ICYMI: Trump Appoints Conspiracy Theorist Gregg Phillips to Lead FEMA Disaster Response

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Last week, the Trump administration appointed Gregg Phillips – a well-known conspiracy theorist and election denier with no emergency management experience – to lead FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery (ORR), one of the agency’s most critical offices. The appointment comes amid ongoing chaos at FEMA, led by Karen Evans, who herself has limited emergency management experience. Adding to the turmoil, FEMA canceled a Review Council meeting at the last minute after the report leaked, revealing plans to gut the agency.

Sabotaging Our Safety Advisory Council Member Rafael Lemaitre appeared on Jess Craven’s Substack “Chop Wood, Carry Water” to discuss the troubling appointment and the turmoil at the agency. Lemaitre warned that Phillips is “a well-known conspiracy theorist, election denier, with no emergency management experience and now he’s in charge of the office that does response and recovery for FEMA.”

See coverage below:

Chop Wood, Carry Water: Let's talk FEMA with Rafael Lemaitre

The Handbasket: Conspiracy theorist election denier given FEMA’s second-most important role

Phillipps’ impact on the lives of Americans is about to significantly grow, The Handbasket is the first to report per multiple sources, with his new job as Administrator of FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery (ORR). Despite having zero experience in disaster response, Phillips has publicly shown a keen interest in the inner-workings of his new agency and natural disasters, despite never having professionally worked in these spaces. He’s posted on LinkedIn that his “work in disasters and emergencies goes back four decades” and refers to himself as “a very vocal opponent of FEMA.” On his Wikipedia page you’ll find an entire section labeled “Allegations of grift, ethical misconduct, philandering, nepotism and cronyism.” Despite it all, he’s about to take on one of those most important roles in federal disaster management.

“This is not a game. Americans will lose their lives because this administration refuses to put in competent leadership,” the FEMA staffer said of Phillips’ hiring. “There is no genuine effort to make sure that we can help people in their time of need and instead they are making it impossible for experienced emergency managers to do their job.”

Bloomberg: FEMA Hired a Conspiracy Theorist. What Could Go Wrong?

FEMA Chief of Staff Karen Evans is now running the agency. Like Richardson, she lacks disaster-management experience, contrary to the requirements of federal law that Trump has circumvented by naming a series of “acting” directors. And soon her de facto second-in-command, running the vitally important Office of Response and Recovery, will be conspiracy theorist Gregg Phillips, independent journalist Marisa Kabas reported this week.

Phillips is best known for claiming millions of illegal votes were cast for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and backing the debunked documentary 2000 Mules. His primary qualification for his new job appears to be animosity toward FEMA, automatically setting him apart from Richardson’s predecessor, Cam Hamilton, who was promptly fired for the grave error of telling Congress he thought FEMA should exist.