An investigation into FEMA didn’t fit Trump’s narrative. His DHS ordered a new probe that did

By Gabe Cohen, CNN

(CNN) — In the final month of the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump put his critique of FEMA’s response to Hurricane Helene front and center, making false claims that funding was stolen for illegal migrants and the agency ignored requests for help.

One particular claim had legs – that Republican residents were not getting the aid they needed because of their political affiliation.

An investigation that began under then-President Joe Biden and carried over into the Trump administration ultimately cleared the Federal Emergency Management Agency, finding no evidence of a systemic effort to deny aid based on politics while singling out one supervisor’s actions as illegal and improper.

But at the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, leadership including Secretary Kristi Noem weren’t satisfied, three former senior FEMA officials told CNN. Within weeks, leaders ordered a new investigation that came to a much different conclusion.

Noem announced last week that the DHS probe found “for years, FEMA employees under the Biden Administration intentionally delayed much-needed aid to Americans suffering from natural disasters on purely political grounds.” She called it “textbook political discrimination” against Trump supporters.

The investigation looked at whether FEMA workers who went door-to-door in disaster zones recorded any protected private information about survivors’ political views. It found roughly 100 field reports — a small fraction out of tens of thousands of cases during the Biden administration — where FEMA workers visiting homes mentioned campaign signs or made notes related to “political beliefs.”

Investigators flagged a few instances where canvasser notes mentioned “Trump” or “Biden,” but in most cases, workers were documenting gun signage, which also was categorized as political. The report does not show that disaster survivors were denied aid because of these notations, and sources say the gun notations were often made for safety reasons.

Yet Noem portrayed the findings as proof of FEMA’s “widespread” and “systematic” bias and said she would refer the issue to the Justice Department for potential prosecution — her latest public attack on an agency she argues needs sweeping reforms or even abolition. Behind the scenes, insiders accuse DHS and Noem of stoking rumors and misinformation to help justify tearing FEMA down, as some argue it’s the Trump administration using disaster aid as a political weapon.

“They’ve been looking to prove that narrative any way they can, and to me, this is just a fabricated way of advancing it when really it’s not factually there,” said one of several FEMA officials who asked not to be named for fear of retribution.

“If we do something wrong, okay, hold us accountable,” the official added. “But don’t fabricate it because it meets your political narrative. That’s just bad government.”

Two hurricanes and a political firestorm

The political firestorm began last September after Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina. Then-candidate Trump accused FEMA and the Biden administration of ignoring Republican areas and spending all its disaster aid on undocumented immigrants.

FEMA workers soon faced threats and hostility in disaster zones, and some teams were pulled from areas for safety. Weeks later, Hurricane Milton hit the Florida coast. FEMA teams, now stretched thin up and down the coast, reported widespread harassment fueled by Trump’s claims.

In late October, FEMA field supervisor Marn’i Washington delivered a now infamous directive to her 11 staffers deployed in Florida: “Avoid homes advertising Trump.”

Washington told CNN at the time that her supervisors had issued the orders, citing concerns about abuse from Trump supporters. However, the investigation later determined that no such directive was given; it was Washington’s own interpretation of how to protect her team.

FEMA leadership working under the Biden administration fired Washington and denounced her actions, deploying staff to the homes that may have been skipped. Then-FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell was called before Congress, where she condemned the directive as illegal and unacceptable, and said she’d already referred the case for further investigation.

“I stand by the testimony I provided to Congress under oath. When the initial incident came to light, I immediately took decisive action and addressed the situation,” Criswell told CNN in a statement last week. “I remain confident that we responded appropriately to the information we had.”

Still, Florida’s attorney general filed a lawsuit alleging civil rights violations against FEMA and Criswell. To some, Washington’s actions were proof that Trump was right: FEMA is biased against Republicans.

An investigation clears FEMA

Over the next four months, FEMA’s Office of Professional Responsibility, Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General and the Office of Special Counsel investigated the incident and broader agency culture – a probe that carried into Trump’s term.

Days after his inauguration, Trump visited western North Carolina and floated the idea of eliminating FEMA.

In March, Trump’s acting FEMA administrator, Cameron Hamilton, told lawmakers that three additional staffers had been fired in connection with the Washington incident, primarily for poor supervision or misleading investigators, two sources told CNN.

But Hamilton’s letter to Congress said investigators found “no evidence that this was a systemic problem, nor that it was directed by agency or field leadership.”

In fact, they found the opposite: that politics rarely came up in disaster zones.

“Tens of thousands of records were screened and reviewed. We found there was no reasonable evidence to authenticate a statement that denial of aid or assistance occurred based upon political bias from FEMA leadership,” Hamilton told CNN this week. “These isolated incidents were awful and a breach of public trust, however I did not see evidence that they were systemic across the agency. I say this as a lifelong Republican and supporter of President Trump.”

The probe formally cleared Criswell and FEMA in April, and Florida settled its lawsuit with no damages paid.

At the time, agency leaders believed the case was closed and perhaps the findings would ease the anti-FEMA rhetoric from Trump and Noem. They were wrong.

A second look at FEMA wrongdoing

Roman Jankowski, the newly appointed head of DHS’s Privacy Office and an alum of the Heritage Foundation, launched a separate review weeks after the internal probe concluded and requested the data investigators had relied on, multiple sources said.

Jankowski took a different approach, focusing on whether FEMA aid workers violated privacy laws by recording protected information — such as political beliefs — and whether that information could have been used to withhold disaster aid for political reasons. His review went beyond the initial investigation, which focused solely on the 2024 hurricane season, and examined data from the entirety of Biden’s four years in office.

“He definitely made it clear that he suspected FEMA was involved in broad-scale wrongdoing,” said a senior FEMA official who spoke directly to Jankowski about the review. “You could tell he had already arrived at a conclusion that FEMA as an agency needed to be severely punished, which was evident in his tone and language.”

Jankowski’s team released its report last week.

The 22-page report concludes FEMA canvassers going door-to-door repeatedly violated – or may have violated – privacy laws by collecting information on survivors’ political beliefs, and in a handful of cases, bypassed certain homes based on the details they noted.

But more than a dozen current and former FEMA officials argue that the evidence does not support claims of a systemic problem. They point out canvassers referenced Trump just 15 times in their reports, and it remains unclear whether workers never returned to those homes.

“I’m not a statistician, but when you’re looking at four years of data across tens of thousands of damaged homes, it doesn’t seem significant,” former FEMA chief of staff Michael Coen, who served under the Biden and Obama administrations, told CNN. “It doesn’t demonstrate that people were discriminated against in a systematic way.”

FEMA officials say these freeform notes are primarily used to alert colleagues about field conditions, especially for safety, and were not surprised that most of the so-called “partisan” notes referenced gun signage.

After Hurricane Helene, those safety worries reached a fever pitch. Trump’s relentless attacks on FEMA had sparked a wave of threats against the teams trying to help survivors in North Carolina, leaving workers on edge.

“We were hearing that guys in trucks with guns were out looking for FEMA employees, and the teams were freaked out,” a former senior official deployed to North Carolina said. “Let’s have common sense. FEMA employees are not law enforcement officers. They’re not walking around with bulletproof vests. This idea that they’re just going to run into harm’s way to register somebody is ridiculous.”

The report points to a few specific entries from canvassers who allegedly skipped homes, such as: “Survivor very anti govt anti Biden. Told me to tell Biden to go [f***] himself” 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.”

DHS raised concerns that such notes likely led FEMA teams not to return to the homes.

But Noem has been more definitive in her claims about what the investigation found, saying the probe found “FEMA employees systematically refused to visit the houses of disaster survivors that displayed signs and flags they disagreed with, including those with campaign signs supporting President Trump.”

Trump’s FEMA ended door-to-door canvassing earlier this year, largely because of safety concerns and the fact that most survivors now apply for FEMA assistance online or through call centers, not through canvassers.

Several current and former senior FEMA officials acknowledged that some canvassers may have violated privacy laws and agreed that reviewing those cases would be appropriate. However, they cautioned that using this as evidence of an agencywide systemic effort to deny aid based on politics is unfounded.

“Whether or not there was bias in note taking, that’s a highly subjective analysis, but we didn’t find it to be sufficient to conclude wide-spread impact,” Hamilton said this week of the first internal investigation.

The next phase of Trump’s war on FEMA

As Noem paints the agency as partisan and inept, the new FEMA Review Council is set to present recommendations for reforms in the coming weeks. Trump has vowed to start phasing out FEMA after hurricane season, though he hasn’t detailed what that will entail.

From the outset, Noem positioned herself as Trump’s point person to fulfill his promise to dismantle FEMA. She now says the goal is to eliminate FEMA “as it exists today,” and she’s made clear that “cleaning house” and asserting control are central to that process.

“She’s trying to drive this narrative of how woke, terrible and unaccountable FEMA is, which is why they need to abolish it,” one former top official said.

Meanwhile, current and former FEMA officials say her attacks continue to erode public trust in the agency responsible for helping disaster survivors in their most vulnerable moments.

“It’s dangerous,” said Coen, the former FEMA chief of staff. “The faith in FEMA has declined. When people lose their trust in the federal government in a time of need, they’re going to feel more helpless.”

Some FEMA officials note the irony of these accusations, as Trump himself faces criticism for politicizing disaster aid — repeatedly posting on Truth Social about sending millions to states that supported him.

Last week, Trump announced $2.5 million for Missouri after speaking with its Republican governor, despite FEMA recommending denial because the damage was below the agency’s threshold for federal aid to be distributed.

“That request was dead and buried in our minds,” a senior FEMA official involved in the process told CNN. “Our damage assessments didn’t seem to indicate the recovery was beyond the State’s capacity. And believe me, we’re generally eager to help our state partners when it’s warranted.”

The Trump administration had previously fast-tracked FEMA money to Missouri while emergency funds for other states remained frozen.

In contrast, Democratic-led states like Maryland and Washington have been denied disaster aid by the president, even when their damage far exceeded FEMA’s threshold and approval was recommended.

Noem has ramped up her rhetoric in recent months.

Last month, she issued a press release announcing the firing of a FEMA staffer and an agency contractor for viewing sexually explicit content on government devices.

“We are cleaning house at FEMA to make this dysfunctional agency work for the American people the way that it was intended,” she wrote at the time.

Since pledging to dismantle FEMA at the start of the administration, DHS leaders have subjected staff to polygraph tests, publicly fired employees, and placed dozens on administrative leave without warning or explanation. More than a quarter of FEMA’s full-time workforce has left through layoffs and buyouts, including dozens of senior leaders.

Behind the scenes, DHS has consolidated power at FEMA, filling leadership roles with political appointees and pushing out career experts who helped shape disaster response and recovery.

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