Remember the FEMA Workers Who Refused to Help Trump-Supporting Hurricane Victims? — Here’s What Homeland Security Said

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has concluded that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) improperly collected data about the politics of disaster victims.

Matt Taibbi, former Rolling Stone contributor and publisher of Racket News, has the exclusive.

You may remember hearing about FEMA workers skipping houses of Hurricane Milton victims in Florida who had Trump signs in their yards. The workers said that their supervisor, Marn’i Washington, told them to skip those houses for their “safety.” FEMA fired her, and she went public. Washington said the guidance came from the top.

“The government employees told The Daily Wire that at least 20 homes with Trump signs or flags were skipped from the end of October and into November due to the guidance, meaning they were not given the opportunity to qualify for FEMA assistance,” Daily Wire reported.

Former FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell testified before a congressional committee, claiming the incidents were isolated.

Taibbi reported that the Privacy Office of DHS will release a report about these incidents, “the broader issue of using disaster relief work to collect political intelligence on voters, and the potentially withholding of benefits from some with the wrong beliefs.”

He wrote that the Disaster Survivor Assistance Field Operations Guide was vague as written.

The Field Operations Guide instructed FEMA workers to “Remove yourself from the situation if you feel threatened” when dealing with “hostile” individuals, the only problem being, as the new report notes: “The Disaster Survivor Assistance Field Operations Guide does not define the term ‘hostile.’”

Anyone with an agenda could consider people who hold opposing views hostile.

We will update this post with a link to the report when it’s available.

Photo credit: By Junglecat – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, link