In the ultimate month of the 2024 presidential marketing campaign, Donald Trump put his critique of FEMA’s response to Hurricane Helene entrance and middle, making false claims that funding was stolen for unlawful migrants and the company ignored requests for assist.
One specific declare had legs – that Republican residents weren’t getting the help they wanted due to their political affiliation.
An investigation that started underneath then-President Joe Biden and carried over into the Trump administration in the end cleared the Federal Emergency Management Agency, discovering no proof of a systemic effort to disclaim help based mostly on politics whereas singling out one supervisor’s actions as unlawful and improper.
But on the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, management together with Secretary Kristi Noem weren’t glad, three former senior FEMA officers instructed NCS. Within weeks, leaders ordered a new investigation that got here to a a lot completely different conclusion.
Noem introduced final week that the DHS probe discovered “for years, FEMA employees under the Biden Administration intentionally delayed much-needed aid to Americans suffering from natural disasters on purely political grounds.” She referred to as it “textbook political discrimination” in opposition to Trump supporters.
The investigation checked out whether or not FEMA employees who went door-to-door in catastrophe zones recorded any protected non-public details about survivors’ political opinions. It discovered roughly 100 discipline stories — a small fraction out of tens of hundreds of instances throughout the Biden administration — the place FEMA employees visiting houses talked about marketing campaign indicators or made notes associated to “political beliefs.”
Investigators flagged a few situations the place canvasser notes talked about “Trump” or “Biden,” however generally, employees had been documenting gun signage, which additionally was categorized as political. The report doesn’t present that catastrophe survivors had been denied help due to these notations, and sources say the gun notations had been usually made for security causes.
Yet Noem portrayed the findings as proof of FEMA’s “widespread” and “systematic” bias and mentioned she would refer the issue to the Justice Department for potential prosecution — her newest public assault on an company she argues wants sweeping reforms and even abolition. Behind the scenes, insiders accuse DHS and Noem of stoking rumors and misinformation to assist justify tearing FEMA down, as some argue it’s the Trump administration utilizing catastrophe help as a political weapon.
“They’ve been looking to prove that narrative any way they can, and to me, this is just a fabricated way of advancing it when really it’s not factually there,” mentioned certainly one of a number of FEMA officers who requested to not be named for worry of retribution.
“If we do something wrong, okay, hold us accountable,” the official added. “But don’t fabricate it because it meets your political narrative. That’s just bad government.”
Two hurricanes and a political firestorm
The political firestorm started final September after Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina. Then-candidate Trump accused FEMA and the Biden administration of ignoring Republican areas and spending all its catastrophe help on undocumented immigrants.
FEMA employees quickly confronted threats and hostility in catastrophe zones, and a few groups had been pulled from areas for safety. Weeks later, Hurricane Milton hit the Florida coast. FEMA groups, now stretched skinny up and down the coast, reported widespread harassment fueled by Trump’s claims.
In late October, FEMA discipline supervisor Marn’i Washington delivered a now infamous directive to her 11 staffers deployed in Florida: “Avoid homes advertising Trump.”
Washington instructed NCS on the time that her supervisors had issued the orders, citing issues about abuse from Trump supporters. However, the investigation later decided that no such directive was given; it was Washington’s personal interpretation of defend her group.
FEMA management working underneath the Biden administration fired Washington and denounced her actions, deploying workers to the houses that might have been skipped. Then-FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell was referred to as earlier than Congress, the place she condemned the directive as unlawful and unacceptable, and mentioned she’d already referred the case for additional investigation.
“I stand by the testimony I provided to Congress under oath. When the initial incident came to light, I immediately took decisive action and addressed the situation,” Criswell instructed NCS in a assertion final week. “I remain confident that we responded appropriately to the information we had.”
Still, Florida’s lawyer normal filed a lawsuit alleging civil rights violations in opposition to FEMA and Criswell. To some, Washington’s actions had been proof that Trump was proper: FEMA is biased in opposition to Republicans.
Over the subsequent 4 months, FEMA’s Office of Professional Responsibility, Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General and the Office of Special Counsel investigated the incident and broader company tradition – a probe that carried into Trump’s time period.
Days after his inauguration, Trump visited western North Carolina and floated the concept of eliminating FEMA.
In March, Trump’s appearing FEMA administrator, Cameron Hamilton, told lawmakers that three extra staffers had been fired in reference to the Washington incident, primarily for poor supervision or deceptive investigators, two sources instructed NCS.
But Hamilton’s letter to Congress mentioned investigators discovered “no evidence that this was a systemic problem, nor that it was directed by agency or field leadership.”
In truth, they discovered the alternative: that politics not often got here up in catastrophe zones.
“Tens of thousands of records were screened and reviewed. We found there was no reasonable evidence to authenticate a statement that denial of aid or assistance occurred based upon political bias from FEMA leadership,” Hamilton instructed NCS this week. “These isolated incidents were awful and a breach of public trust, however I did not see evidence that they were systemic across the agency. I say this as a lifelong Republican and supporter of President Trump.”
The probe formally cleared Criswell and FEMA in April, and Florida settled its lawsuit with no damages paid.
At the time, company leaders believed the case was closed and maybe the findings would ease the anti-FEMA rhetoric from Trump and Noem. They had been incorrect.
Roman Jankowski, the newly appointed head of DHS’s Privacy Office and an alum of the Heritage Foundation, launched a separate overview weeks after the interior probe concluded and requested the information investigators had relied on, a number of sources mentioned.
Jankowski took a completely different method, specializing in whether or not FEMA help employees violated privateness legal guidelines by recording protected data — reminiscent of political opinions — and whether or not that data might have been used to withhold catastrophe help for political causes. His overview went past the preliminary investigation, which targeted solely on the 2024 hurricane season, and examined information from the whole lot of Biden’s 4 years in workplace.
“He definitely made it clear that he suspected FEMA was involved in broad-scale wrongdoing,” mentioned a senior FEMA official who spoke on to Jankowski concerning the overview. “You could tell he had already arrived at a conclusion that FEMA as an agency needed to be severely punished, which was evident in his tone and language.”
Jankowski’s group launched its report final week.
The 22-page report concludes FEMA canvassers going door-to-door repeatedly violated – or might have violated – privateness legal guidelines by accumulating data on survivors’ political opinions, and in a handful of instances, bypassed sure houses based mostly on the main points they famous.
But greater than a dozen present and former FEMA officers argue that the proof doesn’t help claims of a systemic drawback. They level out canvassers referenced Trump simply 15 occasions of their stories, and it stays unclear whether or not employees by no means returned to these houses.
“I’m not a statistician, but when you’re looking at four years of data across tens of thousands of damaged homes, it doesn’t seem significant,” former FEMA chief of workers Michael Coen, who served underneath the Biden and Obama administrations, instructed NCS. “It doesn’t demonstrate that people were discriminated against in a systematic way.”
FEMA officers say these freeform notes are primarily used to alert colleagues about discipline circumstances, particularly for security, and weren’t stunned that many of the so-called “partisan” notes referenced gun signage.
After Hurricane Helene, these security worries reached a fever pitch. Trump’s relentless assaults on FEMA had sparked a wave of threats in opposition to the groups making an attempt to assist survivors in North Carolina, leaving employees on edge.
“We were hearing that guys in trucks with guns were out looking for FEMA employees, and the teams were freaked out,” a former senior official deployed to North Carolina mentioned. “Let’s have common sense. FEMA employees are not law enforcement officers. They’re not walking around with bulletproof vests. This idea that they’re just going to run into harm’s way to register somebody is ridiculous.”
The report factors to a few particular entries from canvassers who allegedly skipped houses, reminiscent of: “Survivor very anti govt anti Biden. Told me to tell Biden to go [f***] himself” and “…a lot of explicit political flags, posters, etc. ‘F*** Joe Biden’ ‘MAGA 2024’ ‘Joe Biden Sucks’ ‘Trump 2024.’ We do not recommend anyone visiting this location.”
DHS raised issues that such notes seemingly led FEMA groups to not return to the houses.
But Noem has been extra definitive in her claims about what the investigation discovered, saying the probe discovered “FEMA employees systematically refused to visit the houses of disaster survivors that displayed signs and flags they disagreed with, including those with campaign signs supporting President Trump.”
Trump’s FEMA ended door-to-door canvassing earlier this 12 months, largely due to security issues and the actual fact that most survivors now apply for FEMA help on-line or by name facilities, not by canvassers.
Several present and former senior FEMA officers acknowledged that some canvassers might have violated privateness legal guidelines and agreed that reviewing these instances could be acceptable. However, they cautioned that utilizing this as proof of an agencywide systemic effort to disclaim help based mostly on politics is unfounded.
“Whether or not there was bias in note taking, that’s a highly subjective analysis, but we didn’t find it to be sufficient to conclude wide-spread impact,” Hamilton mentioned this week of the primary inside investigation.
As Noem paints the company as partisan and inept, the new FEMA Review Council is about to current suggestions for reforms within the coming weeks. Trump has vowed to begin phasing out FEMA after hurricane season, although he hasn’t detailed what that will entail.
From the outset, Noem positioned herself as Trump’s level particular person to meet his promise to dismantle FEMA. She now says the objective is to eradicate FEMA “as it exists today,” and she or he’s made clear that “cleaning house” and asserting management are central to that course of.
“She’s trying to drive this narrative of how woke, terrible and unaccountable FEMA is, which is why they need to abolish it,” one former prime official mentioned.
Meanwhile, present and former FEMA officers say her assaults proceed to erode public belief within the company chargeable for serving to catastrophe survivors of their most weak moments.
“It’s dangerous,” mentioned Coen, the previous FEMA chief of workers. “The faith in FEMA has declined. When people lose their trust in the federal government in a time of need, they’re going to feel more helpless.”
Some FEMA officers word the irony of those accusations, as Trump himself faces criticism for politicizing catastrophe help — repeatedly posting on Truth Social about sending tens of millions to states that supported him.
Last week, Trump announced $2.5 million for Missouri after talking with its Republican governor, regardless of FEMA recommending denial as a result of the harm was beneath the company’s threshold for federal help to be distributed.
“That request was dead and buried in our minds,” a senior FEMA official concerned within the course of instructed NCS. “Our damage assessments didn’t seem to indicate the recovery was beyond the State’s capacity. And believe me, we’re generally eager to help our state partners when it’s warranted.”
The Trump administration had beforehand fast-tracked FEMA money to Missouri whereas emergency funds for different states remained frozen.
In distinction, Democratic-led states like Maryland and Washington have been denied catastrophe help by the president, even when their harm far exceeded FEMA’s threshold and approval was really helpful.
Noem has ramped up her rhetoric in current months.
Last month, she issued a press launch asserting the firing of a FEMA staffer and an company contractor for viewing sexually specific content material on authorities units.
“We are cleaning house at FEMA to make this dysfunctional agency work for the American people the way that it was intended,” she wrote on the time.
Since pledging to dismantle FEMA in the beginning of the administration, DHS leaders have subjected workers to polygraph assessments, publicly fired workers, and positioned dozens on administrative depart with out warning or clarification. More than a quarter of FEMA’s full-time workforce has left by layoffs and buyouts, together with dozens of senior leaders.
Behind the scenes, DHS has consolidated energy at FEMA, filling management roles with political appointees and pushing out profession consultants who helped form catastrophe response and restoration.