UPDATE: We missed one donor. A $2,400 donation from Thomas Petway doesn’t show up in a search of the FEC’s electronic files. But the paper records clearly show his contribution. So of the 20 Republicans who signed the letter, nine donated to Crist and eight still have money in his campaign. The blog has been updated to correct the error.

Twenty Republican fund-raisers signed a letter today calling on newly independent Gov. Charlie Crist to return campaign contributions he received from GOP donors.

“As part of your transition into this new phase of your political career, we respectfully request that you return every penny of donor money from every donor who asks for a refund. For those of us who have donated to your Senate campaign, you can start by refunding in full the contributions we have made,” the letter reads.

But just eight of the 20 have any money sitting in Crist’s campaign coffers, records show.

One of the 20 who signed the letter, Gay Gaines of Palm Beach, hasn’t given to Crist in at least 15 years. She donated $2,400 this year to Crist’s GOP rival, Marco Rubio, whose campaign circulated the letter. .

“I’ve never thought he was very dependable,” Gaines said of Crist. “I guess my instincts were right.”

Former U.S. Ambassador Al Hoffman helped write the letter, but he asked for — and received — his cash back in February, just weeks after Hoffman helped push former state GOP chairman Jim Greer out the door.

“When I discovered, in my view, that Charlie was complicit in the Jim Greer debacle, I couldn’t swallow it,” Hoffman said.

Hoffman said he believes Crist was aware that Greer and Delmar Johnson, then the party’s executive director, were diverting 10 percent of all party donations their LLC known as Victory Strategies.

“How could he not have been aware of that?,” Hoffman said. “If he wasn’t aware of it it means he was totally incompetent. If he was aware of it, he was complicit. Either way it’s pretty damning.”

Here’s our story of the day’s events in the U.S. Senate race.

And keep reading for the text of the letter along with the list of which signatories actually gave to Crist’s Senate campaign.

(more…)

Republican Party of Florida Jim Greer, under fire from GOP discontents trying to oust him from his post, removed the party’s grievance chairman Tony DiMatteo from the committee set to deal with a complaint about the party infighting.

Greer accused dissidents of “treason,” “slander” and “libel” in a letter to party leaders.

In the letter, Greer, handpicked by Gov. Charlie Crist, warns he won’t back down from his leadership spot despite efforts by what he calls Marco Rubio backers to get rid of him. (more…)

GOP money man Al Hoffman, a developer and former finance director for the Republican National Committee, wrote a scathing letter to Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer asking him to step down.

“It is time for you to resign in order to end the excessive, irresponsible, unethical, and perhaps illegal spending that has marked your administration,” Hoffman wrote to Greer in a letter dated today.

Greer blew off Hoffman’s request after the state party executive board gave him a 25-2 vote of confidence this afternoon.

“It reminds me of a World War II United States Army general when he was asked to surrender. He wrote one word back on a piece of paper. And it was ‘nuts.’ So that’s all I have to say about the letter,” Greer said.

He said Hoffman’s out of touch and hasn’t done much in the way of fundraising for the state GOP in the past three or four years.

Maybe that’s because Hoffman was out of the country at the time.

President George W. Bush appointed Hoffman to serve as ambassador to Portugal in 2005.