Even before recent revelations, Gregg Phillips was a poor choice for a leadership role at any federal agency. We are, after all, talking about a far-right activist who has spread baseless conspiracy theories and used violent rhetoric about his political opponents. What’s more, Phillips is an enthusiastic election denier who played a key role in the discredited “2000 Mules” project.
Phillips was nevertheless tapped to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Office of Response and Recovery. (He’s a presidential appointee who did not need to be confirmed by the Senate.)
In March, Phillips became even more controversial when CNN reported that the FEMA official had claimed, more than once, that he was involuntarily teleported, including an incident in which he said he was sent to a Waffle House restaurant 50 miles away. In response to questions about his alleged experiences, the FEMA official continued to insist on the validity of his claims.
In April, Donald Trump conceded that Phillips’ assertions were “a little strange,” which coincided with a CNN report that said the White House had contacted the Department of Homeland Security and urged officials to either “remove Phillips or keep him out of public view.”
At that point, it seemed like it would only be a matter of time before the FEMA official started updating his résumé. It’s against this backdrop that The Washington Post reported:
A high-ranking official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency who sparked controversy for claiming that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 election and that he once teleported to a Waffle House has gone on leave, agency officials confirmed Thursday.
There appears to be some ambiguity about the precise nature of Phillips’ departure: The Post reported that he has gone on leave, while a related report from CNN said he has “been pushed out” of FEMA altogether. Either way, the agency confirmed in a public statement that Phillips is no longer serving in his former office, and an acting successor has been appointed to take his place.
The developments leave us with a couple of lingering questions.
The first is why Phillips was given this job in the first place. It’s not as if this guy was rewarded for his political loyalties with some obscure position deep within the federal bureaucracy. On the contrary, CNN’s original report noted that despite his weird beliefs, Phillips was in one of “the most consequential” positions at FEMA, leading an office that makes decisions involving “search-and-rescue operations, emergency aid, infrastructure restoration and ultimately distributing billions of dollars in disaster assistance.”
The second is whether the emergency response agency can handle being shorthanded as hurricane season gets underway. Politico reported in late May, “The Trump administration is approaching hurricane season with the smallest disaster workforce since 2021, a huge backlog of state aid requests and 15 vacancies in top emergency management jobs.”
Phillips’ departure, in other words, adds a degree of tumult to an agency that has struggled to find stability over the past year and a half.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
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From MS Now.