An emergency response official’s decision to withhold vital assistance to hurricane victims that showed visible support for Republicans is a scandal that belies a larger issue, namely, an unaccountable federal bureaucracy left to police itself and which President-elect Donald Trump has eyed for reform and cuts.
The concerns were raised by House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer in a hearing on the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to the dual crises of Hurricanes Helene and Milton that struck Florida and the wider Southeast earlier this year.
“While today’s hearing will focus on FEMA, the issue at hand is part of a larger problem: the urgent need to hold the unelected, unaccountable federal workforce accountable to the American people and to the duly elected President of the United States,” Comer said in his opening statement.
“The current system does not have strong enough mechanisms to ensure accountability. The disciplinary system is run by and for civil servants to protect civil servants,” he continued.
The hearing followed reports that during the hurricane response in Florida, one FEMA official instructed subordinates to bypass houses that displayed pro-Trump signs in Lake Placid, Florida, while they were canvassing to deliver assistance to the hurricane-stricken community.
At least 20 houses were reportedly skipped under the guidance, and therefore were not given the opportunity to qualify for FEMA assistance, Just the News reported.
"I was simply following orders"
The FEMA official responsible, Marn’i Washington was terminated shortly after the public reports emerged of her conduct, but Comer says the accountability came too late, only after the conduct was exposed by reporting from the Daily Wire. For her part, Washington told NewsNation's Dan Abrams that "Firstly, I’m being framed,” said Washington. “There’s no violation of the Hatch Act. I was simply following orders."
Comer added at the hearing that "FEMA leadership didn’t take action against this supervisor until the press exposed this discrimination.” Moreover, Comer said “More importantly, FEMA officials did not immediately end the discrimination.”
Comer also warned that resistance efforts by an unaccountable bureaucracy could hamper efforts by the “duly elected president” to implement his agenda. He specifically warned that President Trump suffered resistance and “insubordination” from bureaucrats throughout his first term.
Media reports suggest that many federal bureaucrats are gearing up to conduct a similar resistance when Trump again assumes office in January.
Federal workforce highest since WW2
Comer said this poses a larger threat this time because the Biden-Harris administration has allowed, or encouraged, the federal bureaucracy to grow “in size, but also in power.”
“And this power is evident. Just ask the people in Highlands County, Florida. They needed help, but at least one FEMA official used her power to make help harder to get,” Comer said. “We only know this because one whistleblower was brave enough to come forward. But others knew about this and said nothing.”
The Biden administration has overseen federal spending that would bring the federal workforce to the highest level since World War Two, the Government Executive reported.
Nearly every federal agency announced plans for financial year 2024 to increase hiring, led by the Treasury Department which planned a hiring surge for the IRS to increase its workforce by 21% over 2022 numbers. The only agency expecting to cut its workforce was the National Aerospace and Aeronautics Agency, or NASA.
President-elect Donald Trump and his political allies have long maintained that his first term was undermined by federal bureaucrats acting independently of the president’s authority to pursue their own political ends.
A research report compiled by the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute found that bureaucrats across the executive branch worked against Trump’s policy proposals during that first term. For example, political appointees in the Department of Education said that career officials would “conceal” documents those appointees wished to review to hamper policy changes.
This reality was apparent to American media outlets as well. Just weeks after Trump was first inaugurated, The Washington Post reported in an article titled “Resistance from within: Federal workers push back against Trump” that federal bureaucrats were working to undermine the president’s agenda, even consulting with former Obama-era political appointees on how to do so.
This dynamic dominated Trump’s first term and cemented his view that the federal bureaucracy needs to be purged and reformed. “They’ve got to be held accountable [for] what they’re doing. They’re destroying this country. They’re crooked people, they’re dishonest people,” Trump said in a YouTube interview earlier this year.
“They’re going to be held accountable,” he promised.
"Protectors of the deep state”
Trump is likely to revive a plan from the waning days of his previous term, called Schedule F, to reclassify thousands of federal bureaucrats in “policy-related” roles to strip them of civil service protections. The plan was originally implemented by executive order in October 2020, but was reversed by the incoming Biden administration.
The president-elect has also promised to reform how agencies oversee the workforce and hold the bureaucracy accountable, mainly by reforming the numerous inspectors generals’ offices and making them independent from the agencies they oversee.
During the campaign, Trump promised that he would “[make] every Inspectors General Offices independent from the departments they oversee, so that they do not become protectors of the deep state.”
The president-elect’s promises to cut and reform the bureaucracy have reportedly spooked bureaucrats across the executive branch.
Many who worked through the first Trump term, Politico reported, are worried that the new team will follow through on campaign promises and cut budgets and staff. Others are reportedly disappointed that their work during the Biden administration will likely be reversed.
Enter DOGE
But for Trump and his team, following through on those promises is exactly the point.
To help him achieve that, Trump has employed the help of two campaign surrogates and strong supporters, billionaire Elon Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. The pair will lead a commission dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies—essential to the ‘Save America’ movement,” Trump said.
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