Fired 'ICE Barbie' Kristi Noem's Top Aide Caught Deliberately Deleting Potentially Crucial Signal Messages During Federal Court Battle, Judge Finds
A top aide of Kristi Noem is in hot water.
Sept. 15 2026, Published 7:55 p.m. ET
Senior FEMA official Karen Evans is in an emergency of her own after a federal judge found she deliberately deleted Signal messages during litigation over the Trump administration’s plan to cut the agency's staffing, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
The lawsuit began in April 2025, when FEMA employees represented by the American Federation of Government Employees challenged the Trump administration's broader effort to reduce the federal workforce.
FEMA Staffing Cuts Spark Legal Battle
Noem was fired from her job as DHS Secretary in March.
The case later expanded to challenge DHS's plan to cut FEMA's workforce roughly in half, including its decision to stop renewing thousands of temporary disaster-response employees known as COREs.
The unions argued that DHS and then-Secretary Kristi Noem had improperly taken control of FEMA's staffing decisions and that the cuts would undermine the agency’s ability to respond to disasters.
Local governments and public-interest groups also joined the case. Judge Susan Illston is presiding over the case in federal court in San Francisco.
The staffing fight intensified as Noem's leadership pushed major changes at FEMA.
As Radar previously reported, Noem and Corey Lewandowski, whom she was rumored to be romantically involved with, sought to remove much of FEMA’s senior leadership, and about 20 percent of the agency’s workforce left.
Deleted Signal Messages Spark Court Sanctions
Evans has been accused of deleting crucial evidence.
The administration also froze or delayed FEMA funding, according to the report.
The Signal messages became evidence in that fight.
Illston found that Evans acted with an "intent to deprive" plaintiffs of correspondence relevant to the FEMA staffing litigation after she shortened the auto-delete setting on a Signal group called "FEMA 2.0" from four weeks to one week on March 11, 2026, according to The Daily Beast.
The court had already ordered FEMA leadership to preserve and produce relevant communications.
"Taking into account all of the circumstantial evidence, including officials' continued use of the Signal auto-delete setting even after this Court ordered the production of relevant FEMA communications, the Court concludes that at least Evans deleted Signal chats with the intent to deprive plaintiffs of the use of the chats in this litigation," Illston wrote.
Illston found that Evans' conduct went "beyond gross negligence."
The court barred the administration from relying on certain hindsight testimony about its FEMA staffing plans and said the missing messages would be presumed unfavorable to the government.
'Beyond Gross Negligence'
Noem was known as 'Ice Barbie' while working in the Trump administration.
Illston also ordered the government to pay attorney fees associated with addressing the deleted communications, according to court reporting.
The judge made no finding that former Homeland Security Secretary Noem, known as "Ice Barbie" or Lewandowski, destroyed messages or knew Evans was deleting them, according to The Daily Beast.
Another senior aide, Joseph Guy, also lost FEMA-related Signal conversations after reinstalling the messaging app.
About 26 group chats involving roughly 20 participants disappeared from his phone, including groups with Noem and Lewandowski, The Daily Beast reported. Illston viewed Guy’s conduct differently from Evans’.
FEMA Turmoil Deepens Under Kristi Noem
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She was rumored to have been romantic with Corey Lewandowski during her time.
She called the timing of the missing messages “highly suspect” and his explanation “not believable,” but did not find sufficient evidence that Guy intentionally destroyed the communications.
The court fight comes as former FEMA officials continue to describe the internal conflicts that surrounded Noem’s leadership of the agency.
Former acting FEMA Administrator David Richardson told ABC News that he faced resistance from DHS headquarters while trying to provide disaster assistance during the deadly 2025 Texas floods.
Richardson said a Noem policy requiring her personal approval for contracts above $100,000 created another layer of bureaucracy during disaster response.
“I eventually had to make a decision where I overrode DHS headquarters and sent the support anyhow,” Richardson told ABC News.
Richardson resigned in December 2025 after his plans to reshape FEMA were not going to be considered without going through the agency’s review process, ABC News reported.
The scrutiny surrounding DHS has also extended to Lewandowski.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Lewandowski, a close adviser to Noem who served as a special government employee at DHS, had major influence over the department while pursuing potential private business opportunities.
The Journal reported that Lewandowski approached officials in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates about potential consulting arrangements involving DHS matters.
Both countries declined, according to The Journal.
