All the cool people were going to see Hamilton.

Via Tampa Bay Times:

Undercover FBI agents paid for Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum’s hotel room and his ticket to the Broadway musical Hamilton during a 2016 trip to New York City, according to a bombshell trove of records that raise new questions just two weeks before next month’s election.

The records include photos, a video and dozens of text messages between Gillum, former lobbyist Adam Corey and an undercover FBI agent, and they appear to refute what the mayor has said that trip and others.

His campaign has maintained — and continued to maintain Tuesday — that Gillum’s brother, Marcus, who lives in Chicago, handed him the ticket the night of the show.

The campaign has not said how Marcus Gillum came by such a difficult-to-obtain Broadway ticket, or whether Andrew Gillum asked his brother about it.

“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 statement.

But the messages show that Gillum was told the tickets came from “Mike Miller,” who was an FBI agent posing as a developer looking into city corruption.

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

“Awesome news about Hamilton,” Gillum replied, according to the records.

Tuesday’s extraordinary release came from Chris Kise, an attorney representing Corey, who’s at the center of the FBI’s long-running probe into corruption in the state capital. No one has been charged, and Gillum has said that agents assured him he was neither a target nor a focus of the probe.

Kise said he gave the records to the Florida Commission on Ethics, which is investigating a complaint about Gillum’s trips to New York City and Costa Rica with Corey, on Tuesday. Then he gave copies to the campaigns of Gillum and his opponent in the governor’s race, Republican Ron DeSantis.

Gillum has repeatedly given vague answers to questions about who paid for what during the August 2016 trip to New York. And during Sunday’s debate, Gillum again avoided the question when DeSantis asked him about the tickets.

“Did you pay for the Hamilton tickets?” DeSantis asked.

“First of all, I am a grown man,” Gillum replied. “My wife and I take vacations and we pay for our own vacations … I don’t take free trips from anybody. I’m a hard-working 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.”

But the records go beyond Broadway tickets.

They show that undercover FBI agents posing as businessmen were working for months to get an out-of-state meeting with Gillum, and that Gillum appeared willing to oblige them.

In June, Corey texted Miller, the undercover agent, telling him that he would discuss options with Gillum.

“I just want to make it a good trip and Sweets and B will be booked on something else if we don’t lock something down,” Miller replied.

“Mike Sweets” and “Brian Butler” were the two other undercover FBI agents posing as businessmen.

Corey then followed up proposing to meet in Las Vegas.

“AG thinks Vegas in August is an easier option for him,” Corey texted Miller. “He is double checking availability with his office now. Stand by.”

Instead of Las Vegas, they met in New York, while Gillum was attending a conference on behalf of the People for the American Way Foundation, which Gillum worked for.

The text messages show that Miller paid for the airfare and hotel room for Gillum’s brother, Marcus, who lives in New York City.

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