Washington House legislators questioned Deanne Criswell, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for about five hours on Tuesday regarding the federal government’s response to hurricanes Helene and Milton, which devastated the Southeast.
Earlier in the day, Criswell spoke before a House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee before testifying before the House Oversight Committee.
She was questioned by House Republicans over earlier reports that an agency employee said superiors instructed her to avoid Florida homes with Trump-supporting placards. Criswell dismissed the employee and stated that she thought her behavior was unacceptable.The employee, Marn i. Washington, has claimed on Fox News and other media that she was told by her bosses not to visit residences bearing Trump signs in order to prevent confrontation.
FEMA eventually deployed a crew to help occupants of the 20 properties that were identified as having been skipped, Criswell told the Transportation and Infrastructure panel.
The Homeland Security Committee, one of three House panels looking into the reports, is interested in meeting with officials at the FEMA regional office.
“The issue at hand is part of a larger problem: the urgent need to hold the unelected, unaccountable federal workforce accountable to the American people and to the duly elected president of the United States,” stated James Comer, R-Ky, chairman of the Oversight Committee, even though the hearing today will concentrate on FEMA.
People in Highlands County, Florida, needed assistance, but according to Comer, at least one FEMA administrator abused her position to make it more difficult to acquire it.
And it wasn’t until the media revealed this discrimination that FEMA leadership took action against this supervisor,” he said. More significantly, the discrimination was not immediately stopped by FEMA officials.
The employee’s instruction to stay away from households that support Trump, according to Criswell’s statement last month, was a “blatant disregard for FEMA’s basic ideals and principles to assist individuals irrespective of their political affiliation.”
In a conversation with Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., on Tuesday, Criswell stated that FEMA is collaborating with the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security to ascertain whether the incident is representative of a larger trend. However, she also stated, “The evidence that I have seen so far shows that this was an isolated incident.”
According to Criswell, it hasn’t gone beyond what this one employee did.
In response to Criswell’s comments, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, displayed a screen grab of what looked to be a text message asking for orders from a crew team.
One of the bullet points advises FEMA employees to avoid homes that promote Trump, along with other tips like drinking water, taking a towel, and never going anyplace alone. Criswell restated that an investigation is being conducted into the incident.
Ashley Moody, the attorney general of Florida, filed a lawsuit against Criswell and Washington last week for the event.
The influence of President-elect Donald Trump’s comments and conspiracy theories about FEMA and its reaction to the natural disasters was a topic of some of the congressional Democrats’ questions on Tuesday. During his campaign, Trump disseminated misleading information regarding FEMA’s disaster funds, alleging that they were being utilized to support undocumented immigrants rather than helping people recover from the hurricane.
In his opening statement, Jamie Raskin, D-Md., ranking member of the Oversight Committee, denounced the FEMA employee’s directive as a grave legal and constitutional error, but he also claimed that the agency’s employees were compelled to operate under a veil of false information and propaganda designed to undermine public confidence in FEMA.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has stated that “if someone thinks that a FEMA official is coming to their house to take their house away, that’s a situation that could be escalatory or potentially become violent over something that’s not true.” Criswell agreed with this statement when discussing misinformation and disinformation.
“There were accusations that there were physical threats to our FEMA staff when we temporarily moved all of our staff into fixed locations,” Criswell stated, referring to Chimney Rock, North Carolina.
The Biden administration on Monday sent a fresh request for roughly $100 billion in financing to Congress for the government’s continued response to the devastation inflicted by this fall’s hurricanes, which has left states in shock.
Hurricane Helene struck Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina in late September, killing over 220 people. Hurricane Milton, which struck Florida hard in early October, claimed the lives of at least 17.
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