The Federal Emergency Management Agency supervisor accused of ordering her subordinates to skip Florida homes with Trump campaign signs has been fired.
Marn’i Washington was sacked for telling disaster relief workers in Lake Placid, Fla., to “not go to homes with yard signs supporting President-elect Trump,” FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said Saturday.
“This is a clear violation of FEMA’s core values and principles to help people regardless of their political affiliation,” she said, adding, “This employee has been terminated and we have referred the matter to the Office of Special Counsel.
“I will continue to do everything I can to make sure this never happens again.”The disturbing directive was allegedly made in late October, as Washington, 39, worked with a FEMA team in the central Florida town in the wake of Hurricane Milton.
“Avoid homes advertising Trump,” she wrote in a “best practices” memo to employees, a copy of which was obtained by Daily Wire.
The instructions also advised them to stay hydrated and to “follow the rules.”She also gave the direction verbally, according to the report.
Washington’s sister April Brown, 39, claimed she was stunned to hear about her sibling’s brazen actions.“I’m completely shocked,” she said.“I can tell you that she set out to help and serve all people,” she continued.
“With her being in that position with FEMA I can’t see her doing anything like that.”
It is unclear why Washington ordered her staff to play politics with their relief efforts, but local officials tore into the former fed discriminating against residents.“In times of need, we’re all Americans,” Dustin Woods, 39, a pastor and member of the town’s Local Planning Agency board, told The Post.
“There are no parties when we are recovering.”Lake Placid Mayor John Holbrook said hearing about her discrimination “really sickens me.”
“When it comes to politics and religion, everybody should just keep that separate” from their jobs, he added.
Workers told the Daily Wire they ultimately skipped about 20 homes displaying Trump signs or flags between late October and early November due to Washington’s edict, denying those residents the chance to sign up for federal relief aid in the wake of the harrowing Category 3 storm that caused an estimated $50 billion in damage across the state.
“Trump sign no entry per leadership,” one worker wrote in FEMA’s tracking system when explaining a skipped home, according to a screenshot obtained by the outlet.
Lake Placid was less severely impacted by the destructive storm compared to communities on the state’s west coast, with officials suggesting the damage largely amounted to tornadoes hitting a handful of neighborhoods, and a trailer home park.
Many residents have taken it upon themselves to clean up the destruction and debris with assistance from Highlands County, Holbrook said, adding that he hadn’t noticed a ton of FEMA activity in the area.“We’re picking up most of the debris ourselves,” he said.
Washington issued her memo after Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and several local residents affected by Hurricane Helene began lashing out at the Biden-Harris administration over the federal government’s sluggish disaster response.
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis seethed that the former FEMA employee’s directive was a clear display of the Biden-Harris administration’s “weaponization” of government.”
“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,” he added.Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
