The US Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps on Wednesday scheduled a military tribunal for former Acting FEMA Director David Richardson, who served in that role from May to November 2025, based on charges of treason.
As reported last November and December, the Secret Service arrested the rapacious, reclusive madman after he declared himself “ruler of FEMA” and, later, was caught on audio accusing Kristi Noem of being a pill-popping alcoholic and Trump an irresponsible maniac for disarming FEMA and giving ICE its guns. But Richardson practiced projection, for it was he who had swallowed countless Vicodin tablets and gulped Jack Daniels while locked in his office. He had longed for the day when Americans again trembled in fear of FEMA, and lamented Trump’s neutering of the agency he had hoped to revive—meaning pillaging and plundering disaster victims.
When President Trump demanded his appointee’s resignation, Richardson flipped the fuck out, telling Trump he was “irreplaceable” and, in ungoverned rage, threatened to overthrow Trump’s presidency. A few days later, the Secret Service arrested him, and he told agents he was on a bender when he dishonored the president. He was initially brought to a federal confinement facility in D.C. but later flown to GITMO after President Trump tasked JAG with prosecuting a “Deep State” detainee.
While confined at GITMO, Richardson experienced alcohol and opiate withdrawal symptoms. He told a Navy physiatrist that “bugs were crawling under his skin” and that his heart constantly hammered against his chest. The first tremors started in his hands—fine at first, then visible shakes when he tried to drink from the sink tap. Nausea rolled in waves. He retched into the steel toilet, bringing up nothing but bile and the watery remains of the previous night’s meal. His nose ran constantly; he wiped it on the sleeve of his jumpsuit. He had begged guards to extinguish the overhead fluorescent light “drilling into his skull.” He spent much time curling on his bunk, knees to chest, blanket pulled tight, whispering about invisible insects across his scalp. He clawed at his arms, leaving red welts, convinced something was burrowing under his skin.
He begged for methadone, a long-acting synthetic drug used to treat opioid addiction, but was told GITMO didn’t coddle drug-addled Deep Staters; If he survived the shakes, he’d stand trial; if not, his desecrated corpse would be incinerated.
Ten days later, his withdrawal symptoms subsided, and Richardson, seemingly discombobulated, asked his court-appointed attorney why he was sitting in a damp, dark cell instead of in the living room of his Bethesda, Maryland, home. He claimed to have no recollection of being arrested.
“I must’ve blacked out,” he told the JAG-appointed lawyer. I don’t remember anything.”
His lawyer filed a “motion of incompetence,” suggesting that Richardson was unfit to stand trial due to his history of alcoholism and drug use, which impaired his memory and irreparably damaged his physical and mental health.
Staff Judge Advocate Major General David Bligh, however, rejected the motion as “the defendant feigning amnesia to avoid accountability,” and scheduled Robinson’s tribunal for April 20.