The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is accused of instructing volunteers to avoid homes displaying Trump signs following Hurricane Milton—not only in Florida, where initial reports surfaced, but also at homes with Trump signs in western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene.

Marn’i Washington, the former FEMA worker who was fired after a text chain was leaked that showed her instructing colleagues to ‘avoid’ houses that had Trump signs in their yards, told The Daily Mail that FEMA is ‘lying’ about the scandal and making her the ‘scapegoat of a wider practice.’

She said she has proof that FEMA is lying and that other FEMA employees have also done the same. Washington also told YouTube podcaster Roland Martin that ‘FEMA preaches avoidance first, and then de-escalation.’

“This is not isolated,” she told Martin. “This is a colossal event of avoidance. Not just in the state of Florida. You will find avoidance in the Carolinas.”

Washington added that she was only following orders from FEMA when she issued the controversial directive and that FEMA teams experienced hostility on specific streets in the Sunshine State.

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell issued a statement Saturday admonishing Washington’s ‘reprehensible’ actions.

“More than 22,000 FEMA employees every day adhere to FEMA’s core values and are dedicated to helping people before, during and after disasters, often sacrificing time with their own families to help disaster survivors,” she said. “Recently, one FEMA employee departed from these values to advise her survivor assistance team to not go to homes with yard signs supporting President-elect Trump. This is a clear violation of FEMA’s core values and principles to help people regardless of their political affiliation.”

Criswell said that this type of behavior and action would not be tolerated at FEMA, and the agency would hold people accountable if they violated its standards of conduct.

“We take our mission to help everyone before, during, and after disasters seriously,” Criswell added. “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.”

Another report also claims that 50% of phone calls and messages requesting hurricane assistance were ignored by FEMA.

But this isn’t the first time that questions have been raised about FEMA’s actions in recent years; a recording of a 2023 FEMA webinar recently went viral on social media and made national news for all the wrong reasons.

In it, FEMA employees and consultants discussed the need to center “equity” in disaster relief efforts, displacing the traditional emphasis on efficiency and broad-based aid.

“The shift we’re seeing right now is a shift in emergency services from utilitarian principles — where everything is designed for the greatest good for the greatest amount of people — to disaster equity. But we have to do more,” stressed one of the panelists.

There was also a November 2023 FEMA publication entitled “Achieving Equitable Recovery: A Post-Disaster Guide for Local Officials and Leaders” that raised concerns for those in western North Carolina — and their loved ones — impacted by Hurricane Helene.

According to Brian Balfour, John Locke Foundation’s senior vice president of research, the 144-page document is a convoluted hodgepodge of woke ideology combined with bureaucratic red tape. The document begins by declaring that instead of working to be as prepared and efficient in response as possible, FEMA is “working hard to instill equity as a foundation of emergency management.”

Conducting an “equity assessment” before determining how resources should be allocated and a “recovery planning process that acknowledges historical and current inequities”’ is among one of the eight “equity goals” of the document.

The document also includes a “Checklist for Monitoring Equitable Recovery Progress” that includes 102 questions recovery leaders should ask to ensure they are centering “equity” in their recovery efforts. One of the questions is: “Was there discussion about the role of bias, hate, and stereotypes?”

At an Oct. 15 briefing on recovery efforts in western North Carolina, Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper stressed that “misinformation” about recovery efforts “must stop,” saying rumors hurt those who need help the most.

“There’s still a persistent and dangerous flow of misinformation about recovery efforts in western North Carolina that can lead to threats and intimidation, breeds confusion, and demoralizes storm survivors and response workers alike,” he said. “If you’re participating and spreading this stuff, stop it. Whatever your aim is, the people you are really hurting are those in western North Carolina who need help.”

He pushed back on claims, like those made by former Republican gubernatorial candidate and Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who said on social media that Cooper didn’t do enough to help in the recovery efforts.

Cooper and FEMA have not responded to Carolina Journal’s request for comment by publication time.

“It’s unconscionable that FEMA would purposefully avoid helping hurricane victims because they support President Trump,” North Carolina State Sen. Tim Moffitt, R-Henderson, told CJ in an emailed statement. “Politics doesn’t disqualify someone from getting the disaster assistance they deserve, and FEMA officials need to be held accountable for this disgraceful dereliction of duty.”

The communications director for Congressman Chuck Edwards, R, NC-11, which encompasses most of western North Carolina, told CJ in an emailed statement, “I’d like to direct you to FEMA as this was an internal FEMA matter.”

In a post on X, US Sen. Ted Budd, R-NC, said that the claim will be investigated.

US Sen Josh Hawley, R-MO, said on X that “The Homeland Security Committee needs to launch an immediate investigation and call this individual to testify. Under oath. In public.”

President-elect and former President Donald Trump, who visited Swannanoa and the Asheville area last month, has been very critical of FEMA and the Biden-Harris Administration’s response to hurricane recovery efforts in western North Carolina.

During his last rally in Raleigh, Carolina Journal caught up with Chris, a woman from Lake Lure.

“We saw the devastation, and we saw what the federal government did not do,” she told CJ. ‘Nonprofits have been the answer. There’s a lot of nonprofit agencies, neighbor helping neighbor. It took over three weeks for FEMA to set up a tent in Lake Lure. They set up their headquarters in Durham. People can’t get down their street, let alone to Durham.”

She said organizations like Samaritan’s Purse were there within days, and said she believes Trump would have done a much better job of helping out the storm victims if he had been president.  

“They (Biden and Harris) supposedly flew over the area, but they didn’t actually stop,” she said. “It means a lot to the people that are there that someone recognizes them.”

According to Daily Wire, which broke the story on Washington last Thursday, the employees who followed her orders were part of a Department of Homeland Security team comprised of volunteers from other agencies.

One said they were told to ‘discriminate against people’ and another said, ‘it was wrong to discriminate against Trump supporters when they were their most vulnerable.’

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has ordered a state investigation into Washington’s directive.

“The blatant weaponization of government by partisan activists in the federal bureaucracy is yet another reason why the Biden-Harris administration is in its final days,” he said.

In western North Carolina, Hurricane Helene has left 102 people dead and caused an estimated $53 billion in damage.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated.