Election denier tapped for FEMA leadership role
The Trump administration has tapped a man with no prominent disaster management experience, and who repeatedly claimed that millions of people voted illegally in 2016′s presidential election, to be one of the most important officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Gregg Phillips, who served as a top human services official in Texas and Mississippi, describes himself on LinkedIn as “a very vocal opponent of FEMA.” On Monday, he starts as the administrator of FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery, known as ORR, four current and former FEMA officials said. The Hand Basket first reported Phillips’ new role.
FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the agency, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Phillips was among the initial sources cited by President Donald Trump to assert that mass voter fraud had denied him a popular vote win in November 2016. Phillips claimed that his team at a Texas-based nonprofit, True the Vote, had gathered data showing that 3 million “noncitizens” had voted, which Trump shared on Twitter.
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But Phillips never produced any evidence to back up the claim. He also contested the validity of President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
In 2022, he and True the Vote’s president were jailed for defying a court order to turn over information backing their allegations that an election software company helped Biden win. A year later, a watchdog group accused the two leaders of diverting “substantial” sums of money to enrich themselves.
In a LinkedIn post from October, Phillips alluded to his involvement with FEMA, writing that he had a “meaningful and productive call yesterday” with Trump and David Richardson, who has since resigned as FEMA’s acting administrator.
He wrote that his “work in disasters and emergencies goes back four decades, all over the globe but focused in America.” While he has had government roles at the state level, it was unclear what disaster experience his post would be referring to.
In another LinkedIn post, he shared a video “from our trip to help the people in the NC mountains after the 2024 floods.” He said that he and a group were driving around delivering Starlinks and acknowledged the impressive responses from churches and other religious institutions.
FEMA’s newly appointed interim leader, Karen Evan, does not have major experience in the field either.
The Office of Response and Recovery is FEMA’s largest division and handles billions of dollars. Its leader oversees critical, fast-moving operations, such as pre-positioning resources before hurricanes, and then quickly moving resources to states and communities when a disaster strikes, without compromising FEMA’s other ongoing response work. In this role, Phillips will also be in charge of providing financial assistance and housing to people who have just lost everything.
This head of ORR makes the recommendation to FEMA’s administrator about whether a disaster should be declared and is responsible for overseeing and moving billions of dollars in recovery funding.
“You want that person to have deep technical knowledge to say ‘This is why this should get declared and why this shouldn’t,’” a longtime FEMA official explained, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. “So the administrator can look and say ‘yep, that makes total sense, let’s send this to the White House.’”
This officials is also in charge of national security responsibilities, such as planning for threats and responding to domestic nuclear attacks.
Although a high-level position, the leader of ORR does not require Senate confirmation. The president appoints them and then the White House’s Office of Presidential Personnel is in charge of vetting to ensure that person is qualified for the role, a person with knowledge of the process said.
This official then gains a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information clearance, which gives them access to sensitive national security information. Usually, this requires a rigorous background investigation.
In his post on LinkedIn, he said that he has been a “very vocal opponent of FEMA and the way in which the conduct the business of disaster response failing to execute against their mission.
“It is almost always true that those with a Christ centered approach show up first and leave last bringing hearts, hands and supplies when darkness hits,” he wrote. “FEMA has taken credit for their work — pushing DEI and ‘woke’ even into this program. The fails have been epic.”
His statements also echo sentiments expressed by DHS Secretary Kristi L. Noem, including the need to “eliminate FEMA as it exists today.”
The changeup also comes at a critical and chaotic time for the agency.
Richardson resigned last month after a short but checkered tenure, including being unreachable during the early hours of the deadly Texas floods.
Later this week, a council tasked with recommending major reforms to FEMA will unveil its final report that will likely influence the agency’s future.
The Post reported that Noem had drastically cut down the council’s earlier draft, which concluded that FEMA needed to be more powerful and autonomous.