Copyright Santa Clarita Valley Signal
By Tom Ozimek Contributing Writer The Department of Homeland Security said on Tuesday that a wide-ranging internal investigation found the Federal Emergency Management Agency engaged in “textbook political discrimination” during the Biden administration by systematically withholding or delaying disaster aid to Americans whose homes displayed pro-Trump or pro-Second Amendment signs. The probe, conducted by the DHS Privacy Office, concluded that FEMA employees between 2021 and 2024 recorded citizens’ political beliefs in agency databases, and that those details were sometimes used to bypass or postpone aid to disaster survivors. The conduct, investigators said, violated the Privacy Act of 1974 and other DHS data-handling rules intended to protect Americans’ First Amendment rights. “The information collected included obviously protected information about individuals’ freedom of expression, such as campaign signs showing support for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump or political positions, such as supporting gun ownership, or indicating that an individual expressed support or disagreed with a political leader,” the report, dated August 2025 and released this week, states. Internal FEMA communications reviewed by DHS showed that several supervisors and crew leads told field teams to avoid or delay visits to homes displaying Trump campaign flags or other conservative symbols. Data pulled from FEMA’s disaster-relief software showed skipped home visits, missing aid notifications, and field notes citing political signs as reasons for no contact. The report said FEMA never reported these instances as required “privacy incidents,” and that its oversight mechanisms failed to detect or correct the conduct. Investigators also said the agency created “hidden government databases” that tracked constitutionally protected political expression, eroding public trust and fairness in disaster response. The report characterized FEMA’s actions as “a pattern of weaponizing federal power against Americans.” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the findings were shocking and revealed a deliberate abuse of power. “The federal government was withholding aid against Americans in crisis based on their political beliefs — this should horrify every American, regardless of political persuasion,” Noem said in a statement on Tuesday. “We will not let this stand.” The issue first came to light after Hurricane Milton struck Florida’s Gulf Coast in October 2024. FEMA fired a crew leader, later identified as Marn’i Washington, after screenshots published by The Daily Wire showed messages instructing field workers to skip homes with Trump campaign signs. Then-FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell condemned the conduct as reprehensible and referred the case to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which enforces the Hatch Act, prohibiting partisan political activity by federal employees. In a February 2025 complaint, the OSC alleged that Washington violated the Hatch Act by engaging in political activity while on duty, noting that the “presence of a campaign sign is not a reason that FEMA personnel would or should avoid visiting a property.” The office argued the “Hatch Act prohibits an employee from using her official authority or influence to interfere with or affect the results of an election.” Washington denied initiating the policy. She told Fox News and other outlets that avoiding homes with Trump signs “was the culture” within FEMA and that managers already discouraged such visits over safety concerns. She said she was made a scapegoat for directives that originated higher in the chain of command, an allegation Criswell rejected. “There is nothing in our policies and our procedures, in our training that would direct any employee to bypass anybody’s home based on their political party,” Criswell told lawmakers in November 2024, adding that she had seen “visual evidence” that Washington wrote to her team to “avoid homes advertising Trump.” She said she did not believe the conduct reflected a broader cultural issue within FEMA. The DHS Privacy Office report concluded otherwise. It found that similar actions occurred as far back as Hurricane Ida in 2021, affecting multiple disasters nationwide. Investigators said FEMA failed to publish required privacy notices, used irrelevant political data in aid determinations, and neglected to report the violations. To prevent future abuses, DHS said Noem has referred the case to the Justice Department and the DHS Inspector General for potential prosecution and disciplinary review. She also canceled FEMA’s door-to-door survey practice, ordered tighter data-collection controls, and directed the agency to issue new training defining legitimate safety and hostility concerns in the field. The DHS report further recommended removing free-text comment fields from FEMA’s mobile data app, adding dropdown options to prevent unauthorized entries, and creating new auditing and oversight mechanisms to safeguard privacy and impartiality.
