Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has fired two dozen FEMA employees after a “threat actor” accessed the agency’s computer network.
The personnel move came after a cybersecurity review, as the New York Post first reported on Friday.
“FEMA’s career IT leadership failed on every level. Their incompetence put the American people at risk,” Noem said in a DHS press release, which was headlined “Secretary Noem Terminates Inept FEMA Employees After Uncovering Massive Cyber Failures, Demands Accountability.”
“When DHS stepped in to fix the problem, entrenched bureaucrats worked to prevent us from solving the problem and downplayed just how bad this breach was.”
Failures found included the lack of multi-factor authentication and using “prohibited legacy protocols,” according to the press release.
Terminated IT employees at FEMA included Chief Information Officer Charles Armstrong, Chief Information Security Officer Gregory Edwards and 22 others.
Noem added in her statement: “These deep-state individuals were more interested in covering up their failures than in protecting the Homeland and American citizens’ personal data, so I terminated them immediately. The American people deserve results from their government.”
The identity of the bad actor is unclear. FEMA did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment, nor did the Department of Homeland Security.
FEMA has undergone turbulent changes since President Donald Trump said he wanted to effectively do away with the federal agency.
Just this week, nearly 200 current former staffers wrote to Congress warning that the agency was dangerously mismanaged and the Trump administration was rolling back protections to prevent botched natural disaster responses. Multiple employees were promptly put on leave.
Last month, Noem was criticized for FEMA’s response to devastating Texas floods that killed more than 135 people. She reportedly delayed the deployment of an Urban Search and Rescue team for several days until she signed off on expenditures over $100,000.
In May, Noem fired acting FEMA administrator Cameron Hamilton one day after he opposed Trump’s cuts to the agency, having told Congress: “I do not believe it is in the best interests of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”
Hamilton’s replacement, David Richardson, said in June that he didn’t know the U.S. had a hurricane season, Reuters reported.
A Homeland Security spokesperson later insisted that his comment was “a joke.”
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