


Senior Biden administration officials will cooperate with any Republican congressional efforts to investigate the state and federal response to the recent wildfires in Hawaii, Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell confirmed on Wednesday.
Criswell joined White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at Wednesday's press briefing to detail the cleanup effort on multiple Hawaiian islands and said she personally "would be happy to testify on what the federal role was in this process" if called to do so.
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However, Criswell declined to characterize the response of Hawaiian state officials. One official has resigned over the decision not to set off storm alarms while issuing evacuation orders.
"I was not there during the response, and so I would be out of line to assess how they responded during the time because I did not experience what they were experiencing," Criswell told reporters. "What the federal government does is we come in, and we support their efforts, and that's exactly what we did, and we will continue to support their recovery and their rebuilding efforts as they move forward."
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President Joe Biden has been heavily criticized by political opponents and Hawaiian survivors for a perceived slow response to the wildfires. He was vacationing in Delaware when the fires broke out in early August, and his trip to Maui two weeks later was bookended by another family vacation in Nevada.
You can watch Wednesday's briefing in full below.