The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was given a lie detector test by the Department of Homeland Security to determine if he leaked information about a recent private meeting concerning FEMA, two former senior FEMA officials told POLITICO’s E&E News.
The test was given to FEMA acting Administrator Cameron Hamilton after he met March 25 with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski, an adviser to President Donald Trump, those people said. The test was given within two days of the meeting and cleared Hamilton.
DHS acknowledged the test in an email.
“Under Secretary Noem’s leadership, DHS is unapologetic about its efforts to root out leakers that undermine national security. We are agnostic about your standing, tenure, political appointment or status as a career civil servant — we will track down leakers and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law,” Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin wrote.
At the March 25 meeting in DHS headquarters in Washington, Noem discussed dramatically shrinking FEMA and shifting disaster recovery efforts from the agency to states. Noem called the meeting one day after saying at a televised Cabinet meeting, “We’re going to eliminate FEMA.”
E&E News and CNN disclosed the meeting March 26, and other media outlets followed their reporting.
Although Hamilton is in charge of the nation’s leading disaster agency, he appears to have little control over decisions affecting FEMA, including whether to shrink or abolish the agency. Hamilton has expressed frustration to FEMA colleagues, said multiple people, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Noem’s statement about eliminating FEMA blindsided agency officials. One FEMA official said: “We heard about it on TV like everyone else.”
Three days before Noem announced that FEMA would be eliminated, Hamilton told hundreds of state and local emergency managers at a conference in Washington about his plans for the agency.
When Trump created an advisory council to review FEMA and suggest changes, he put Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in charge.
A former Navy SEAL who worked in nonsupervisory positions at the departments of Homeland Security and State from 2015 to 2023, Hamilton has no background in emergency management. Every FEMA chief since 2009 previously ran a state emergency management agency.
Trump has not appointed a FEMA administrator.
Days after taking office, he named Hamilton FEMA’s assistant administrator in charge of the agency’s Office of Response and Recovery. Under FEMA’s rules, the assistant administrator becomes the agency’s acting administrator if there is no official agency administrator or deputy administrator.
