House Republicans asked Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell to provide a briefing and documents to aid their investigation surrounding an employee who advised their team to avoid assisting homes in Florida displaying signs showing support for President-elect Donald Trump in the wake of Hurricane Milton.
The request for additional information came on the same day Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody announced the state is suing FEMA officials over the allegations.
In a letter addressed to Criswell on Thursday signed by all 35 Republicans on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the lawmakers allege that instructions from a FEMA employee for her workers carrying out recovery efforts in the Lake Placid area to avoid houses “advertising Trump” resulted in about 20 homes being skipped from the end of October and into November.
“As the FEMA Administrator, you are responsible for leading the Nation’s efforts to prepare for, protect against, and respond to natural disasters,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter. “The Committee is troubled that under your leadership FEMA failed to aid all Americans, regardless of party affiliation.”
The House Republicans requested the FEMA head brief committee staff on the situation by Dec. 2. and hand over a slew of documents, including those showing any communication around when agency leadership became aware of the “discriminatory guidance” given to workers in Florida, communication around FEMA’s attempts to retroactively provide assistance to those skipped and the agency’s efforts to notify state and local officials of the situation.
Criswell is already set to testify in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability on Nov. 19.
Earlier this month, Criswell acknowledged in a statement that one FEMA employee directed her survivor assistance team to not go to homes with yard signs supporting Trump, pledging that the person had been fired and calling it “reprehensible.”
“This is a clear violation of FEMA’s core values and principles to help people regardless of their political affiliation,” Criswell wrote. “I want to be clear to all of my employees and the American people, this type of behavior and action will not be tolerated at FEMA and we will hold people accountable if they violate these standards of conduct.”
In their letter, House Republicans allege that the employee had not received anything in writing regarding termination as of Nov. 11.
The lawmakers note the request is part of their larger probe into FEMA’s response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which ripped through the Southeast in September and October, leaving more than 200 people dead in the region and causing billions of dollars in damages.
The storms, which came just weeks before November’s presidential election, became intertwined with politics as Trump claimed the federal government was avoiding helping people in Republican areas.
He also spread several other claims without evidence, including that people who are impacted can only receive $750 in aid and FEMA money that should be going to recovery efforts has been used on migrants in the U.S.
“He is lying. Let me get this straight: He’s lying,” President Joe Biden said in response at the time. “And the reason I get so angry about it — I don’t care about what he says about me, but I care what he — what he communicates to the people that — that are in need. He implies that we’re not doing everything possible. We are.”
It also came amid reports that Trump withheld disaster aid to blue states during his presidency.