Watchdog fighting Trump firing charges ex-FEMA worker with discriminating against Trump supporters

An executive branch ethics watchdog who is fighting President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire him has taken disciplinary action against a former federal emergency worker for allegedly encouraging discrimination against Trump supporters.

In a complaint filed Tuesday, special counsel Hampton Dellinger alleges that, during a hurricane response in October, an aid supervisor for the Federal Emergency Management Agency instructed FEMA workers not to visit homes with Trump signs.

The supervisor, Marn’i Washington, violated the Hatch Act, a federal law that restricts federal employees from engaging in political activities, the complaint says.

FEMA fired Washington last year, shortly after accounts emerged that she had instructed workers to skip the houses of Trump supporters in Highland County, Florida, after Hurricane Milton. Washington said in TV interviews that she gave the instruction to protect fellow FEMA workers, who had encountered hostility at some homes in the area, but conservative activists and the Trump campaign seized on the episode as evidence that FEMA was deliberately botching the disaster response in Republican strongholds.

“A federal employee clearly violates the Hatch Act by engaging in explicit partisan political bias or activity when on the job,” Dellinger said in a statement.

Attempts to contact Washington for comment were unsuccessful.

Dellinger’s complaint came one day after U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered Dellinger returned to his position through Thursday while she considers arguments that Trump broke the law when he fired Dellinger last week.

While Dellinger is a political appointee of President Joe Biden, he was confirmed by the Senate last year, is in the midst of a five-year term and federal law has dictated for more than four decades that appointees to the special counsel post can be removed “only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

The Office of Special Counsel is an independent federal agency that investigates potential Hatch Act violations and whistleblower issues. It is different from Justice Department prosecutors — also known as special counsels — who handle politically-sensitive criminal cases.

The Trump administration immediately appealed Jackson’s decision temporarily restoring Dellinger to his post and has asked the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for an emergency stay that would again remove Dellinger from the job. In a court filing Tuesday, Dellinger’s lawyers said Trump has “purportedly” named Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins to serve as special counsel on an acting basis.

Dellinger’s complaint alleges that Washington misled supervisors by not acknowledging that she had instructed members of her crew in a chat message to “avoid homes advertising Trump.”

“There were no reports in Highlands County of safety concerns at properties with Trump 2024 campaign signs,” the special counsel’s complaint says.

The complaint was submitted to the Merit Systems Protection Board, a government agency that adjudicates disciplinary issues involving government workers. The complaint doesn’t call for a specific sanction for Washington. Such violations of the Hatch Act are not criminal, but can be punished with a ban from federal employment for up to five years and a fine of up to $1,000.

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