In a Reversal, FEMA Won't Reinstate Suspended Workers

Source: New York Times

Dec. 1, 2025 Updated 4:54 p.m. ET


The Trump administration said on Monday that it was revoking the reinstatement of 14 employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency who have been on administrative leave since August, when they wrote a letter to Congress warning that President Trump was gutting disaster response in the United States. The move was an abrupt reversal from last week, when FEMA sent notices to the employees stating that “you are being removed from administrative leave,” according to copies of the notices reviewed by The New York Times.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of FEMA, said in an email on Monday that rogue “bureaucrats” had sent those notices without the approval of senior department leaders. After those leaders, who are political appointees, read news articles about the reinstatements, they reversed course, she said.

“Reporting revealed that 14 FEMA employees previously placed on leave for misconduct were wrongly and without authorization reinstated by bureaucrats acting outside of their authority,” Ms. McLaughlin said, adding that “this administration will not tolerate rogue conduct, unauthorized actions or entrenched bureaucrats resisting change.”

David Z. Seide, a lawyer with the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit group that helped the FEMA employees file complaints challenging their suspensions with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, criticized the administration for subjecting the workers to whiplash. “They’ve done the wrong thing again and this is appalling,” he said.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/climate/fema-reinstates-workers-letter-leave.html