A report that followed an investigation into the Federal Emergency Management Agency after accusations the agency was funneling money to undocumented immigrants and ignoring U.S. citizens in areas where Donald Trump is popular found no evidence to support those claims.
So DHS head Kristi Noem and her inner circle had it spiked and ordered up a new one that contained false allegations against President Joe Biden’s administration and FEMA workers, according to a report Wednesday.
According to CNN’s Gabe Cohen, the accusations that prompted the first investigation were made by Donald Trump following Hurricane Helene, and ended up being unsubstantiated in the final analysis — which the DHS rejected.
Cohen wrote, “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.”
That new revised report is now being disputed by former DHS officials, even though it led to Noem telling reporters last week, “For years, FEMA employees under the Biden Administration intentionally delayed much-needed aid to Americans suffering from natural disasters on purely political grounds.”
CNN reported, “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."
The reported added, “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.”
Asked to comment, one FEMA official who requested they not be named for fear of retribution, told CNN, “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.”
They added, “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.”
As for reports that there were armed confrontations between residents and FEMA workers, one former supervisor scoffed, “We were hearing that guys in trucks with guns were out looking for FEMA employees, and the teams were freaked out. 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.”
