November 6, 2005 -- Rove soon to be living on "Republican Riviera?" As rumors swirl around Washington that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove may soon be leaving the White House soon "to spend more time with his family," there is renewed interest in how he obtained a sweetheart land deal on his Rosemary Beach home on the Florida Panhandle. Florida investigators have discovered that the beach tract where Rove's home is located (for which he paid a mere $165,000 for the land in 2002) was owned by the St. Joe Company, Florida's largest private land owner and a firm that George H. W. Bush and the DuPont family have had a significant financial stake. An informed source told WMR that Rove's sweetheart land deal is tied to the Tom DeLay/Jack Abramoff money laundering scandal. "Florida is the center-of-gravity with Abramoff's deals," said the source.
St. Joe also owns half of the real estate development firm Codina Group, founded by Armando Codina, a personal friend of George H. W. Bush and one-time business partner of Governor Jeb Bush. Until 1994, when Jeb Bush first ran for governor, the Codina Group was known as the Codina Bush Group. Since Jeb Bush became governor, he's taken care of his old business friends, selling them state-owned land at cut rate prices. Conveniently, Rove's Panhandle neighbors will include some of Jeb's and Dubya's top fund raisers and friends -- people financially tied in with St. Joe and Codina.