Homeland Security Chief Reports Breach at FEMA, Fires 23 Employees

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on Friday that there had been an IT breach at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the American disaster response agency that has been buffeted by deep cuts and is slated for elimination.

Noem's statement gave few specifics about the nature of the breach except to blame FEMA's staff, two dozen of whom she said she had fired.

Noem said the hack threatened "the entire Department and the nation as a whole" but at the same time said that "no American citizens were directly impacted." She added, "No sensitive data was extracted from any DHS networks."

DHS did not immediately respond to a message seeking further clarity on what happened.

Noem devoted nine paragraphs of her statement about the breach to attacks on FEMA's IT staffers, accusing them of "failure," "neglect," "incompetence" and dishonesty. She said 23 of them had been fired.

Reuters could not immediately verify her claims.

News of the FEMA breach - and the mass firing purportedly connected to it - follows an open letter of dissent against the agency's leadership signed by scores of current and former FEMA employees. The letter warned Congress that the inexperience of top appointees of President Donald Trump's administration could lead to a catastrophe on the level of Hurricane Katrina, which ravaged the Gulf Coast of the United States 20 years ago.

Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA, a linchpin of the United States' disaster response, and instead distribute federal money through his own office. FEMA has extended a hiring freeze through at least the end of this year, according to three sources familiar with the matter, as the peak of hurricane season approaches.

The Department of Homeland Security "is committed to ensuring FEMA delivers for the American people," a FEMA spokesperson said in a statement on Friday. The spokesperson did not respond to a question about the hiring freeze.