DOJ contradicts FEMA on who approved mass firings

A court hearing involving the mass dismissals of federal workers was briefly derailed on Tuesday when a Trump administration attorney contradicted the sworn testimony of an agency head, sparking confusion and pointed questioning from the judge. 

The court was forced to take a recess as the judge, plaintiffs and government weighed how to proceed given the gap between the lawyer, an assistant U.S. attorney with the Justice Department, and his client, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, who presided over the hearing in San Francisco, is still determining what she will require from the Trump administration going forward. 

At issue in the case was who decided to terminate hundreds of FEMA employees by declining to review their two or four-year contracts that had come to an end. In a written declaration before the court, Karen Evans, who is currently serving as the FEMA administrator, said the Homeland Security Department “decided not to reappoint” those workers. In making his case to the court against a potential preliminary injunction that would block the firings, Robert Bombard, the Justice attorney, said that DHS—FEMA’s parent agency—in fact had no role in those decisions. Instead, he said, FEMA made the decisions unilaterally. 

Illston asked Bombard to explain the discrepancy, but he conceded he could not. 

“I don't have a great explanation for that,” Bombard said. 

The provenance of the firings is a key issue in the case, as the plaintiffs—a union representing FEMA workers—argued a 2006 law Congress passed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina bars DHS from making personnel decisions at its emergency response agency. Bombard countered that the law only prohibits DHS from reshaping FEMA’s mission and functions, but does not prevent it from overseeing hiring and firing moves. 

Illston suggested Bombard may have been making a distinction without a difference. 

“Well, if they don't have any people to do things, then the functions won't get done,” the judge said. 

Illston also chided him for being unable to clarify why the administration was submitting two different versions of the same events. 

“We just want to give you the facts,” Bombard said. 

Illston cut him off: “I’d love the facts,” the judge said.

Danielle Leonard, an attorney for the plaintiffs, called Bombard’s contradiction of Evans “extraordinary” and implored Illston to disregard his comments from the record. Otherwise, she said, DHS and FEMA officials should be subjected to depositions to set the record straight. Bombard suggested that FEMA should instead be permitted to submit additional written testimony to clarify the situation. After the court recessed he stressed that Evans did not perjure herself, but did not offer further explanation. 

The non-renewed employees were all part of FEMA’s Cadre of On-Call Response and Recovery staffers, who work under two-to-four year contracts that are typically renewed. The employees, however, have been systematically dismissed at the end of their agreements since late last year. CORE employees are often the first to deploy following a disaster and, according to the lawsuit, some of the terminated workers were in the middle of hurricane relief deployments.

FEMA has so far slashed more than 1,000 CORE employees since 2024, or about 10% of that workforce. FEMA also employs about 4,000 reservists, who serve on a part-time basis and only activate during disasters, and around 5,000 permanent, full-time staff. 

The plaintiffs, through the testimony of non-renewed CORE employees and former agency executives, argued that the mass dismissal of the workers would undermine FEMA’s capacity to provide effective emergency response. They suggested that FEMA is planning to slash about half of its workforce overall, though the administration said no such specific plan is underway. 

FEMA paused the apparent blanket non-renewal approach in January due to severe snowstorms. Evans said the CORE workforce has grown exponentially in recent years and non-renewals occur regularly when there are performance or overstaffing issues.

The agency in recent years has been "inflating the workforce beyond sustainable levels," Victoria Barton, a FEMA spokesperson, said last week. She added that Evans has "brought a level of scrutiny and accountability" to the agency that it had been lacking. 

In court on Tuesday, Bombard said the CORE workforce needed to be agile. 

“But it’s not a one-way street,” he said. “It’s not only ratcheting up.” 

He added that an injunction would be “tantamount to converting these people into almost de facto permanent employees,” which he said would be a “bridge too far.” Illston is expected to decide on the request for an injunction on the non-renewals in the coming days.