Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said the launch of his presidential bid coinciding with federal investigations into his business dealings indicates he's the Republican candidate that Democrats fear the most.
Forget that news of his paperwork filed came in stories calling him a "long shot" with little name recognition. Friday he was on Fox & Friends.
"I'm the biggest threat to the Democratic Party," Suarez said to the question of what those allegations of his business in Miami are about. "I'm Hispanic, a conservative Republican from a big city. I mean, I'm the unicorn of all unicorns.
Reports are that the FBI, the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, and State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle are looking into allegations that $170,000 payments he took from a developer with business before the city are an ethical or legal breach.
"It destroys their entire narrative and so they are threatened," he added.
The official inquiries are the result of a "smear campaign" his "liberal, local newspaper is doing," he said without uttering the words "Miami Herald."
Suarez, who won the Herald's somewhat unenthusiastic endorsement for his 2021 election, said he's had "no issues" in 13 years.
"All of a sudden, my liberal, local newspaper starts to throw a bunch of things against the wall," he said.
The Herald has found that Suarez, who is an attorney and private equity executive, has accepted payments from a developer seeking a permit for a multimillion-dollar project. The permit application was rejected.
Joey Flechas, the Herald's Miami City Hall reporter, told Jim DeFede on June 4's "Facing South Florida" that he's regularly asked Suarez to disclose his client list for the past five years in the name of transparency. The request has not been met, Flechas said.
"We're left to wonder whether he is really identifying potential conflicts of interest on his own," Flechas said.
Suarez said that he'll be cooperating with authorities until it comes out that he's done nothing wrong. But he bemoaned that it's come to this, an echo of other Republican candidates lamentations about the "weaponization" of the justice system.
"Unfortunately, we see this in every federal race and everybody, unfortunately has to go through these kinds of things," Suarez said, adding that he didn't mind the scrutiny.
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