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A FEMA employee was removed from her position after telling her relief team to avoid houses with Trump signs after Hurricane Milton.

() – A Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) employee has been removed from her position after she advised her disaster relief team to avoid homes with signs supporting then-presidential candidate Donald Trump while working in Florida after Hurricane Milton, the agency reported this Friday.

A FEMA spokesperson told in a statement that the agency is “deeply disturbed by the actions of this employee” and that the incident is under investigation. The agency did not identify the employee.

“While we believe this is an isolated incident, we have taken steps to remove the employee from her duties and are investigating the matter to prevent this from happening again. “The employee who issued this directive did not have the authority nor was she instructed to tell crews to avoid these homes, and we are contacting anyone who could not be reached as a result of this incident,” the spokesperson stated.

An aerial view shows homes destroyed by Hurricane Milton in Fort Pierce, Florida, on October 10, 2024.

The Daily Wire reported first about the incident, citing internal correspondence between the employee and workers prospecting in Lake Placid, Florida, in which she instructed them to “avoid houses where Trump was promoted.”

The agency is currently investigating how many homes were missed by the survey team as part of the incident that occurred on October 27, the spokesperson told . The agency on Friday deployed a new team to knock on doors in the affected area in an effort to contact those who could not previously be reached.

The spokesperson declined to provide additional information about the incident or detail how agency officials were notified, citing the ongoing investigation, but said in the statement that FEMA officials are “horrified that this took place and therefore “Therefore, they have taken extreme measures to correct this situation and have ensured that the matter was addressed at all levels.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said following reports of the incident on Friday that he had ordered state officials to investigate the matter.

“The blatant instrumentalization of the government by partisan activists in the federal bureaucracy is yet another reason why the Biden-Harris Administration is in its last days,” DeSantis wrote.Republican, at X. “At my direction, the Division of Emergency Management is launching an investigation into the federal government’s selective discrimination against Florida residents who support Donald Trump.”

The FEMA spokesperson assured in his statement that the agency “helps all survivors regardless of their political preference or affiliation.”

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