FEMA has reinstated a group of whistleblowers who signed an open letter to Congress last August warning that the Trump administration’s dismantling of the federal agency was setting the stage for a disaster-response breakdown on the scale of Hurricane Katrina, according to five FEMA officials with knowledge of the matter.
Officials at the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which it oversees, also brought back multiple senior officials who were polygraphed and placed on paid administrative leave more than a year ago, three of the officials told CNN.
The reversals are part of a broader reset unfolding just weeks into Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s tenure at DHS, partly in an effort to stabilize the agency ahead of hurricane season. He has been rolling back some of the most contentious changes made under former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was fired by President Donald Trump last month.
Trump floated eliminating FEMA early in his term, and Noem embraced the idea — vowing to dismantle the agency and shift more responsibility for disaster response to the states.
Noem’s heavy-handed overhaul – which gutted the senior leadership, drove out more than 20% of the workforce, and sent morale into a steep slide – left many inside FEMA warning the agency was increasingly unprepared for a major, multi-state disaster. Her rhetoric softened in the months before her ouster when it became clear many Republicans — including GOP...
The President of the Association of Yorubas in Diaspora, South Africa, Dr Olusola Agbeniyi, has asked the senator representing Edo North, Adams Oshiomhole, to desist from making what he described ...