A leading proponent of election fraud conspiracy theories is set to oversee federal disaster response as the Trump administration prepares to drastically reshape the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to a person familiar with the decision.
The appointee, Gregg Phillips, will take over the agency’s Office of Response and Recovery as of Monday, according to the person. The office is the largest of FEMA’s divisions and central to its mission of helping disaster-struck communities, and its leader makes recommendations on whether federal disaster declarations and aid are warranted.
PolitiFact, a nonprofit fact-checking group run by the Poynter Institute, has traced unsubstantiated assertions that millions of noncitizens voted in the 2016 presidential election to Mr. Phillips. Those claims were later amplified by President Trump.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, confirmed that Mr. Phillips would be taking a senior leadership position at the disaster response agency and stressed his “experience in emergency and humanitarian response, state government operations and large scale program reform.” Mr. Phillips has worked in state human services agencies in Texas and Mississippi but his LinkedIn profile makes no mention of professional experience in emergency management.
Mr. Phillips joins FEMA as the Trump administration is considering significant changes to the agency’s role in helping communities respond to and recover from disasters. A task force of mostly Republican emergency managers and government officials, which Mr. Trump assembled this year after suggesting that FEMA be eliminated, is scheduled to announce its recommendations for the future of the agency at a public meeting on Thursday.
While that group is expected to suggest FEMA continue to exist, discussions at a series of public meetings since May suggest that the panel could propose changes that mean the agency responds to fewer disasters across the country and instead shifts more of its disaster relief and recovery work onto states, local governments and the philanthropic sector.
The Handbasket first reported the appointment of Mr. Phillips. He did not respond to a LinkedIn message from The New York Times seeking comment and FEMA officials did not respond to a request to interview Mr. Phillips.
The decision places at the helm of federal emergency response a man accused of multiple ethical lapses before becoming a leading voice among supporters of President Trump spreading unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud.
In Mississippi, Mr. Phillips faced scrutiny in 1995 when he left a role leading the state human services department for a job at a company he had hired as a state contractor, a move a state watchdog agency said “could constitute a violation of state ethics laws.” The Clarion-Ledger reported that Mr. Phillips said he had not benefited from the state contract.
A decade later, a Houston Chronicle investigation alleged that Mr. Phillips and other Texas health officials had financially benefited from the privatization of a state human services program.
On his LinkedIn page, Mr. Phillips said his work had “led some of the most ambitious and successful transformations in modern U.S. history — saving billions of dollars while improving performance and outcomes.”
He has more recently been involved with a group called True the Vote, which has elevated unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud across the country. He was held in contempt of court and jailed in Texas in 2022 after he refused to identify an anonymous source in a defamation case filed against True the Vote, which Mr. Phillips was helping to lead. The case arose from the group’s accusations that a technology company had mishandled poll worker data.
True the Vote helped produce a documentary called “2,000 Mules” that has since been widely debunked. It claimed to reveal a voter fraud scheme that stole the 2020 election for Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Questions about the documentary prompted Georgia officials to subpoena the group, and in February The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that True the Vote had said in court filings that it did not know the identity of an anonymous source who shared information about a voter fraud scheme, nor did it have documents to provide evidence of voter fraud.
Mr. Phillips said on his podcast the next day that the Journal-Constitution’s reporting was false.
In recent months, Mr. Phillips has shifted his focus to FEMA, saying in a LinkedIn post that he has worked in disaster zones and emergency for four decades. He has stressed his Christian faith as a motivating factor in his disaster work.
“I’ve seen the best of America’s contractors walk away in disgust over the inept FEMA contract managers,” he wrote in one LinkedIn post. “Specifically, they have failed to deliver a comprehensive and detailed plan for working with the faith community.”
In another post, he shared a photo of a young boy alongside a story about finding him in rubble and the hashtag #Haiti2010, an apparent reference to a catastrophic earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010. He described holding the boy as he fell asleep, only to be told later that the boy died.
“People ask me why I do it,” he wrote. “My little friend.”
Scott Dance is a Times reporter who covers how climate change and extreme weather are transforming society.
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