Rick Scott's office deleted messages related to Irma nursing home deaths

Gov. Rick Scott’s office has confirmed that it deleted voicemail messages from the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills nursing home ― calls made around a day before residents of the home began to overheat and die.

"The voice mails were not retained because the information from each voice mail was collected by the governor's staff and given to the proper agency for handling," a Scott spokeswoman told the Miami Herald Sunday. "Every call was returned."

The issue of Scott’s response to the calls from the nursing home has already become a political one. Last week Sen. Bill Nelson, Scott’s 2018 Senate opponent ― should the governor decide to enter the race ― took an oblique jab at Scott, mentioning “all the phone calls” in a speech from the Senate floor.

Scott has said he is “outraged” over the deaths of the 11 elderly patients.

CBS Miami’s Jim DeFede first reported that the voice mails had been deleted by the governor’s office.

Read the Washington Post’s write up of the voice mail issue here.