FEMA Chief's Woes Mount as House GOP Launches Travel Inquiry

WASHINGTON — House Republicans will investigate reports that Brock Long, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, repeatedly misused government vehicles to commute from Washington to North Carolina, where his family resides.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wrote to Long on Monday requesting documentation and other information related to his use of government vehicles and about the agency personnel who may have accompanied him on the trips.

Gowdy learned of the potential misuse last week from press reports, but he delayed launching an inquiry as FEMA girded for what was then Hurricane Florence, which was bearing down on the Carolina coast. For Long, who is already under investigation by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, news of another federal investigation will only complicate an already precarious balancing act as he marshals an ongoing rescue effort and what will be a sprawling recovery program, even as he tries to convince investigators he did not knowingly violate agency rules.

“I would never intentionally run a program incorrectly,” Long told reporters during a call Thursday. “Doing something unethical is not in my DNA.”

The White House has said it is aware of the charges and will review the inspector general’s report when it is completed.

The investigations stem from frequent commutes by Long, a hurricane expert with years of emergency management experience, between the agency’s headquarters in Washington and Hickory, North Carolina, where his wife and two sons live.

Several former and current officials who insisted on anonymity to discuss security matters said the FEMA administrator must have access at all times to classified communications equipment. In some cases, that requires sending a government car equipped with special capabilities with Long when he travels. Several FEMA aides accompanied Long on his trips home and stayed at nearby hotels at taxpayers’ expense.

“Official travel on the part of federal employees must be ‘by the most expeditious means of transportation practicable’ and ‘commensurate with the nature and purpose of the employee’s duties,'” Gowdy wrote in the letter, quoting U.S. law. “This does not include using government-owned or government-leased vehicles for exclusively personal reasons.”

In addition to the travel issue, the Homeland Security inspector general is also looking at communications between Long and a FEMA contractor that appear to include discussions about future employment, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Questions about his travel continued to follow Long through the weekend, as he sought to project confidence in the Trump administration’s response to the slow-moving storm. On Sunday, Long pushed back on reports that Kirstjen Nielsen, the secretary of Homeland Security, had asked him to step down because of his travel.

“Let me go ahead and clear up all the news: Secretary Nielsen has never asked me to resign,” Long said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We have a very functional and professional relationship. We talk every day. We are both totally focused on Florence.”

He argued that the use of agency vehicles was appropriate given his “very critical and important role to make sure this government works on the nation’s worst day through continuity in government.”

“These vehicles are designed to provide secure communications and the program was actually developed in 2008 — it ran for me the same way it’s run for anybody else,” he said. “And you know, it’s my understanding that maybe some policies were not developed around these vehicles.”

Gowdy gave Long until Oct. 1 to produce relevant documents and an aide said that the Republican would wait until that date to proceed with other potential investigative actions. Gowdy, who is retiring at the end of the year, has used his gavel selectively since taking over the Oversight Committee last year. But he considers excessive spending, particularly on executive branch travel, to be an issue of concern. He previously studied official travel taken by Scott Pruitt, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. And amid a rash of reports last fall about Trump administration officials’ use of private planes, Gowdy and Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the committee’s top Democrat, jointly investigated travel by senior officials across the federal government.

Cummings said Monday that he supported an investigation but called on Republicans to simultaneously open an inquiry into the federal response to last year’s deadly hurricanes in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Committee Democrats issued a report earlier this month accusing the Republicans of blocking a “credible” investigation.

“If Chairman Gowdy wants to do an investigation of FEMA, the priority should be on helping the people of Puerto Rico after the devastating hurricanes last year and ensuring that they are not treated like second-class citizens,” he said. “The committee should investigate the administrator’s use of government vehicles, but the more urgent focus right now should be on obtaining documents from the White House regarding its response to the hurricanes that — so far — the committee has refused to even request.”