Tag Archives: U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy

Judge says U.S. postmaster must answer questions on delay in ballot sweep

By David Shepardson and Tom Hals

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Wednesday said Postmaster General Louis DeJoy must answer questions about why the U.S. Postal Service failed to complete a court-ordered sweep for undelivered ballots in about a dozen states before a Tuesday afternoon deadline.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said at a hearing Wednesday that DeJoy “is either going to have to be deposed or appear before me and testify under oath about why some measures were not taken.”

The Postal Service, or USPS, disclosed on Wednesday it had completed the sweeps late on Tuesday and turned up just 13 ballots in Pennsylvania.

Sullivan had ordered the sweeps in response to lawsuits by groups including Vote Forward, the NAACP, and Latino community advocates.

The USPS told Sullivan it could not meet his 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT) Tuesday deadline for completing the checks, saying it was not logistically possible.

“The court has been very clear that it expects total compliance,” Sullivan said on Wednesday. “I was just as shocked to hear that nothing else was done after the injunction was issued.”

A spokesman for DeJoy declined to comment on Sullivan’s remarks.

Sullivan separately ordered a new round of sweeps at postal processing centers in Texas ahead of Wednesday’s deadline for postal ballots that had been postmarked by Tuesday to be delivered to local officials in the state.

Postal Service data showed that as of Sunday about 300,000 ballots that were received for mail processing did not receive scans confirming their delivery to election authorities.

In a court filing Wednesday, the Postal Service said “the lack of a destination or finalization scan does not mean that the ballots were not delivered.”

Sullivan was hearing testimony on the delivery of ballots from a senior official.

Sullivan’s order covered processing centers in central Pennsylvania, northern New England, greater South Carolina, south Florida, Colorado, Wisconsin and parts of Illinois, Arizona, Alabama and Wyoming, as well as the cities of Atlanta, Houston, Philadelphia and Detroit.

A senior postal inspection official said Wednesday officials in Pennsylvania had found 10 ballots in Lancaster and three delayed ballots in Johnstown during the sweeps and they were referred to management for delivery.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Giles Elgood)

House Democrats call for U.S. postal chief’s suspension, launch probe

(Reuters) – The head of the House Oversight panel on Tuesday urged the immediate suspension of U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy following reports that he illegally reimbursed former employees for political contributions, and announced an investigation.

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, in a statement, said if the allegations are true, DeJoy faced “criminal exposure” not only for violating the law with the transactions but also for lying to Congress when he denied making them at a recent hearing.

“We will be investigating this issue, but I believe the Board of Governors must take emergency action to immediately suspend Mr. DeJoy, who they never should have selected in the first place,” she said.

The move follows accusations by former workers at DeJoy’s company that he reimbursed employees for campaign contributions to his preferred Republican politicians, an arrangement that would violate federal campaign finance law. The Washington Post and the New York Times both reported the allegations over the weekend, citing multiple unnamed former employees.

President Donald Trump on Monday said he would support an investigation into campaign contributions involving DeJoy, a Trump donor who is already facing a political fire storm after changes he implemented ahead of the November election that critics said could delay mail-in balloting.

On Tuesday, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows defended DeJoy and accused Democrats of launching a political probe in an election year.

“Louis DeJoy is an honorable man,” Meadows told reporters at the White House. “I’m sure he’ll cooperate completely, and we serve in a great country where you’re innocent until proven guilty.”

The House Oversight committee is already investigating USPS operational changes, including curbed overtime, and sent DeJoy a subpoena last week seeking related documents. New York’s attorney general has also separately filed a lawsuit over the issue.

Democrats have accused him of deliberately disrupting the Postal Service as millions of Americans consider whether to cast their vote by mail in the Nov. 3 presidential election, saying the changes could slow down mail delivery and delay ballots.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu; writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Gerry Doyle and Steve Orlofsky)