FEMA Official Told Hurricane Relief Workers To Skip Houses With Trump Signs
A Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) director told disaster relief workers in Hurricane-ravaged Florida to “avoid homes” that displayed lawn signs in support of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the agency confirmed Friday.
The official, Marn’i Washington gave the instructions both verbally and in a group chat used by relief workers who were surveying the damage from Hurricane Milton in the Lake Placid area last month, according to an explosive report from the Daily Wire. In a memo titled “Best Practices” that was obtained by the outlet, a bullet point instructs workers to, “Avoid homes advertising Trump.”
Other bullet points instructed workers to focus on “de-escalation,” avoid traveling alone and to “follow the rules.”
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Government employees told the Daily Wire that at least 2o homes with visible Trump signs or flags were skipped from the end of October through November as a result of Washington’s instructions meaning they were not given the opportunity to qualify for FEMA assistance. Images shared with the outlet confirms the report, showing that workers wrote “Trump sign no entry per leadership,” in official messaging systems when skipping over the houses.
It is unclear whether the same guidance was issued elsewhere in the country. The employees were part of a Department of Homeland Security surge capacity force team, meaning they volunteered from other DHS agencies to assist FEMA as it dealt with a second major hurricane in under a month.
Whistleblowers say that relief workers were told it was “best practice” to pass over houses “advertising Trump.”
The workers would enter into the system that they made no contact with the residents, blaming the directive: “Trump sign, no contact per leadership” pic.twitter.com/1b0uL7pSDy
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) November 8, 2024
“I know they’re short-staffed, I thought we could go help and make a difference,” one of the employees told the Daily Wire. “When we got there we were told to discriminate against people. It’s almost unbelievable to think that somebody in the federal government would think that’s okay.”
The employee added that it felt wrong to discriminate against political opponents of the Biden Administration “at their most vulnerable.”
“I volunteered to help disaster victims, not discriminate against them,” the employee said. “It didn’t matter if people were black, white, Hispanic, for Trump, for Harris. Everyone deserves the same amount of help.”
The guidance was issued as victims in the hardest hit areas criticized FEMA and the administration over a lackluster response. Agents who were ordered not to assist Trump supporters were operating in Highlands County, a deep-red area located in south central Florida that overwhelmingly supported the president-elect.
By ignoring the homes, residents were denied the opportunity to qualify for federal assistance in the wake of the disaster that killed hundreds and displaced thousands more in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Florida.
FEMA later confirmed the reports and stated that the agency was “deeply disturbed by this employee’s actions.”
“FEMA helps all survivors regardless of their political preference or affiliation and we are deeply disturbed by this employee’s actions,” an agency spokesperson told the New York Post. “While we believe this is an isolated incident, we have taken measures to remove the employee from their role and are investigating the matter to prevent this from happening ever again,” the statement added.
“The employee who issued this guidance had no authority and was given no direction to tell teams to avoid these homes, and we are reaching out to the people who may have not been reached as a result of this incident. We are horrified that this took place and therefore have taken extreme actions to correct this situation and have ensured that the matter was addressed at all levels.”
Marn’I Washington, an RN who is a community manager at @avanathcapital is the person who told her FEMA team to let Trump supporters in Florida suffer after Hurricane Milton.
She also currently works for @AyaHealthcare.
Are these companies going to keep her? pic.twitter.com/cfCgzxQy7M
— Carmine Sabia (@CarmineSabia) November 9, 2024
Washington has since been fired, though Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has said this is not enough and launched an investigation into the matter
“The blatant weaponization of government by partisan activists in the federal bureaucracy is yet another reason why the Biden-Harris administration is in its final days,” DeSantis wrote in an X post. “At my direction, the Division of Emergency Management is launching an investigation into the federal government’s targeted discrimination of Floridians who support Donald Trump,” he added.
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