FEMA faces scrutiny after message sent to skip homes with Trump signs

FEMA is facing accusations of bias as a message sent by an employee emerged telling them to skip homes with signs supporting Donald Trump following a hurricane.

The letter sent to President Joe Biden from Kevin Guthrie, the Executive Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, read that an employee named “Miss Washington” and her team “Crew 33” ignored homes with Trump signs following Hurricane Milton.

The employee’s text message read: “Avoid homes advertising Trump.”

FEMA will not name the accused employee; however, officials have confirmed this incident occurred in Highlands County.

WINK has since confirmed the same crew accused of passing by those Trump supporters in Highlands County also canvassed neighborhoods in Citrus County.

Deanne Criswell, FEMA’s 12th Administrator, posted a thread on X condemning the employee’s actions, saying, “This is a clear violation of FEMA’s core values and principles to help people regardless of their political affiliation.”

The employee has since been terminated.

Florida leaders have taken to social media to weigh in on the controversy.

Congressman Greg Steube posted on X saying, “I want a full investigation. Disasters don’t pick sides, nor should federal aid for Americans.”

Steube told us that Criswell will testify before the oversight committee next week, and she won’t come alone.

Stuebe told us that it’s a good thing FEMA is not trying to defend this.

“I expect this fired employee is going to be brought in under oath and deposed as to who was directing her to do this. The FEMA director wants people to believe this is an isolated incident. I don’t believe this is an isolated incident,” Steube said.

We asked Steube if he fears that this could have happened in Southwest Florida.

“I absolutely 100% believe that these types of things are happening in Republican districts. My district is overwhelmingly Republican,” he said.

Guthrie agrees. He is spearheading a separate statewide investigation at the orders of Florida Gov. Ron Desantis.

He fears more Trump supporters were skipped in Citrus County by the same crew that worked in Highlands County.

“We are going to go back through those neighborhoods as well where this crew is assigned to see if there was anything that was missed there. We’ve already had a couple of people reach out to us via email saying, ‘Hey, I think I was one of those that might have been missed,'” he said.

Guthrie did make a point of thanking FEMA for being transparent through this process. He said if he discovers laws were broken, the state will file criminal charges, such as theft.

If workers intentionally skip homes, Guthrie said the intent was to deprive people of benefits.

Congressman Byron Donalds said on X that “anyone involved should be fired immediately.
Your politics should never determine whether you receive disaster relief.”

DeSantis called for an investigation into FEMA via an X post that read, “At my direction, the Division of Emergency Management is launching an investigation into the federal government’s targeted discrimination of Floridians who support Donald Trump.”