It was a bad and unbelievable story. The Daily Wire broke a story about internal correspondence showing a FEMA official told workers in Lake Placid, Florida to avoid the homes of people with Trump signs when they were canvassing the area to see who might need aid after Hurricane Milton. Whistleblowers leaked the story.
FEMA didn’t deny the story; it would have been tough, given the evidence of the messages. FEMA head Deanne Criswell fired the official involved in those messages, painted the episode as an aberration, and referred it to the Office of the Special Counsel
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said they also would be investigating.
READ MORE: OUTRAGE: FEMA Workers Working Hurricane Milton Aftermath Ordered to Bypass Houses With Trump Signs
FEMA Administrator Fires Official Who Prevented Assistance to Trump Supporters; That Is Not Enough
But now that unemployed official is talking, and she’s revealing there’s much more to the story. Her name is Marn’i Washington, and she was a reservist disaster assistance crew leader. She spoke to Roland Martin on his show “Roland Martin Unfiltered” on the Black Star Network on Monday evening and said the avoidance in question was “not isolated” and was part of a broader agency approach.
The FEMA official who was just fired for telling workers to avoid homes impacted by the hurricanes in Florida if they had Trump signs says that it was not “isolated” and that FEMA workers were instructed to do it in the Carolinas too. pic.twitter.com/BpBdZFSSPR
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) November 12, 2024
She alleged it was a “colossal event of avoidance not just in the state of Florida” but that it also happened “in the Carolinas.” She said, “Senior leadership will lie to you and tell you they did not know.” But she said if you asked the people in the field, they would tell you.
She claimed that the avoidance was about keeping teams safe.
‘If you look at the record there is what you call a community trend… the political hostility that was encountered by my team, they just so happened to have the Trump campaign signage.’
‘If we are noticing on, for example, Mary Street, and we’re greeted with unwelcomed arms or people are coming out with guns blazing [or]screaming at us, then that’s a street we need to avoid altogether.’
Washington said she did not even vote in this election because she was so busy helping clean up efforts and would never have let politics interfere with her work.
Instead, she said the directive was a matter of keeping her team safe.
She said the leadership was aware of the problem, as our sister site Townhall noted.
She said her higher-ups had approved her team’s avoidance of certain streets in Lake Placid. As proof, she showed a text message she sent a supervisor saying that Lagrow Road was “politically hostile,” so “We are not canvassing this street further.” According to the text exchange, the supervisor responded, “Great decision. Thanks for the update.”
She said FEMA’s policy is to “avoid and de-escalate.”
Washington said she is seeking an attorney and had proof that FEMA was “lying” about the situation.
FEMA needs to answer immediately, and they need to not destroy any of their records because this needs to be investigated. Criswell of course didn’t say any of this, she led everyone to believe this was an isolated incident. If what Washington is saying is true, it’s much more involved.
