FEMA official fired after Musk post sues Trump administration for defamation, unlawful termination

Mary Comans was FEMA’s chief financial officer until she and three other agency employees were fired over a $59 million payment to NYC. The terminations came one day after billionaire Elon Musk claimed on social media that his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had discovered the payments were taken from FEMA’s disaster relief funds and used for “luxury hotels” to house migrants.

But that was not true, according to court filings both by FEMA Acting Administrator Cameron Hamilton and the New York City Law Department – which sued the Trump administration after it attempted to claw back more than $80 million in FEMA funds the same day Comans was fired. As part of the government’s defense in a case filed in Rhode Island by a coalition of states seeking to block the Trump administration’s federal funding freeze, Hamilton filed a declaration acknowledging the funds had been apportioned by Congress for the Shelter and Services Program to house migrants and were not drawn from disaster relief dollars. Hamilton said the administration had since paused the program entirely over concerns its funding was going to entities “facilitating illegal activities.”

A report by the Associated Press found that only $19 million of the total $80 million FEMA sent to NYC under the Shelter and Services Program last month was for hotels and that none of the rooms cost close to a luxury rate.

Despite that, according to Comans’ lawsuit, the Department of Homeland Security issued a press release saying Comans had been fired for “circumventing leadership to unilaterally make egregious payments for luxury NYC hotels for migrants.” That, she said, caused her to suffer a wave of public attacks online – including by Musk.

“Because of the issuance of the press release and other steps undertaken by the Defendants, Ms. Comans’ actions were widely, publicly and falsely condemned as 'illegal' and 'criminal' by rightwing influencers, to include Elon Musk, on various social media platforms and news outlets,” Coman’s attorneys, Mark Zaid and Norm Eisen, wrote in the suit.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in D.C. accuses the Trump administration of violating the Privacy Act by releasing false information about Comans and of failing to meet the requirements established by the Civil Service Reform Act to lawfully fire Comans as a member of the Senior Executive Service.

The suit asks a federal judge to find Comans’ termination was unlawful and to award her monetary damages and attorneys fees.

Comans joins a growing list of executive branch officials suing the Trump administration over their terminations. Also on Tuesday, a federal judge ruled Trump had unlawfully fired Cathy Harris, the chairwoman of the Merit Systems Protection Board, and ordered her reinstated to her post. Three days earlier, a separate judge issued an identical ruling for U.S. Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger, who was fired by Trump last month in a one-line email. Eight inspectors general fired en masse by the president during his first week in office have also sued, alleging their terminations, too, violated the law.