President Trump has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. Postal Service isn’t up to the task of handling mail-in ballots in the 2020 election. He has also refused to seek extra funding for mail delivery in this election year.
And the major supporter he appointed to run the USPS is making it even harder.
“Postmaster General Louis DeJoy unveiled a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s mail service” on Friday, “displacing the two top executives overseeing day-to-day operations,” along with 21 other top officials, reports the Washington Post.
Analysts say the reorganization “centralizes power around DeJoy, a former logistics executive … and de-emphasizes decades of institutional postal knowledge,” the Post says.
“Government watchdogs, Democratic lawmakers, and pro-democracy advocates declared it a “Friday Night Massacre,’” says Salon, citing the Common Dreams website.
In a Twitter post, one political commentator says Trump is “actively sabotaging the election under our noses.”
The USPS lost more than $2 billion from April through June, largely because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
This week more than 80 lawmakers from both parties protested DeJoy’s actions; Rep Greg Gianforte (R-MT) stated flatly that “Delaying mail service is unacceptable.”
In a letter sent Friday to Postal Service Inspector General Tammy Whitcomb, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), who chairs the House Oversight Committee, and seven other Democrats called for an investigation of DeJoy’s cost-cutting moves — blamed by postal workers for delivery slowdowns.
The letter also asks Whitcomb to review the finances of DeJoy and his wife, Aldona Wos, Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Canada.
“The couple’s holdings include between $30.1 million and $75.3 million in assets in USPS competitors or contractors,” according to a financial disclosure Wos filed when she was nominated, the Post says.
DeJoy is the first postmaster general in nearly two decades who is not a career postal employee.
