The Trump administration fired the acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) one day after publicly saying he didn’t support eliminating the agency.

Cameron Hamilton, FEMA’s acting administrator, reportedly said he was terminated on Thursday.

From POLITICO:

Hamilton was summoned to Department of Homeland Security headquarters in Washington on Thursday morning and told of his termination by Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Troy Edgar and Corey Lewandowski, a longtime adviser to President Donald Trump, according to a person with direct knowledge.

Hamilton was driven back to FEMA headquarters a few miles away, where he cleared out his desk and left, the person told POLITICO’s E&E News.

FEMA confirmed the news.

The firing occurred one day after Hamilton told a House Appropriations subcommittee that the nation needs FEMA, which Trump has suggested abolishing or shrinking.

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“I do not believe it is in the best interests of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency,” Hamilton said at the hearing.

Per CBS News:

In a separate hearing a day earlier, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem told the same committee that Mr. Trump believes “FEMA, as it exists today, should be eliminated — empowering states to respond to disasters with federal government support.”

Mr. Trump said days after taking office he planned to “begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA, or maybe getting rid of FEMA,” criticizing the agency for allegedly responding slowly to natural disasters.

The president later ordered a review of FEMA, tasking Noem and other administration officials with assessing the agency’s performance and considering “whether FEMA can serve its functions as a support agency, providing supplemental Federal assistance, to the States rather than supplanting State control of disaster relief.”

 

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