FEMA’s failure to assist Trump voters was widespread and constitutes a major scandal

A scandal of potentially titanic proportions is brewing at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Last week, FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell fired Marn’i Washington, the official accused of discriminating against Donald Trump-supporting hurricane victims in Florida, casting her as a lone wolf, a bad apple in an orchard full of good ones.

Not so fast.

On Tuesday, Washington — and another ex-FEMA employee who spoke with The Post — disputed the relatively rosy picture painted by Criswell.

According to the recently disgraced Washington, “FEMA preaches avoidance” from potentially contentious situations.

And, supposedly, Trump supporters are disproportionately responsible for fomenting such situations.

Washington said her team had encountered “political hostility” from those in homes with “Trump campaign signage,” but nevertheless insisted that agency guidance is — and her own determination was — about safety, not political targeting.

Another former FEMA employee also told The Post that the processes that led to Washington’s discriminatory action are systemic — and that the bias against Trump supporters dated back years, sometimes justified as part of an effort to serve “marginalized” communities first.

You can cite any empirical or philosophical reason that you want to justify this allegedly pervasive practice, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s not just negligent or wrong — it’s evil.

Imagine if it came out that FEMA had determined that homes inhabited by blacks, or Asians, or Muslims, or Jews were more likely to be “hostile,” and should therefore be summarily deprived of aid and support in disaster zones.

That would be unthinkable.

Yet at FEMA there are allegedly those who would rule out lending a hand to roughly half the country.

In the name of safety, or equity, or whatever other pretense they might come up with.

If a Trump supporter or two harassed federal workers on the ground in the wake of Hurricane Milton, that’s wrong.

But it in no way justifies what followed.

These hypothetical Trump voters can’t be the first to lash out after enduring a hurricane, or tornado, or earthquake.

All this, of course, comes in the wake of the prosecution of Trump himself, a crackdown on pro-life activists, and the Biden administration’s war on disinformation, i.e., opposing viewpoints.

On an increasingly frequent basis, Americans are reminded of the sad, provocative truth that elements within their own government see their mission as withholding assistance, or even harassing, rather than serving certain “deplorable” segments of society.

Trump’s resounding victory has brought with it much gnashing of teeth over what he might do to his political opponents.

It doesn’t take a psychologist to diagnose such a conspicuous case of projection.

Time will tell just how often this policy has been used to rationalize the indefensible.

But in the meantime, the left ought to take a long, hard look in the mirror.

Isaac Schorr is a staff writer at Mediaite.