FEMA officials arrested for crimes involving $1.8 billion in hurricane relief

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

...from Puerto Rico, because of course it is:

FEMA Deputy Regional Administrator, Former President Of Cobra Acquisitions, LLC, And Another Former FEMA Employee Indicted For Conspiracy To Commit Bribery, Honest Services Wire Fraud, Disaster Fraud, Among Other Charges

Ahsha Nateef Tribble, a FEMA Region II, Deputy Regional Administrator; Donald Keith Ellison, former President of Cobra Acquisitions, LLC; and Jovanda R. Patterson, a.k.a. “Jo/Jojo,” former FEMA Deputy Chief of Staff, have been indicted and arrested on charges of: conspiracy to commit bribery of public officials; acts affecting a personal financial interest; false statements; disaster fraud; honest services wire fraud, Travel Act violations, and wire fraud, announced U.S. Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-Vélez of the District of Puerto Rico. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Office of Inspector General (OIG), conducted the investigation with support from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

[Badger]

...from Puerto Rico, because of course they did:

FEMA Deputy Regional Administrator, Former President Of Cobra Acquisitions, LLC, And Another Former FEMA Employee Indicted For Conspiracy To Commit Bribery, Honest Services Wire Fraud, Disaster Fraud, Among Other Charges

Ahsha Nateef Tribble, a FEMA Region II, Deputy Regional Administrator; Donald Keith Ellison, former President of Cobra Acquisitions, LLC; and Jovanda R. Patterson, a.k.a. “Jo/Jojo,” former FEMA Deputy Chief of Staff, have been indicted and arrested on charges of: conspiracy to commit bribery of public officials; acts affecting a personal financial interest; false statements; disaster fraud; honest services wire fraud, Travel Act violations, and wire fraud, announced U.S. Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-Vélez of the District of Puerto Rico. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Office of Inspector General (OIG), conducted the investigation with support from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Are Tribble and Patterson fairly categorized as Trump FEMA officials? I can't tell from this press release how long they worked at FEMA

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

...from Puerto Rico, because of course they did:

FEMA Deputy Regional Administrator, Former President Of Cobra Acquisitions, LLC, And Another Former FEMA Employee Indicted For Conspiracy To Commit Bribery, Honest Services Wire Fraud, Disaster Fraud, Among Other Charges

Ahsha Nateef Tribble, a FEMA Region II, Deputy Regional Administrator; Donald Keith Ellison, former President of Cobra Acquisitions, LLC; and Jovanda R. Patterson, a.k.a. “Jo/Jojo,” former FEMA Deputy Chief of Staff, have been indicted and arrested on charges of: conspiracy to commit bribery of public officials; acts affecting a personal financial interest; false statements; disaster fraud; honest services wire fraud, Travel Act violations, and wire fraud, announced U.S. Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodríguez-Vélez of the District of Puerto Rico. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Office of Inspector General (OIG), conducted the investigation with support from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Are Tribble and Patterson fairly categorized as Trump FEMA officials? I can't tell from this press release how long they worked at FEMA

From what I'm able to find, it looks like Tribble is a career government employee. Here's her bio from the FEMA site:
https://www.fema.gov/ahsha-tribble

Dr. Ahsha Tribble has been named the Deputy Regional Administrator for FEMA Region II, with oversight for the operational aspects of regional disaster response and recovery, mitigation and preparedness in New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands.

From September 2017 – September 2018, Dr. Tribble was deployed Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria as the Power Sector Chief for Response and the Infrastructure Chief for Recovery.

Previously, Dr. Tribble served as the Deputy Regional Administrator for the FEMA Region IX Office which covered California, Arizona, Nevada and Hawaii as well as the territories of American Samoa and Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

I'm not certain if her positions under Mr. Trump were Schedule C or higher. Since her former Chief of Staff has left the agency, to go work for her co-conspirator, I'm not finding a bio.

As for how fair it is to call them "Trump Administration Officials", I believe President Truman had an applicable saying. Additionally, I can add the question of whether or not they were just following the example set by Mr. Trump and his appointees.

[T'Chenka]

Republicans gonna Republican.

[dead0man]

good that they were caught, now lets hope they're properly punished/made an example of

[Virginiá]

I feel like this wording is wrong. They didn't flat out steal almost 2 billion dollars, but rather bribed and schemed to have their company provide the services, possibly cutting corners to make more profit or something. Unless I'm reading this wrong of course, but it doesn't say anything about grand grand grand grand grand grand [etc] theft or anything.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Which of these black female bureaucrats are you saying have anything to do with Trump. Other than being investigated and arrested by his department of Homeland Security for what appeared to be largely innocuous reasons that do not alone constitute bribery if I were to judge. I'm sure a case could be made that judgement may be impaired, but in the grand scale of things, it's hard to think of as very criminal.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I feel like this wording is wrong. They didn't flat out steal almost 2 billion dollars, but rather bribed and schemed to have their company provide the services, possibly cutting corners to make more profit or something. Unless I'm reading this wrong of course, but it doesn't say anything about grand grand grand grand grand grand [etc] theft or anything.

The two administration officials conspired to direct $1.8 billion in FEMA money for Puerto Rico to the unqualified subsidiary company run by their co-conspirator, who has done a bungled job of restoring power to the island, which two years after Maria has a fragile grid that regularly fails.

I can see where you're coming from, though, and I'll try to think of a better title.

[Virginiá]

This whole administration is just a big joke. Everyone seems to either be totally incompetent or corrupt. I don't get how any Republican/conservative can be even remotely proud of it.

[Badger]

Considering that there are a million billion trillion things that this Administration has perfected the art of graft and Corruption over, I'm waiting to see how much these two can be tied to the Trump Administration, or their craft arising from the Trump culture of fleecing the government. These two apparent careerist types could have theoretically done the sit under the Obama Administration, no?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Considering that there are a million billion trillion things that this Administration has perfected the art of graft and Corruption over, I'm waiting to see how much these two can be tied to the Trump Administration, or their craft arising from the Trump culture of fleecing the government. These two apparent careerist types could have theoretically done the sit under the Obama Administration, no?

Absolutely. They could have tried something like this under Obama.

But they didn't.

[Fight for Trump]

Considering that there are a million billion trillion things that this Administration has perfected the art of graft and Corruption over, I'm waiting to see how much these two can be tied to the Trump Administration, or their craft arising from the Trump culture of fleecing the government. These two apparent careerist types could have theoretically done the sit under the Obama Administration, no?

Absolutely. They could have tried something like this under Obama.

But they didn't.

There wasn't a Maria-tier hurricane under Obama...

[IceSpear]

This whole administration is just a big joke. Everyone seems to either be totally incompetent or corrupt. I don't get how any Republican/conservative can be even remotely proud of it.

The lib triggering quotient has increased exponentially though.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Considering that there are a million billion trillion things that this Administration has perfected the art of graft and Corruption over, I'm waiting to see how much these two can be tied to the Trump Administration, or their craft arising from the Trump culture of fleecing the government. These two apparent careerist types could have theoretically done the sit under the Obama Administration, no?

Absolutely. They could have tried something like this under Obama.

But they didn't.

There wasn't a Maria-tier hurricane under Obama...

Shouldn't a major disaster be a motive for better oversight and personnel, not worse?

There wasn't an absolute disregard for sane contracting process under Obama either. The company these officials conspired with was the second power grid contractor for Puerto Rico. The first one was a two-man company from Zinke's hometown in Montana. Cobra was bigger, and better at the pretense of looking non-shady (but still not any good at looking legitimate) but it really wasn't any more qualified that Zinke's buddies were.

To be objective, part of the reason the contracts weren't going to top-tier companies is that even before the hurricane, Puerto Rico's government owned power company was deeply in debt and had a history of having problems paying its bills.  But also being objective, the reason this looks so bad for him is that his administration has established a pattern and practice of corruption. That makes it hard to credibly claim something like this is an outlier, and not representative of a corrupt administration.