Postal chief DeJoy has long leveraged connections, dollars

DeJoy, Barger and Duncan were prominent donors to President Donald Trump and other Republicans.How exactly DeJoy was hired is among the questions Congress is trying to unravel as lawmakers scrutinize a series of operational changes at the Postal Service that have resulted in widespread mail delays and fears that the agency will not be able to handle an expected surge in mail-in ballots this fall as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Democrats say they also want to learn more about the role of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who met with Duncan and other Republicans on the agency’s board while the selection of the new postmaster general was underway.The Trump administration denies any impropriety in the selection of DeJoy, a former supply chain CEO who is the first postmaster general in nearly two decades not to be a career postal employee. Mnuchin has denied that he or other Treasury Department officials played a role in recruiting or suggesting DeJoy to the Postal Service board of governors, which is comprised of Trump appointees. Williams, a former Postal Service inspector general who said he resigned as vice chairman of the board of governors in April after it became clear DeJoy would be hired, said Mnuchin was using a multibillion-dollar line of credit with the Postal Service as leverage to take effective control over labor agreements, prices and contracts with Amazon and other large shippers.“The Treasury was using that responsibility to make demands that I believed would turn the Postal Service into a political tool, ending its long history as an apolitical public infrastructure,″ Williams told the Congressional Progressive Caucus at a forum last week.In a “fact sheet” issued in response to Williams’s claims, the Treasury said it plays an important role overseeing federal loans to the Postal Service. David Fineman, a former chairman of the board of governors, described Mnuchin’s involvement with the service as “unprecedented” and said many questions remain about why drastic changes were put in place so soon after DeJoy became postmaster general.“You put together this piece and you put together that piece and it just doesn’t add up,” Fineman said.DeJoy “didn’t strike me as a serious candidate,″ Williams said, calling DeJoy’s initial job interviews unimpressive.