Marn’i Washington former FEMA supervisor fired for directing relief workers to avoid assisting homes with Trump signs. How a Federal official ‘politicised’ disaster relief, discriminating against home owners for their political beliefs.
A Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) supervisor accused of ordering relief workers to skip Florida homes with Trump campaign signs in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton has been fired.
Marn’i Washington, 38, was sacked for telling disaster relief workers in a group chat ‘not go to homes with yard signs supporting President-elect Trump,’ as they worked around the central Florida town of Lake Placid in late October and early November.
‘Avoid homes advertising Trump,’ she wrote in a ‘best practices’ memo to employees, a copy of which was obtained by the Daily Wire.
Fired: The FEMA supervisor, accused of ordering her subordinates to bypass homes with Trump campaign signs in Florida, has been fired! Marn’i Washington was sacked for telling disaster relief workers knocking on doors in Lake Placid, Fl, to “avoid homes advertising Trump!” pic.twitter.com/YNqtz2nifK
— John Cremeans USA (@JohnCremeansUSA) November 9, 2024
‘Follow the rules…’
The instructions also advised them to stay hydrated and to ‘follow the rules.’
Washington also gave the direction verbally, according to the report.
Her edict prompted workers to avoid at least 20 homes with signage indicating their support for the President-elect, leaving residents to fend for themselves without any federal aid, employees who spoke with the outlet reported.
‘This is a clear violation of FEMA’s core values and principles to help people regardless of their political affiliation,’ FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said Saturday.
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.’
Washington, who according to her now-deleted LinkedIn had worked for FEMA since 2019, as well as working as a regional manager in the Bay Area for the property management firm Avanath Capital Management LLC along with listing herself as an owner of the logistics company Olam Industries LLC.
Politicising relief efforts
The former FEMA employee, who grew up in Oakland, has a strong fixation with the history of slavery.
She posted on her Facebook page in 2019 about supposedly the first slave ship to travel to the Americas in the 1500s as well as an article about how California tried to ban free black individuals in the mid-1800s.
‘I’m steadfast and extremely unpredictable,’ she wrote on her social media page, adding a kiss emoji.
It is unclear why Washington ordered staff subordinates to politicise relief efforts, with local officials condemning the former fed official 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 nypost.
‘There are no parties when we are recovering.’ Lake Placid Mayor John Holbrook told the nypost, adding, ‘it 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 Daily Wire.
Explained of the workers to the Daily Wire: ‘I thought we could go help and make a difference. When we got there we were told to discriminate against people.
‘It’s almost unbelievable to think that somebody in the federal government would think that’s okay.’
The person added that it was wrong to discriminate against Trump supporters when they were their ‘most vulnerable’.
They added: ‘I volunteered to help disaster victims, not discriminate against them. It didn’t matter if people were black, white, Hispanic, for Trump, for Harris. Everyone deserves the same amount of help.’
Many residents have taken it upon themselves to clean up the destruction and debris in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton with assistance from Highlands County, the Lake Placid mayor said, adding that he hadn’t noticed a ton of FEMA activity in the area.
‘We’re picking up most of the debris ourselves,’ Holbrook told the nypost.
Washington issued her memo after Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and several local residents affected by Hurricane Helene which had hit the region weeks earlier began lashing out at the Biden-Harris administration over the federal government’s sluggish disaster response.
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis condemned Washington’s missive, claiming 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,‘ the Florida governor added.
