FEMA has fired three more employees it says were implicated in last year’s “reprehensible” situation where emergency workers refused to visit Florida homes that displayed Trump campaign signs.
Cameron Hamilton, acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the three failed “to meet our standards of conduct.” He also said he hoped the firings sent a message to the rest of the agency to shape up.
FEMA had already fired one person, Marn’i Washington, the employee who ordered her team to skip over pro-Trump homes as it made door-to-door visits in Florida in the wake of Hurricane Milton last fall.
Mr. Hamilton said the three new firings were people in the chain of command — presumably higher than Ms. Washington — who “should have had more direct control of their subordinates’ behavior.”
“Thus they have failed to meet my expectations of leaders in this organization and have been terminated,” he wrote in a letter to Congress.
Ms. Washington publicly defended her behavior, saying pro-Trump homes had proved to be more confrontational than other homes, so her team skipped them for safety reasons. She suggested that was standard practice for FEMA and occurred elsewhere, such as in North Carolina.
Mr. Hamilton, though, said FEMA’s investigation found “no evidence this was a systemic problem, nor that it was directed by agency or field leadership.”
A probe by the Office of Special Counsel also disputed Ms. Washington’s claim that pro-Trump homes were more prone to confrontations.
Rep. James Comer, chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, praised FEMA for the firings.
“Political affiliation should never be a factor in distributing taxpayer-funded disaster relief to Americans,” the Kentucky Republican said. “Americans demand accountability in Washington, and President Trump and his administration are delivering it.”
Ms. Washington ran a crew of five FEMA workers who were going door-to-door to offer assistance. She told them to skip homes with Trump signage.
When asked about her orders, she misled her supervisors, the special counsel’s investigation concluded.
She was fired Nov. 9.
Rep. Vern Buchanan, Florida Republican, said at least 20 homes with Trump signs or flags were passed over by Ms. Washington’s crew.
“FEMA’s decision to terminate additional workers and implement a new mandatory training is a step in the right direction, but it should never have come to this,” the congressman said.
