FEMA's ‘Shadow Administrator’ Was Paid by a DOGE Member's Startup for Months

Published 12 August 2026 · world

An outside contractor once described as the “shadow administrator” of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was actually working, for at least part of her time

An outside contractor once described as the “shadow administrator” of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was actually working, for at least part of her time in government, for a company owned by a member of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, according to recent court filings. The filings show that from fall 2025 to spring of this year, Kara Voorhies, a special government employee and contractor whose work at FEMA has drawn scrutiny from Congress as well as the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, was subcontracted by a company owned by Kyle Schutt, a DOGE operative whose own company was contracting with DHS. The documents were filed in a lawsuit contesting President Donald Trump’s vast cuts to the federal workforce. Previous filings have indicated that for several months, authority over some of the spending operations of FEMA, a constituent agency of DHS, was seemingly illegally influenced by Voorhies. An April letter from three Democratic members of Congress alleges that she had outsize “power to not only influence the award of contracts and grants but also to punish entities.” “Federal law prohibits government contractors from performing work that is characterized as ‘inherently governmental functions,’” Mississippi Democratic congressman Bennie G.

Thompson wrote in the letter. These new details from the court filings raise even further questions about DOGE members’ roles within government and the depth of possible corruption at DHS under former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. DHS, Voorhies, and Schutt did not respond to a request for comment. In a deposition filed as part of a lawsuit brought by the American Federation of Government Employees, Voorhies describes herself as having a “financial background” with “executive level leadership and experience.” She says she joined DHS in April 2025, coming from Crest Investment Company—a financial fund run by Jamal Daniel, an investor and founder of the Middle East–focused news outlet Al-Monitor. According to her deposition, Voorhies was serving as chief financial officer for the company and running special projects when Daniel asked if she would be interested in working with FEMA. He introduced her to Corey Lewandowski, who at the time was a senior adviser and effectively the chief of staff for Noem.

Lewandowski did not respond to a request for comment. Voorhies, who had no previous government experience, was not paid by the government as a special government employee. SGEs are subject to fewer transparency and disclosure requirements than federal employees but are limited to working in government for 130 days per year. Though Voorhies says she was brought in to improve “efficiency and responsiveness of FEMA,” she struggled during the deposition to define what exactly “efficiency” meant and said she was never given a formal job description. According to her deposition, Voorhies was responsible for "reviewing memos" that accompanied contracts and grant requests above $100,000 and was involved in reviewing and terminating FEMA grants. She says she did not “have authority to make decisions” at the agency, and Lewandowski and a former top aide to Noem, Joseph Guy, did not provide her with much information about FEMA. “I recall Kyle Schutt having provided most of the information from things they had collected from DOGE,” she testified.