House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) announced that a modern whistleblower has come forward alleging another incident of discrimination at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The allegations point to a FEMA contractor claiming that disaster victims holding signs supporting Donald Trump outside their homes were being viewed by officials as “domestic terrorists.”
The allegations are nothing compact of frightening, and if true, they would blow a huge hole in the testimony of agency director Deanne Criswell.
Criswell, testifying before the committee, insisted that an incident in Lake Placid, Florida, in which a supervisor had instructed employees to avoid damaged homes with Trump signs outside as they scouted the area after Hurricane Milton was isolated was isolated .
Marn’i Washington was fired over this incident, but quickly went public with the claim that her actions were a broader directive.
Comer’s bombastic post on At the center of the modern accusation is the family of an elderly disabled veteran in Georgia.
“My staff just made contact with a new whistleblower who provided a credible report that a FEMA contractor visited the family home of an elderly, disabled veteran around October 10,” Comer said. “While he was there, he recommended that the family remove Trump campaign materials and signs from their home and yard and explained that his FEMA supervisors considered Trump supporters to be domestic terrorists.”
“The older homeowners were so frightened by this and feared they would not be able to make up for their loss that they removed the signs. However, FEMA did not return to their residence. This didn’t happen in Florida, it happened in Georgia.”
🚨🚨🚨
My staff has just made contact with a modern whistleblower who has provided a credible report that a FEMA contractor visited the family home of an elderly, disabled veteran around October 10th. While there, he recommended that the family remove Trump campaign materials and signs…
– Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) November 19, 2024
The timing of this alleged incident also coincides with Hurricane Milton, which made landfall as a Category 3 storm, killing 35 people (32 in the United States) and causing an estimated $85 billion in damage to initial estimates.
It is truly heartbreaking to consider that at a time when an older man who served his country is in need, government officials would actually instill fear in him and his family because they fear they will be viewed as “domestic terrorists.” be observed.
Criswell, in a statement the House CommitteeHe insisted that the events in Florida were the result of a single rogue official.
“A FEMA worker deviated from these values when she advised her survivor support team not to go to homes with signs supporting President-elect Trump,” she said. “This is a clear violation of FEMA’s core values and principles of helping people regardless of their political affiliation. That was reprehensible.”
Washington had already contradicted this narrative when it embarked on a media tour in which it refused to be the scapegoat. She said the case included messages between her and the recovery workers discussing this “Avoid homes advertising Trump” and log entries stating “Trump does not sign entry per tour” were more common than reported.
“FEMA always preaches prevention first and de-escalation second, so this is not an isolated incident,” Washington said. “This is a colossal event of avoidance, not just in the state of Florida, but in the Carolinas.”
The FEMA official who was just fired for telling workers to avoid homes affected by the Florida hurricanes if they had Trump signs says it’s not “isolated” and that FEMA employees were ordered to do the same in the Carolinas. pic.twitter.com/BpBdZFSSPR
– Greg Price (@greg_price11) November 12, 2024
The entire ordeal prompted a retrospective analysis of the events of Hurricane Helene, which saw numerous reports of delayed or non-existent federal responses in heavily Republican areas of western North Carolina.
According to the modern whistleblower, Georgia is now also in the game.
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) stated during a House Oversight Committee hearing on FEMA on Tuesday that FEMA must do this completely revised due to their inadequate response efforts to recent natural disasters.
.@fema Workers were ordered to avoid providing disaster relief to Trump supporters.
It is time for FEMA to hand over ALL COMMUNICATIONS between supervisors, field managers, and senior agency leadership.
It’s time for responsibility.
This must NEVER happen again. pic.twitter.com/LTtAIY00Ge
– Congressman Byron Donalds (@RepDonaldsPress) November 19, 2024
“The greatest damage to FEMA’s reputation is the fact that so many citizens are rejected the first time they submit their application through the FEMA portal,” he said. “And if they have to go to the offices of Congress for assistance … if that’s going to be the protocol by which our citizens receive assistance from the Emergency Management Agency, then it needs to be completely overhauled.”
Criswell responded to Donalds’ question: insisted again There is no policy prohibiting helping people with a particular political belief.
“None of our policies, training or information sent to field workers state that we avoid homes for any reason, particularly political affiliation,” Criswell said. “The actions of this one individual are not representative of the work we do at FEMA.”
However, Donalds is calling for “accountability” from the agency and said FEMA must “disclose all communications between supervisors, field managers and the agency’s senior leadership.”
It appears that a more thorough investigation needs to be conducted to find out how widespread this attitude of abandoning Trump supporters during an emergency is.
