On Friday, the controversial Trump-allied Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, and he was scheduled to testify before the House Oversight Committee on Monday. He has faced steep criticism for his recent policy and operations changes at the Postal Service that have had the net effect of slowing down the mail with not long at all until the general election, when large numbers of mail-in ballots are expected to be used. President Trump, for his part, has already been baselessly complaining about the supposed potential for fraud with mail-in ballots, but on Friday, the official Postal Service Twitter account implicitly refuted his claims with a reminder to the public that they can handle a mail-in ballot surge.
The Postal Service noted that if, over the course of the election, every single American voted by mail — not just every registered voter, but every single American — the total number of pieces of mail to handle would still be less than what the Postal Service ordinarily delivers across the country in a single day. In other words, by all appearances — as long as Trump and his lackeys don’t undercut the Postal Service’s work, they can more than handle a rise in mail-in ballot usage.
— U.S. Postal Service (@USPS) August 21, 2020
This weekend, the House is slated to vote on the Delivering for America Act, which would, for the near future, prohibit the Postal Service from making any major service-affecting policy changes to the state of affairs that was in effect on January 1 of this year. Some of DeJoy’s controversial policy and operations updates have included the reported cancellation of overtime opportunities for large swathes of the agency’s workforce and the removal of mail sorting machines from facilities across the country. Although DeJoy claimed in a recent statement that operations changes would be suspended until after the election, at least some mail sorting machines apparently aren’t even getting plugged back in, according to recently leaked emails.
It’s worth noting — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin “was actively invested in getting Trump donor Louis DeJoy installed at USPS,” as an official at the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) put it. That revelations suggests close political coordination between the Trump team and DeJoy.
Treasury Secretary Mnuchin was actively invested in getting Trump donor Louis DeJoy installed at USPS. The limited documents produced to @CREWcrew show that Congress should investigate Mnuchin’s role in recruiting DeJoy, who has attacked USPS from within. https://t.co/zL5x7TUwGA
— An Ethical Donald (@donaldonethics) August 20, 2020
Check out Twitter’s response to the Postal Service’s post below:
