The House Oversight Committee is calling for Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to testify at an “urgent” congressional hearing later this month amid growing concerns about whether cost-cutting measures will leave the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) ill-equipped to handle a rise in mail-in voting.
“Over the past several weeks, there have been startling new revelations about the scope and gravity of operational changes you are implementing at hundreds of postal facilities without consulting adequately with Congress, the Postal Regulatory Commission, or the Board of Governors,” the committee’s chairwoman, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), wrote in a letter on Sunday to DeJoy, who was appointed to his post in May.
“Your testimony is particularly urgent given the troubling influx of reports of widespread delays at postal facilities across the country — as well as President Trump’s explicit admission last week that he has been blocking critical coronavirus funding for the Postal Service in order to impair mail-in voting efforts for the upcoming elections in November,” Maloney added.
The New York Democrat said that a hearing examining operational and organization changes at USPS will be conducted on Aug. 24. The chairwoman had originally planned for a hearing in mid-September, but said that recent reports had compelled her to speed up the timeline.
The committee is also seeking testimony from Robert Duncan, the chairman of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors.
Democrats have raised increasing alarm in recent weeks over DeJoy’s actions and President Trump’s repeated attacks on mail-in voting, which is expected to play a much greater role in the 2020 presidential election due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Tensions boiled over on Thursday after Trump said in an interview on Fox Business that he was opposed to Democrats’ efforts to allocate $25 billion in coronavirus relief to USPS because it would assist mail-in voting.
“The President has explicitly stated his intention to manipulate the Postal Service to deny eligible voters access to the ballot in pursuit of his own re-election,” Democratic leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Maloney, said in a statement Sunday.
They called on DeJoy and top Postal Service leadership to “answer to the Congress and the American people as to why they are pushing these dangerous new policies that threaten to silence the voices of millions, just months before the election.”
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JUST IN: House Oversight Committee calls for "urgent" hearing with Postmaster General https://t.co/9VhfAmbFsk pic.twitter.com/FBbdAQTNfy
— The Hill (@thehill) August 16, 2020
Q: "Does Postmaster DeJoy have your backing for the actions that he's taken in the last several weeks?"
Trump: "Yeah he's a fantastic man… I don't know what he's doing — I can only tell you he's a very smart man." https://t.co/C3jhagAGRm pic.twitter.com/hS3LMKu9Bc
— The Hill (@thehill) August 16, 2020
Next we have removal of mail sorting machines. The argument is that it was long-planned and due to lower mail volume. But why make changes to decrease sorting capacity *just before an election,* when everybody knows USPS needs to be at the top of its game when ballots are mailed?
— Patterico (@Patterico) August 16, 2020
Does all this add up to a conspiracy? I don't know. I know that this President is lawless and manages to get his underlings to do lawless things that benefit him but not the country. Maybe that's not the case here, but to dismiss the possibility as irrational is, I think, naive.
— Patterico (@Patterico) August 16, 2020
Can you explain to me whether I have any facts wrong in my previous tweet — and if I do not, whether those facts taken together present a valid cause for concern? I respect you and having your detailed response to this particular issue would be very helpful to me.
— Patterico (@Patterico) August 16, 2020
Yeah. Trump says he doesn’t know what DeJoy does, but I’m going to bet this deliberate sabotage of USPS right before the election is being done at Trump’s direction. It’s why Trump hired this campaign donor and Trump loyalist in the first place.
I hope any inquiry or investigation asks about Trump’s involvement in this scheme because I’m sure he’s in it up to his eyebrows.
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