Washington- A federal judge ruled Tuesday that billionaire Elon Musk and former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, along with other top Trump administration officials, engaged in a coordinated campaign to spread false information about a former FEMA official and impugn her integrity.
U.S. Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick condemned the Trump administration for what he called “outrageous” conduct toward Mary Comans, who he said was “professionally targeted and personally attacked by government officials for no legitimate reason.”
Comans, a career civil servant, most recently served as FEMA’s chief financial officer until she was fired without cause in February 2025.
While Comans was informed that her firing was an exercise of the president’s power to remove executive officials, the Department of Homeland Security issued a press release that falsely accused her of “bypassing” agency leadership to make “enormous” payments to New York City for luxury hotels for undocumented migrants. The Trump administration also accused her of violating an executive order signed by President Trump on the first day of his second term that ordered federal agencies to withhold funding from nongovernmental organizations illegally providing services to immigrants in the United States.
But the decision to continue payments to state and local governments, including two awarded to New York City, was made by senior officials at DHS and FEMA, and was approved by employees of the Department of Government Effectiveness, or DOGE, the cost-cutting task force overseen by Musk, according to court records. Because of this approval, Comans was directed to continue payments to state and local governments.
Yet DHS and senior administration officials, including Noem, Musk and Corey Lewandowski, who served as a top aide to Noem, made a series of statements about Comans that they knew were false, the court found.
“These facts establish that senior government officials, including then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Elon Musk, engaged in a coordinated public relations campaign designed to impugn Ms. Comans’ personal and professional integrity,” Fitzpatrick wrote. “For reasons incomprehensible to this Court, public officials chose to turn the power of the federal government against a single employee with an impeccable record of public service.”
As part of his campaign targeting Comans, Musk, who served as a special government employee and oversaw DOGE, shared a photo of herself on X and falsely accused Comans of engaging in “criminal action” by allegedly funneling millions of dollars to New York hotels. The court said Musk knew, or should have known, that his DOGE employees approved the payments. Fitzpatrick also said the social media post with Comans’ photo and false description of his actions was “clearly intended to scare him.”
“The publication of Ms. Comans’ photo served no legitimate governmental interest and was little more than state-sanctioned intimidation,” Fitzpatrick wrote.
The judge also said Noem and Lewandowski provided false information to Laura Loomer, a far-right conspiracy theorist, about Comans in hopes she would spread it to her social media followers.
“Armed only with false statements, senior government officials undertook a premeditated campaign to impeach the personal and professional integrity of Ms. Comans, a nonpartisan career public servant,” Fitzpatrick found. “Their intention was to disseminate false and derogatory information about Ms. Comans as widely as possible.”
Fitzpatrick’s decision stems from an identity-cleansing proceeding that was conducted after a federal judge ruled in July that Comans was fired without due process.
Comans had filed a complaint in July 2025, who challenged his deportation and argued that DHS and FEMA damaged his reputation by falsely accusing him of funneling millions of dollars to New York City for hotels.
The judge said all accusations made against Comans by Trump administration officials, including that she engaged in criminal activity, misspent federal funds and laundered “prohibited funds,” were not true.
“The attacks on Ms. Comans were based entirely on false information, and many government officials knew the accusations were false at the time they were made,” Fitzpatrick said. “With disregard for the truth and without any consideration for the personal and professional consequences to Ms. Comans, government officials exploited their access to the media to spread false information.”
CBS News has reached out to DHS and attorneys for Musk and Noem for comment.
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