Conspiracy theorist election denier given FEMA’s second-most important role

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The name Gregg Phillips may not ring any bells, but it’s possible you’re familiar with his past work. Maybe you’ve heard of “2000 Mules,” a 2022 documentary by far right conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza based on completely unfounded claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election drummed up by True the Vote, an election denier nonprofit where Phillips has long served in leadership. (The widely debunked film featured the late Charlie Kirk.) Or maybe you remember when Trump tweeted in 2016 with zero evidence that “millions” of people voted illegally in that year’s presidential election? That was based solely on a previous tweet from Phillips, which was also based on no evidence. 

Phillipps’ impact on the lives of Americans is about to significantly grow, The Handbasket is the first to report per multiple sources, with his new job as Administrator of FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery (ORR). Despite having zero experience in disaster response, Phillips has publicly shown a keen interest in the inner-workings of his new agency and natural disasters, despite never having professionally worked in these spaces. He’s posted on LinkedIn that his “work in disasters and emergencies goes back four decades” and refers to himself as “a very vocal opponent of FEMA.” On his Wikipedia page you’ll find an entire section labeled “Allegations of grift, ethical misconduct, philandering, nepotism and cronyism.” Despite it all, he’s about to take on one of those most important roles in federal disaster management.

“I would like to punch that bitch in the mouth right now,” Phillips said during a January 27th discussion of the Hunter Biden laptop saga on his podcast Onward, co-hosted by True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht. It’s unclear if he was referring to Hunter or to his father, former President Biden.

Phillips continued his tirade: “Doing what he did to us, for doing what he did to you, for doing what he did to this entire movement. I would just like to find him and punch him in the mouth. I don't care. I'm sure they'd put me in jail. I'm sure they'd put me in jail again. Whatever. This guy is the most horrible of all human beings. He is a nasty, shitty, crappy human being, and he deserves to die. And I hope he does. I'll deal with the God in that later.”

Now this turducken of evil with a penchant for threats will head up what one staffer called “the heart of what FEMA does.” 

“This is not a game. Americans will lose their lives because this administration refuses to put in competent leadership,” the FEMA staffer said of Phillips’ hiring. “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 explained that the head of ORR oversees putting staff and operations in place to immediately help people, search and rescue, operation centers, coordinating the entire federal response, individual assistance (getting money to people for damaged homes and temporary housing or shelter), mass care, public assistance, debris removal, and “everything that gets a community back up and running again.” The head of ORR needs to have extensive federal state and local experience, decades of experience in high-level disasters and an intimate understanding of all programs. “It is the most important job at FEMA after the administrator,” the staffer said.

Phillips, as far as I can tell, has none of this experience. FEMA HR did not respond to The Handbasket’s request for comment on Phillips’ hiring.

In a post on LinkedIn from almost exactly one year ago, Phillips indicated that he had been “banished for four years” from the platform. Since then he’s posted intermittently about God, 2000 Mules, natural disasters and FEMA. One post from October 4th referenced his problems with FEMA, writing “Specifically, they have failed to deliver a comprehensive and detailed plan for working with the faith community,” and stressing that “those with a Christ centered approach” respond best to disasters. His post also reference “a meaningful and productive call” with then-FEMA Acting Administrator (another completely unqualified political appointee with a similar enthusiasm for threats who recently resigned after six months on the job.) 

“Dave is a Marine,” Phillips wrote of Richardson. “Bold, blunt and mission focused. He spoke with clarity about the failures and the plan to execute the Trump agenda, including a renewed focus on faith-based initiatives. For the first time in decades, I am optimistic we have the beginning of the fix.”

It’s unclear why a conspiracy theorist with no emergency management experience or current role in the government was provided an opportunity to speak with the acting director of FEMA.

In 2022, Phillips and Engelbrecht were jailed during a trial relating to their election fraud conspiracies after being found in contempt of court by a Texas judge. They’ve pushed myriad conspiracy theories, like the idea that a tiny election software company had connections to the Chinese Communist Party and “had given the Chinese government backdoor access to personal data about two million poll workers in the United States.” 

In “2000 Mules” they claimed there was an army of “mules,” or people who would pick up ballots and bring them to drop boxes illegally in order to sway the election. Phillips claimed it was based on “four million minutes of surveillance video around the country.” (The documentary was so riddled with lies and errors that its distributor Salem Media—the Christian and conservative conglomerate that produces The Charlie Kirk Show—halted distribution and removed it from platforms.)

According to a 2023 complaint filed to the IRS, Phillipps and Engelbrecht—who Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander once called “the godmother of the election integrity movement”—used their nonprofit to enrich themselves. 

“The complaint said True the Vote may have violated state and federal law when the charity used donations to issue loans to Engelbrecht, its founder, and lucrative contracts to Gregg Phillips, a longtime director,” ProPublica wrote back in 2023. “The organization also failed to disclose the payments to insiders in its tax returns, including excessive legal bills paid to its general counsel at the time, who filed election-related lawsuits in four states, the complaint said.”

This would all be laughable if it wasn’t so dangerous. As the FEMA staffer said to me on Tuesday, real lives are at stake in Phillips’ new role. “It may not be the biggest story right now,” they said, “but when Americans’ blood is on their hands, these are the types of decisions you can point to.”