Word was the DOGE boys were headed over to FEMA last weekend as the next stop on their housecleaning tour.
Elon and the Doge boys on their way to audit FEMA! #zelena pic.twitter.com/rfUL1QkGjL
— Mister Sugar (@ScottWi92107364) February 8, 2025
Now, it didn't take long for fireworks to erupt. I saw the news breaking on this story late on Sunday and almost wrote about it yesterday.
But the details were still fuzzy, so I pitched it.
And now it looks like things have gotten cleared up considerably.
What it started as was a blockbuster Elon Xweet that his DOGE team had uncovered something of epic proportion happening right under the nose of the Trump administration - a massive amount of cash being transferred out of FEMA coffers to immigration services - luxury hotels - in New York City.
Like, out of the blue, and contrary to Trump's pause in payments order, the money transfer happened just last week!
The @DOGE team just discovered that FEMA sent $59M LAST WEEK to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants.
— Harry Bōlz (@elonmusk) February 10, 2025
Sending this money violated the law and is in gross insubordination to the President’s executive order.
That money is meant for American disaster relief…
VURT DA FURK
The eruption of outrage and indignation was immediate, along with demands for who, what, when, and why.
The interim FEMA director, probably only the job for about a whoppin' 48 hours or so, said, 'Thanks for the heads up, dude. I HAD NO IDEA.'
@USCongress should have never passed bills in 2023 and 2024 asking FEMA to do this work. This stops now.
— Cameron Hamilton (@FEMA_Cam) February 10, 2025
Former Navy SEAL Hamilton didn't sound happy.
This is where and why I waited - New York City officials said it was part of a previously approved and allocated disbursement.
...City Hall officials told The Post that no one has reached out for action on Musk’s demand.
They also issued a statement denying Musk’s assertions that carefully avoided naming the mercurial billionaire or explicitly saying he was dead wrong.
The hands-off approach to Musk coincided with Adams convening a meeting of his top commissioners to tell them to avoid criticizing Trump in order to avoid putting billions in federal funds for the city at risk, The Post learned.
Only $19 million of the $59 million that Musk highlighted in his tweet will go toward housing migrants in hotels, luxury or otherwise, officials said.
“We have already spent over $7 billion on this crisis alone, and the previous administration committed only $237 million in funding to help house the migrants in our care and for future services,” the City Hall statement reads.
“We have continued to receive previously allocated reimbursements through the past week. We will discuss this matter directly with federal officials.”
So I thought I'd better hold tight until it all shook out in case it turned out to be a regular thing that just looked bad.
It turns out that it was a regular thing that was bad. There's a difference.
It seems that some FEMA employees took advantage of the new head guy's unfamiliarity with his department to slide some cashola out the door without asking for a blessing, figuring they could rely on the 'it's already on the books' excuse.
They should have known that would be the wrong answer in this administration.
🚨BREAKING: The four FEMA employees who sent $59,000,000 to luxury hotels in NYC for illegal immigrants have been FIRED according to DHS.
— Matt Van Swol (@matt_vanswol) February 11, 2025
"These 4 employees circumvented DHS leadership and unilaterally made egregious payments to hotels for illegals in NYC..."
GOOD RIDDANCE!!!! pic.twitter.com/ReLo2WburC
Heads rolled this morning, and one of them was a big one.
The Department of Homeland Security told Fox News that "four employees are being fired today for circumventing leadership and unilaterally making the egregious payment for hotels for migrants in New York City."
The firings come after Elon Musk wrote on X Monday that "The DOGE team just discovered that FEMA sent $59M LAST WEEK to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants."
"Firings include FEMA’s Chief Financial Officer, two program analysts and a grant specialist," the DHS also said. "Under President Trump and Secretary Noem’s leadership, DHS will not sit idly and allow deep state activists to undermine the will and safety of the American people."
Musk said in his message that the "money is meant for American disaster relief and instead is being spent on high end hotels for illegals!" and that "A clawback demand will be made today to recoup those funds."
That the concept of accountability is so foreign to our entrenched bureaucrats for this even to be attempted is an abomination.
I do believe the regime change in progress is going to abruptly course-correct that subversive complacency, and this is a terrific start.
This is a video of FEMA CFO Mary Comans saying her role is to “ensure the best use of the resources entrusted to us” at FEMA.
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) February 11, 2025
Mary was just fired for gross misuse and mismanagement of taxpayer dollars and insubordination after sending tens of millions to criminal illegals. pic.twitter.com/bnAs7yoxU9
These DOGE exposures are what the panicked lawsuits and judges causing constitutional crises are meant to HIDE from the public.
As Shipwreck Crew explains, the payment system is set up to be hidden and function seamlessly, without anyone ever knowing what goes out and to whom.
DOGE is blowing a hole in that firewall and disrupting the graft.
The story today about the $59 million from FEMA to NYC hotels is EXACTLY what the New York lawsuit is intending to keep covered up for some time.
— Shipwreckedcrew (@shipwreckedcrew) February 10, 2025
Like most Fed Govt payments to third parties, these are payments built into Treasury's payment processing system every month. They…
...Like most Fed Govt payments to third parties, these are payments built into Treasury's payment processing system every month. They are automatic until canceled.
The Treasury handles millions(?) of payments like this every month and there is no possible way for every one of them to be processed by a human before payment goes out. So they are programmed to happen automatically. If the Roosevelt Hotel wants $8 million, they make a payment request through an electronic invoice that has already been preapproved.
So much of what the Govt spends -- if mistaken -- is only captured by audits, meaning the discovery is incidental, not because anyone went looking for it.
I saw this a few times -- and had it explained to me in detail -- with fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid billing. Those bills from doctors are paid automatically every month. Over-billing or upcoding is only caught by audit.
DOGE -- even with "read-only" access to the processing system's data, would be able to detail all these payments just like the payments from USAID were detailed. That is what they were blocked from having on Friday night by the SDNY judge.
The recipients and the amounts being paid monthly are the next big scandal of the Admin. State to be exposed.
It's no wonder they're in a freakout.
Americans are also out of patience with FEMA and the bureaucrats who have gerrymandered funds to do everything but help Americans in TIMES OF DISASTER and EMERGENCIES.
Much as my green money/blue money/ post the other day revisited using the different and sacrosanct FEMA pots for illegals (always full) and actual natural disasters (perpetually empty), we face that same maddening scenario this morning.
As confirmed as the $59M tranch gone off to NYC without the blink of an eye once again for illegals - that might be subject to a clawback...and good luck - word comes that the DISASTER FEMA pot has again run dry. Specifically the flood insurance program.
Too bad, so sad if your house got soggy and you'd paid your premiums like a good pogue - unlike illegals who pay nothing.
🚨 | BREAKING: FEMA’s flood insurance program is BROKE, ran out of money at 6 AM Monday and had to borrow $2 BILLION just to survive.
— Hank™ (@HANKonX) February 11, 2025
They had the money. They just spent it on the wrong people.
This comes after Elon Musk’s DOGE exposed $59 MILLION in FEMA payments going… pic.twitter.com/O9DfGdTZrJ
The federal program that provides most of the nation’s flood insurance has run out of money to pay claims, forcing it to borrow $2 billion from taxpayers and likely increasing insurance rates.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which runs the program, said Monday that claims worth billions of dollars due to catastrophic hurricanes in 2024 “have depleted” the program’s reserves.
The borrowing will enable FEMA to pay insurance claims from flooding caused by hurricanes Helene and Milton and other events last year. But it will likely increase insurance rates by forcing the agency to pay interest on the $2 billion, a cost that will be passed down to policyholders.
Oh, you betcha.
When you see back-of-beyond judges doing their thing and the constitutional crisis chorus howling?
The payouts are what they never wanted you to know about, what we were never meant to know about.
They couldn't care less about the Constitution or Americans as long as their filthy lucre flows.
That's the danger in DOGE.
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