for public office are egomaniacal narcissists and Suarez absolutely believes that he could catch fire and somehow win. The alternative is that he raises a lot of money from tech companies and other special interests for a future campaign or if another Republican wins, he gets an ambassadorship or some administration appointment. If all else fails, the grift can always continue with a high paying lobbying position, that’s the revolving door that these corrupt public officials love, some years in the public sector to later reap profits as a lobbyist.

Miami, a sunny place for shady people.

Thomas Kennedy is an elected Democratic National Committee member from Florida. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram at @tomaskenn