The United States Postal Service selects businessman and Republican donor Louis DeJoy to lead the agency as postmaster general. According to a member of the USPS board of governors, DeJoy was coached through the interview process by Republican board member John Barger.
DeJoy, whom has donated nearly $2.5 million to Trump and the Republican Party combined, will replace a lifelong USPS employee who held the position prior. Immediately, critics in the media and Congress warn this could spell disaster.
In Mr. DeJoy, Mr. Trump will have an ally who is likely to do his bidding to bring major structural changes. Although Mr. DeJoy is well known among Republican donors, he is about to experience a new level of public scrutiny when he begins the job on June 15.
“GOP is naming a political operative with no USPS experience as the Postmaster General right before an election where millions of people will try to vote by mail to save their own lives,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, said Thursday on Twitter. “They are eroding our democracy and crushing our public institutions before our very eyes.”…
“For vote by mail, this seems like putting a fox in charge of the hen house,” William Kristol, the conservative commentator, said on Twitter. “Should Congress specify ways the Post Office has to cooperate with states’ vote by mail efforts?”
The New York Times
Within a week of DeJoy beginning the job on June 15, people around the country begin reporting unprecedented mail delays.
It’s later discovered the DeJoy has a financial interest in companies that compete with USPS, including a company that profits when the USPS is overwhelmed.
Mr. DeJoy and his wife, Aldona Wos, have significant investments in companies that do business with or compete with the Postal Service. According to disclosures filed with the Office of Government Ethics, the couple hold between $30.1 million and $75.3 million in such investments, mostly in XPO Logistics, where Mr. DeJoy was a director until 2018.
The New York Times
A vice chairman of the USPS board of governors, David Williams, claims in August that DeJoy never had a thorough background check. Williams resigned just days before the announcement.
Williams also tells Congress that Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin has been trying to take control of USPS for political purposes for months.
He said the secretary sought to use his lending authority to win guarantees that he could approve postal price changes, labor agreements and service agreements negotiated with some of the agency’s largest customers like Amazon, UPS and FedEx.
He said the board balked at Mr. Mnuchin’s demands, and he argued at the time that “a department cannot impose its will on another department.”
“The postal general counsel sent a letter saying that the transfer of our duties and decision-making authority to him was illegal,” he told lawmakers. “The Treasury went forward notwithstanding that.”
The New York Times
Sources
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/us/politics/trump-usps-mail-delays.html?searchResultPosition=1
https://www.nytimes.com/article/general-louis-dejoy-postmaster.html?searchResultPosition=1
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/us/politics/former-postal-governor-tells-congress-mnuchin-politicized-postal-service.html?searchResultPosition=6
Photo: Julie Knight