Fired FEMA worker says hurricane-hit homes with Trump signs were skipped because of 'safety precautions'

Marn'i Washington, the FEMA worker who was removed from her position after it was revealed that she told hurricane relief workers to skip homes in Florida in the wake of Milton that had Trump signs, told Fox News’s Trace Gallager that workers were allowed to skip these homes if they felt "uncomfortable," similar to if a home has "loose dogs."

Washington said the orders to skip these homes came from someone else, adding, "When I first reported to Florida, I was already on another team. I was there as a specialist. This was the culture. They were already avoiding these homes based on community trends from hostile political encounters. It has nothing to do with the campaign sign, it just so happened to be part of a community trend." 

She said that when "you focus in on the campaign sign, you are violating the Hatch Act. So that is something that FEMA definitely wants to stay away from."

Gallager asked if this was a standing policy because of "safety" concerns, "why would they come down so hard on you? Why are you the scapegoat?"

In the wake of the revelation, Washington was fired from her position, with FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell saying in a statement, "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. This was reprehensible."

Washington replied, "What's reprehensible is they're not being transparent. Why is this coming down on me. I am the person that jotted down the notes from my superiors and my notation in teams chat was exposed from their surge capacity team."

Gallager pressed on how Washington could prove that the order came from someone above her, not from herself, to which she replied, "Well, the last time I was that question was posed, I verbally called on all DSA crew leads and specialists that are still active with FEMA and former to come forward and discuss our avoidance policies are de-escalation policies."

"I know the highlight here is the Trump campaign signage, but if someone is in another, like an urban community, and it's a different culture and someone feels uncomfortable, we can't go to that home. If you have loose dogs and someone on the team was comfortable with dogs, and another person is not, we can't go to that home because of safety precautions."

She said that incident reports are written up for these cases, and said that "unfortunately, again, the passionate supporters for Trump, some of them were a little bit violent." She later added that this was happening in places like Georgia as well.