Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody announced today that she is taking legal action against current and former FEMA officials for conspiracy to discriminate against Florida hurricane victims who support Trump.
“Hurricane season is not over, and the federal agency in charge of emergency response is embroiled in scandal — caught withholding aid from storm victims in Florida who support President Trump,” she said in a statement. “I am taking swift legal action to find out how far this political discrimination reaches and to make sure all Americans who fall victim to devastating storms are served, regardless of their political affiliation.”
Among other things, Moody has requested a trial by jury in the case.
FEMA did not immediately return a request for comment.
The agency confirmed last week that a FEMA employee was fired after advising a survivor assistance team not to visit homes with Trump yard signs. While FEMA didn’t identify the worker, Moody says that Washington was that employee.
“This is a clear violation of FEMA’s core values and principles to help people regardless of their political affiliation,” Criswell said in the statement.
In an interview with Roland Martin, Washington explained that she and her team had encountered homes where FEMA teams were met with political hostility and it just so happened to be homes with signs supporting Trump. The president-elect, for his part, spread conspiracy theories about FEMA in the agency’s response to the recent hurricanes about government workers not doing their jobs and money going toward undocumented immigrants.