U.S Army soldiers offload bottled water from a helicopter during recovery efforts four weeks after Hurricane Maria struck on Oct. 18, 2017 in Utuado, Puerto Rico. | Mario Tama/Getty Images First responder emails appear to undermine Trump's narrative on Hurricane Maria

Emails released Thursday by congressional Democrats show correspondence between first responders that appears to undermine the Trump administration’s public reporting of the human toll from Hurricane Maria last year.

In one email, dated Sept. 29, 2017, a first responder — whose name has been redacted — describes “finding mass graves in mud slide areas,” and requests counseling support for federal first responders in the area. An unnamed Army National Guard general is included in the correspondence.


Only 16 deaths were publicly acknowledged when President Donald Trump arrived at the island days later to survey damage and meet with local officials. That number climbed to 34 hours after he left.

Independent researchers at George Washington University subsequently estimated the casualties at 2,975, a figure accepted by Puerto Rico’s commonwealth government.

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Trump claimed in a tweet Thursday that the death toll from Hurricane Maria had been inflated after the storm. It’s unclear whether he was ever briefed on the discovery of hurricane victims in the U.S. territory described in the documents.

Trump has repeatedly described his administration’s response as a success, a message he’s revived this week as Hurricane Florence has approached the East Coast.

“The people of Puerto Rico deserve a full accounting of the impact of the storm, and they deserve recognition of that impact by our president,” Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said Thursday. “Puerto Rico suffered a terrible tragedy at the hands of Hurricane Maria, and we strongly denounce anyone who would use this disaster or question our suffering for political purposes.”

The emails were released as part of a call from Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) for a full congressional investigation into the aftermath of Hurricane Maria and federal government’s response to the disaster.

In a letter to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), Cummings asks for a further investigation into what the Trump administration knew about those additional deaths and when it was known.

“I am writing to request that you join me in finally sending a request to the White House to produce documents relating to the Trump Administration’s response to the hurricanes last year in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, which killed nearly 3,000 Americans,” Cummings writes.

A committee spokesperson for Gowdy did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did officials at the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration. Puerto Rico’s government maintained an official death tally of 64 until it accepted the George Washington University study published last month.

Cummings also released an unclassified National Guard intelligence assessment, produced five days after Hurricane Maria hit the U.S. territory, that warns that the “potential for government failure and resulting humanitarian crisis on Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands is high.”

The email containing the report also says it was produced for Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Trump’s top military advisers.

“Since you have refused to request any documents from the White House,” Cummings wrote Gowdy, “it remains unclear whether President Trump received this information and disregarded it in his many public statements, or if there was a serious communications breakdown between the White House and first responders on the ground.”

Cummings continued: “Either scenario raises grave concerns as our nation prepares for the impact of Hurricane Florence in the coming days.”

