On October 3, television stations across Florida received letters from the state Department of Health threatening prosecution if they continued to air an advertisement in support of Amendment 4, the ballot initiative that would repeal the state’s six-week abortion ban. These letters were signed by John Wilson, who was then serving as the department’s general counsel; They threatened jail time for any media outlet that refused to remove pro-choice advertising. Floridians Protecting Freedom — which sponsored the ad itself along with Amendment 4 — filed a lawsuit against Wilson.

As her attorneys arrived at the Tallahassee courthouse for a hearing last Thursday, Wilson’s personal attorney approached her. According to sources in the courtroom, Wilson’s attorney offered a statement from her client to the legal team at Floridians Protecting Freedom. A bombshell emerged: The document claimed that Gov. Ron DeSantis’ top advisers, not Wilson, hatched the entire plan to censor Amendment 4 ads. The governor’s aides wrote the threatening letters and then forced Wilson to sign them. Wilson sent out the first round of letters but resigned after DeSantis’ office pressured him to send more letters. He now cooperated with the plaintiffs who had sued him just 24 hours earlier. The defendant had become a whistleblower.

Hours after Thursday’s hearing, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued a preliminary injunction barring the Florida Department of Health from censoring pro-choice speech. However, Wilson’s change of heart suggests that this case will not end with an injunction or after the November election. His statement points to a conspiracy by DeSantis and his advisers to suppress the First Amendment rights of Amendment 4 supporters when it matters most, in the weeks leading up to the election. There’s a chance DeSantis’ surrogates could soon find themselves in serious legal jeopardy, potentially facing damages for personal violation of the Constitution.

Wilson’s statement points to three specific officials: Ryan Newman, general counsel for the Governor’s Executive Office; Jed Doty, deputy general counsel for the Executive Office of the Governor; and Sam Elliott, deputy general counsel for the Executive Office of the Governor. These three men provide DeSantis with a wide range of both legal and ethical advice. (Because they work so closely with the governor, it’s hard to imagine that they would have put this plan into action without DeSantis’ approval. However, the statement does not say that DeSantis himself was involved.)

Wilson confirmed that Elliott sent him draft letters to send to television stations on October 3 without prior discussion. Newman and Doty then “instructed” him to sign them “under my name and on behalf of the Florida Department of Health.” A week later, Wilson resigned “instead of complying with Newman and Doty’s instructions to send further correspondence to the media.” Before he did so, however, Newman “directed” Wilson to “contract for outside counsel” to “assist in enforcement proceedings” against outlets that continued to run the ads. These contracts will cost the public up to $1.4 million.

The Miami Herald reported that Wilson wrote in his resignation letter, “A man is nothing without his conscience. “It has become clear in recent days that I cannot accompany you on the path that lies before the agency.” (About Wilson declined to comment for this story through his attorney.)

Those revelations led Floridians Protecting Freedom — through its attorneys at Elias Law Group and the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida — to dismiss Wilson as a defendant on Monday. FPF had sued Wilson in his individual capacity, seeking financial compensation, including punitive damages, to compensate for the violation and “prevent a recurrence.” By dismissing him from the lawsuit, the group essentially acknowledged that Wilson was not the driving force behind this deprivation of constitutional freedoms. Lawyers wrote that it was “unnecessary to pursue the claims against him.” That dismissal left one defendant in the case: Joseph Ladapo, the state’s surgeon general and head of the Florida Department of Health, appointed by DeSantis.

But Floridians Protecting Freedom is now considering the possibility of filing individual lawsuits against Newman, Elliott and Doty, according to sources close to the legal team. The organization remains focused on ensuring it can speak freely about Amendment 4 before the election. However, an amended complaint could be filed at a later date. And while no final decisions have been made, this lawsuit could name Elliott, Newman and Doty as defendants, seeking damages from all three men for an unlawful deprivation of their civil rights.

Emma Olson Sharkey, an attorney representing FPF, told me that one goal of the lawsuit is to stop other states from using censorship tactics against sponsors of a ballot measure. “What we’ve seen in the past is that when something appears to be working in a state where conservatives control the government, which is the case in Florida, we see those measures spread,” she said. “It is our concern to ensure that this does not spread and to ensure that those who perpetrated this are held to account.” The legal team’s next steps, although still under review, will be based on this be aligned to advance this deeper goal.

If Floridians Protecting Freedom names DeSantis’ aides as defendants, all three men could be in serious trouble. Federal law allows plaintiffs to seek damages from public officials who violate their civil rights. Through a doctrine known as qualified immunity, the Supreme Court limits liability to situations in which officials violate “clearly established” law. But there is hardly a law more clearly established than the principles of the First Amendment violated in this case. Just last semester, in National Rifle Association v. VulloThe Supreme Court ruled unanimously that government officials cannot force third parties to suppress the speech of an interest group. It’s scary how close Vullo follows the facts of this case (although the case involved far more subtle coercion).

“Vullo is spot on,” Ben Stafford, another FPF attorney, told me. “Every official who reads it knows full well that a letter like the one sent in our case was unconstitutional. Period.” In other words, the law here is “clearly set” to an unusually specific degree. That means future defendants will have serious difficulty using qualified immunity to avoid liability.

In some respects, FPF has already suffered irreparable damage. Some networks quickly stopped airing the Amendment 4 ads after receiving the state’s letter, suppressing important speech on a matter of grave public concern. FPF will never regain the ability it lost to educate the public about the change. Compensatory damages are intended to provide a plaintiff with the next best thing: compensation for irreparable wrongs that also serve as a deterrent against future wrongdoing. Whether you win or lose in November, abortion rights advocates have a compelling reason to hold accountable those responsible for trying to silence them Speech.