Florida Today makes a rampant speculation, unsupported by anything, apparently, other than the fevered imaginations of its editors:

In case you missed it, NASA’s former chief Sean O’Keefe killed the [Hubble] mission in 2004, citing post-Columbia safety concerns. More likely, that was just a cover story to start redirecting money for the agency’s moon-Mars plans.

No, more likely it was exactly what O’Keefe said, and no evidence has ever been produced to indicate otherwise. It was a dumb decision, and O’Keefe should have stepped down much sooner, because it was quite clear that he no longer had the stomach for the job post-Columbia, but it had nothing to do with the VSE. As Keith Cowing says, if they don’t have any actual basis for this statement, they shouldn’t be making it.