Editor’s note: This week, we’re reprinting some of our best stories from the past year. In this piece, originally published in October, Leif Le Mahieu reports on a bombshell report exposing how FEMA denied hurricane aid to Trump supporters — a scandal originally exposed by his reporting.
A bombshell report released Tuesday by the Department of Homeland Security revealed that FEMA’s targeting of Trump supporters was not an isolated incident, contradicting testimony by former President Joe Biden’s FEMA chief.
The DHS Privacy Office said that an investigation into FEMA found that the agency has been tracking the political beliefs of conservative disaster survivors since at least September 2021. The probe was launched by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in response to a Daily Wire report exposing a FEMA employee for instructing her team to “avoid homes advertising Trump” in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton.
Those instructions, given by a FEMA employee named Marn’i Washington who was fired after The Daily Wire report, told relief workers canvassing Lake Placid, Florida, to skip the homes of people with Trump yard signs or flags. In response to this report, Deanne Criswell, who led FEMA under Biden, claimed that the incident was isolated and did not reflect the agency’s standard practices.
However, this political weaponization was “not isolated,” the DHS report found, saying that it had “uncovered evidence that this also occurred during other disasters across the nation.”
Since Hurricane Ida in September 2021, FEMA employees have made notes about the political beliefs of disaster survivors like “angry political rant,” “Sign states I’m a bitter gun owner clinging to my religion,” “Homeowner had a sign stating… this is trump country,” and “[P]ro gun sign.”
Other notes left in the FEMA system included statements like “There was a political flyer so I didn’t leave FEMA brochure” 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.”
“The federal government was withholding aid against Americans in crisis based on their political beliefs — this should horrify every American, regardless of political persuasion,” said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. “For years, FEMA employees under the Biden Administration intentionally delayed much-needed aid to Americans suffering from natural disasters on purely political grounds.”
DHS said that Noem had referred the incident in Lake Placid to the Department of Justice for further investigation and potential prosecution.
The DHS report found that FEMA violated the Privacy Act of 1974 by collecting and storing records tied to protected speech. The investigation “exposed widespread gaps in FEMA’s policies, processes, and procedures, resulting in systemic violations that unfairly targeted individuals across the country,” the report found.
“The DHS Privacy Office examined screenshots of the tool that FEMA canvassers use to collect information from disaster survivors and data extracted from the tool’s database,” the report said. “The tool’s information indicated that canvassers included information related to political party affiliation, campaign signs, and other information related to freedom of expression.”
Since September 2021, FEMA employees and contractors flagged things like “gun signage” 72 times, “Trump” 15 times, “firearms” five times, “political” three times, and “Biden” and “NRA” twice, respectively.
Other examples of things logged into FEMA’s tracking system were notes like “angry political rant,” “Sign states I’m a bitter gun owner clinging to my religion,” “Homeowner had a sign stating… this is trump country.”
These findings were all part of the investigation Noem launched into FEMA in response to Washington’s guidance in Florida. The report cites The Daily Wire, noting that it was “the first news outlet to report these allegations.”
The findings appear to contradict FEMA Administrator Criswell’s November 19 testimony to the House Oversight Committee.
“We are working with the inspector general to determine whether or not this is broader than this, but the evidence that I have seen so far shows that this was an isolated incident, and it has not gone beyond what this one employee did,” she said at the time.
The Florida incident prompted actions from dozens of elected officials and investigations from the state of Tennessee, the state of Florida, the House Homeland Security Committee, the House Oversight Committee, an internal FEMA investigation, America First Legal, the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General, and the Office of Special Counsel.
It was also referenced in an executive order from Trump ordering FEMA to be dramatically reformed.
