The Federal Emergency Management Agency has put some employees who signed off on the agency’s letter of dissent to Congress on indefinite leave. This has now raised great concern over whether Donald Trump is enforcing retribution against federal employees who disagree with some of his directives.
Current and former members of the Federal Emergency Management Agency wrote a letter to Congress dissenting from some of Donald Trump’s directives to the agency, warning that they may lead to a situation as dire as the response to Hurricane Katrina if his directives continue without pushback. Some employees signed off on the letter anonymously, fearing retribution. Their worst fears were realized when two of the signatories were officially placed on indefinite administrative leave.
FEMA was not alone in writing to Congress about the Trump administration. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently endured a severe gun attack by an individual skeptical of vaccines. Former and current CDC employees called on Congress to recognize that this is exactly the kind of violence Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s rhetoric encourages, and the letter strongly urged the secretary of health and human services to disavow extremists within the MAHA movement. While the requests in the letter seemed reasonable, some signatories chose to remain anonymous out of caution. At the time, there was no certainty whether the Trump administration would act against those employees, but that now appears to have been confirmed.
FEMA’s operations have been disrupted since Trump made the agency answerable to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. In addition to Trump appointing a new head of FEMA whom most people in the agency consider unqualified, the agency must now get Secretary Noem’s approval for any contracts exceeding $100,000. According to people in the agency and the field of search and rescue, this would make FEMA more likely to repeat the mistakes it had already learned from during Hurricane Katrina. The letter to Congress was written simply to point that out.
HuffPost reported that at least 35 people signed the letter, and there is still no confirmation about the employment status of the other signatories. Those placed on indefinite leave are still expected to check in every morning to confirm availability and will continue to receive their salaries. The agency claimed this was not a disciplinary action and was not intended to be interpreted as punitive.
On X, however, the news was met with harsh criticism. Once users found out about the employees being placed on leave, reactions ranged from calling it a violation of their First Amendment rights — something not unprecedented for the Trump administration — to comparisons with political conditions in Russia.
Sounds like the most clear First Amendment lawsuit I’ve seen in a very long time
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The government cannot punish you for expressing your opinion
I wish SOMEONE in the Trump Administration had paid attention in 5th grade CivicsHarlemJ11@bsky.social (@HarlemJ11) August 27, 2025
Well what did they expect? Don’t they know this is Russia now?
—Ed
Reportedly, it’s not just FEMA. Other federal agencies are also being subjected to alleged retaliatory tactics by the Trump administration. Employees at the National Institutes of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency who signed their own letters of dissent have also been placed on leave, with the EPA specifically seeing 140 employees affected.
FEMA’s spokesperson, Daniel Llaguers, responded by saying that all this is just much-needed reform and that the only people against it are bureaucrats who have overseen years of inefficiency at the federal agency.
