The Trump administration has chosen a prominent election conspiracy theorist to take on a crucial role within the Federal Emergency Management Agency despite having no official disaster-relief experience.
Gregg Phillips, who gained national attention for claiming that 3 million “non-citizens” voted in the 2016 election and for promoting the unfounded claim that the 2020 result was rigged through widespread voter fraud, will soon begin a new role as administrator of FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery (ORR), sources told The Washington Post and The Handbasket.
The role will put Phillips in charge of overseeing staff and operations related to natural disaster response and preparedness, including implementing search-and-rescue operations and providing financial assistance and housing to those affected by hurricanes.
However, Phillips is primarily being brought into FEMA to carry out President Donald Trump’s mission to overhaul the agency, a source told the Post.
The Trump administration has already rolled back several FEMA operations and initiatives as part of its federal cost-cutting mandate, with the president even weighing whether to dismantle the agency entirely. Phillips describes himself on LinkedIn as a “proven leader in saving billions and streamlining bureaucracy.”
Phillips, 65, has no official background to justify being parachuted into a top FEMA post. Despite this, he claimed in an October LinkedIn post that his on-the-ground disaster and emergency work “goes back four decades, all over the globe but focused in America.” He added that he has been a “very vocal opponent” of FEMA and has witnessed the agency’s “failures up close and personal.”
One current FEMA staffer said Americans “will lose their lives” because the Trump administration is placing people like Phillips in leadership roles within the agency. “There is no genuine effort to make sure that we can help people in their time of need, and instead they are making it impossible for experienced emergency managers to do their job,” the staffer added.
A FEMA spokesperson later confirmed to the Daily Beast that Phillips is joining the agency. “He will support FEMA leadership as the agency advances reforms aligned with the direction set by President Trump and Secretary Kristi Noem, focused on clarifying federal responsibilities, strengthening coordination with states, and improving accountability in disaster operations,” the spokesperson said.
Phillips rose to prominence in January 2017 after pushing the false claim that 3 million ballots were illegally cast in the 2016 election, costing Trump the popular vote to Hillary Clinton. He never produced evidence for the claim, despite repeatedly suggesting he and his team had it.
Trump publicly boosted the conspiracy in 2017, posting on social media just weeks into his first term, “Look forward to seeing final results of VoteStand. Gregg Phillips and crew say at least 3,000,000 votes were illegal. We must do better!”
The same month, the Associated Press reported that Phillips was listed on the voter rolls in Alabama, Texas, and Mississippi, although he voted only in Alabama in the 2016 election.
Phillips also featured heavily in the widely discredited documentary 2,000 Mules, created by right-wing conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza. The movie, which Trump screened at his Mar-a-Lago resort in May 2022, claims to reveal evidence that the 2020 election was rigged in favor of Joe Biden due to widespread voter fraud using highly flawed and misleading claims of people casting ballots at more than one drop box.
In August 2022, Phillips’s failed attempts to prove he had uncovered voter fraud “10 times” bigger than what was portrayed in 2,000 Mules ended in humiliation after police threw him out of his own afterparty for bringing a gun into the event in Scottsdale, Arizona.
In a January 2017 interview with the Daily Beast, Phillips said he believes “in my bones” the false claim that 3 million ballots, including those from dead people, were cast in the 2106 election that cost Trump the popular vote.
“A lot of people are saying, even people on the Trump side, ‘Who cares? He won,” Phillips said. “Well, I care.”
Phillips will begin his job as head of ORR, a role that does not require Senate confirmation, on Monday.
