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Wednesday, August 27, 2025
ANNALS OF TRUMPI$TAN: FEMA employees put on leave after criticizing Trump administration in open letter. (Brianna Sacks, WaPo, August 26, 2025)
DJT's FEMA and EPA maladministration's retaliation violates the First and Ninth Amendments and the bipartisan Lloyd-LaFollette Act, of 1912, 5 U.S.C. sec 7211, which states:
5 U.S. Code § 7211 - Employees’ right to petition Congress
The right of employees, individually or collectively, to petition Congress or a Member of Congress, or to furnish information to either House of Congress, or to a committee or Member thereof, may not be interfered with or denied.
FEMA employees put on leave after criticizing Trump administration in open letter
About 180 current and former FEMA staffers sent a letter on Monday to members of Congress and other officials protesting the agency’s leadership and direction.
Updated
3 min
President Donald Trump speaks at the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Sept. 1, 2019, in Washington. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
The Trump administration placed more than a dozen Federal Emergency Management Agency employees on leave Tuesday after they signed an open letter of dissent about the agency’s leadership, according to people familiar with the situation and documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
About 180 current and former FEMA staffers sent a letter on Monday to members of Congress and other officials, arguing the current leaders’ inexperience and approach harm FEMA’s mission and could result in a disaster on the level of Hurricane Katrina.
By Tuesday evening, FEMA’s office of the administrator had sent several people letters informing them that, effective immediately, they were on an administrative leave, operating “in a non-duty status while continuing to receive pay and benefits.”
“It is not surprising that some of the same bureaucrats who presided over decades of inefficiency are now objecting to reform. … Our obligation is to survivors, not to protecting broken systems,” a FEMA spokesperson said. “Under the leadership of Secretary Noem, FEMA will return to its mission of assisting Americans at their most vulnerable.”
In their letter, FEMA employees warned that the Trump administration is sending the agency back to a pre-Katrina era, pointing to several concerns including the lack of a Senate-confirmed and qualified emergency manager at FEMA’s helm; the slashing of mitigation, disaster recovery, training and community programs; and restrictive new policies that curb agency officials’ autonomy.
The letter also demanded that federal lawmakers defend FEMA from interference by the Department of Homeland Security, protect the agency’s employees from “politically motivated firings,” conduct more oversight, and ultimately take FEMA out of DHS and establish it as an independent Cabinet-level agency in the executive branch.
At least two FEMA staff members who were part of the federal response to July’s flooding disaster in Texas have been placed on leave, according to an agency employee and another person familiar with the situation.
One employee who manages cases for all disasters, including Texas, helped orchestrate the letter. She had spoken to The Post on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution about the difficult decision to sign her full name on the letter. She has now been placed on leave and pulled off her disaster casework.
“The fact that 180 people signed on to the letter, with a supermajority of them still working in the building, and dozens of those people wanted to attach their real names, signifies the severity of the problem,” Jeremy Edwards, a former press secretary for FEMA who signed the letter, said in an interview. “They are that scared of us being so inadequately unprepared. It speaks a lot to the situation right now.”
The open show of resistance from FEMA employees was the latest example of federal workers speaking out against the Trump administration’s actions and policies, in many cases putting their jobs at risk. Called the “Bethesda Declaration” movement, after the Maryland area where the National Institutes of Health is headquartered, it began in June when NIH employees issued a letter modeled after Director Jay Bhattacharya’s dissent against the government’s coronavirus policies in 2020. Employees at the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA and the National Science Foundation followed suit.
12 comments:
Sam
said...
Honestly not too bright to openly criticize someone known for firing people for doing just that. He's elected and not going anywhere so what's the point. What does that actually accomplish? Only Congress can impeach him.
Crass and cynical ukase. You sound like a corporate shill. Our First Amendment and federal courts protect our rights. Real Americans stand up to tyrants and we've been doing it since 1775.
Ok well guess what though.. the SCOTUS gave him the ability to do whatever he wants. That's not something to do if they expect to have a functional political system, but that's what they've done nonetheless. In light of that reality, I suppose it's up to whatever dodo bird if they want to test that standard.
Wrong. Read the article before opining. They are on leave. Their rights will be protected and not neglected until the Lloyd-Lafollete Act, Whistleblower Protection Act and Civil Service Reform Act. Where did you study law? Trump University?
It's Trump who is judgmental and not me. I'm just stating the obvious, that there's no use in criticizing the man while the orange dementia patient is at the wheel. No good could come from that... not gonna get him impeached... only gonna harm ones own career. Simple.
12 comments:
Honestly not too bright to openly criticize someone known for firing people for doing just that. He's elected and not going anywhere so what's the point. What does that actually accomplish? Only Congress can impeach him.
Crass and cynical ukase. You sound like a corporate shill. Our First Amendment and federal courts protect our rights. Real Americans stand up to tyrants and we've been doing it since 1775.
Your advice is to cower to power?
These courageous civil servants defend our rights. Show some decent respect.
Ok well guess what though.. the SCOTUS gave him the ability to do whatever he wants. That's not something to do if they expect to have a functional political system, but that's what they've done nonetheless. In light of that reality, I suppose it's up to whatever dodo bird if they want to test that standard.
Ok well guess what? They aren't civil servants anymore so... hopefully they're happy with whatever impact their statements had on the situation.
Wrong. Read the article before opining. They are on leave. Their rights will be protected and not neglected until the Lloyd-Lafollete Act, Whistleblower Protection Act and Civil Service Reform Act. Where did you study law? Trump University?
Americans stand up to fascists.
They're still serving on leave then? I bet not.
They are all still civil servants. On leave. Paid leave. They have rights, which will be respected and not neglected. Why are you so judgmental?
It's Trump who is judgmental and not me. I'm just stating the obvious, that there's no use in criticizing the man while the orange dementia patient is at the wheel. No good could come from that... not gonna get him impeached... only gonna harm ones own career. Simple.
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