By the time he resigned from FEMA, Brown had already been discharged from his functions as local coordinator by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and was sent back to Washington to continue FEMA's central operations. At least one source, "The Economist", suggested that Brown had been "pushed" out by the administration rather than having resigned voluntarily, although internal e-mails from Brown indicated that he was already planning to leave FEMA at the time Katrina hit. The same suggestion was made by at least one member of Congress during a hearing on what went wrong during Katrina. Brown concentrated his testimony at that hearing on alleging that Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin bore most, if not all, of the blame for the failures in the response to Katrina, and that his only fault had been not to realize sooner their inability to perform their respective duties.