Post Office funny business

 Maybe it's because there's a growing reluctance in our society to have one's take on something be revealed as an unfounded conspiracy theory that the current set of developments involving the US Postal Service are still being treated as if it were enshrouded in mystery.

But consider the deactivation of several mail-sorting machines at centers around the country. Or the reduction in the number of national service areas from seven to four. Or the change to the core postal service principle of getting every piece of mail delivered every day. 

And consider the person now at the helm, the one implementing these changes:

Before joining the administration, DeJoy, a Trump ally and fundraiser, was on the board of directors at XPO Logistics, a large transportation and logistics company that does business with the USPS and has contracts with other US government agencies, such as the Department of Defense. In 2014, XPO acquired DeJoy's company, New Breed Logistics, for $615 million. 

These questions about DeJoy come at a time of incredible strain at USPS. The agency is already strapped for cash and facing funding shortages. And two members of the board of governors quit earlier this year, at least in part to protest efforts by Trump aides to control USPS finances and operations. DeJoy's supporters say he's the right person for the job because he can streamline the struggling agency with his business expertise.

When announcing DeJoy's appointment, the USPS board of governors noted that New Breed "was a contractor to the U.S. Postal Service for more than 25 years," and received awards for high quality in the 1990s. The announcement didn't mention XPO's ongoing ties to the USPS. 

According to federal records, when he became postmaster general, DeJoy still owned a large equity stake in XPO, totaling between $30 million and $75 million. Federal ethics officials recently approved his decision to keep these assets, but outside experts with decades of experience in government are raising red flags. 

"The idea that you can be a postmaster general and hold tens of millions in stocks in a postal service contractor is pretty shocking," said Walter Shaub, the former director of the Office of Government Ethics, who resigned in 2017. "It could be that he's planning on selling it, but I don't understand the delay. He has managed to divest a lot of other things. And if he wasn't prepared to sell that off, he shouldn't have taken the job."

Schaub, who is now a senior adviser at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, suggested that if DeJoy doesn't divest his holdings soon, it could be construed as an illegal conflict of interest. Schaub also questioned why the ethics officials approved this arrangement. 

It's illegal under federal law for federal government employees or their spouses to have a "financial interest" in companies that intersect with their official duties. The ethics experts who spoke to CNN said DeJoy could have mitigated these conflicts by divesting, agreeing upfront to recuse himself from some matters, receiving legal waivers, or even establishing a blind trust. 

"If you have a $30 million interest in a company, of course it's going to impact you," said Stuart Gilman, who spent 12 years at the Office of Government Ethics, where he was the assistant director. "I would assume that there is a problem here. It certainly doesn't pass the smell test."

Or consider the Very Stable Genius's response, particularly ineptly delivered, to Maria Bartiromo, on Fox Business this morning. It's one of his classic word salads, but it doesn't really take too much parsing to get to what he really means: that he has the USPS by the short hairs and is not going to get them the funds they'll need to process mail-in ballots this fall:

During an interview on Fox Business, host Maria Bartiromo asked Trump what Democrats are pushing in the coronavirus stimulus package that was causing the negotiations to be held up. He replied, “It’s their fault. They want 3-and-a-half billion dollars for something that will turn out to be fraudulent. That’s election money, basically.”

“They want 3-and-a-half billion dollars for the mail-in votes. Universal mail-in ballots, 3-and-a-half… They want $25 billion — billion — for the post office. Now, they need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” he explained, adding, “Now, in the meantime, they aren’t getting there.”

“By the way, those are just two items, but if they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting because they’re not equipped to have it,” Trump went on, before remarking, “And you’ve seen how bad it’s been with this Caroline Malone scam. She scammed her way into an election. She probably lost but they said mail-in ballots, it’s all mixed up. Paterson, New Jersey, same thing.”

“Yesterday, Virginia, 500,000 applications for ballots got sent to everybody, nobody even knows. Got sent to dogs, got sent to dead people. Nobody has no idea what happened. They say, ‘Oh, we made a mistake, I’m sorry.’ 500,000 ballots sent in Virginia,” he said. “How do you feel about Virginia going in there and you have 500,000 phony ballot applications, and this is all over.”

Bartiromo responded, “Wow, so this is what’s holding it up?… This is what’s holding up money for the American people? They want mail-in voting and they want money for the post office? This is one of the sticking points that’s holding back stimulus for Americans during this coronavirus?”

“That’s one of them,” Trump answered. “How would you like to have 3-and-a-half billion dollars — billion — for mail-in voting? Billion… You know how much money that is? Nobody has any idea… They want $25 billion for the post office because the post office is going to have to go to town to get these ridiculous ballots in.”

“You know, there’s nothing wrong with getting out and voting. You get out and vote. They voted during World War I and World War II and they should have voter ID because the Democrats scammed the system. But two of the items are the post office and the 3-and-a-half billion dollars for mail-in voting,” he concluded. “Now, if we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money. That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting. They just can’t have it.”

He was no doubt trying to sound as minimally autocratic as possible, but he's not an adept enough communicator to pull it off.

Yes, the Postal Service has some chronic problems that predate this confluence of a pandemic and an election cycle, but an orderly and secure mail-in voting option could be implemented if all parties involved were on the same page. 

Some folks think "but we're crowding into bars and reopening sports stadiums" is a gotcha rejoinder. Here's the difference: People have other options for things they'd do with a chunk of time not spent in a bar or a stadium. Some people - probably a lot of people - will indeed line up at their local polling place the first Tuesday of November. But they ought to have the option of an alternative means of voting in this extraordinary time. 

It can be done. 

If there's a truly strong argument why it shouldn't be, someone who can communicate like a composed adult will have to make it. The VSG's gobbledygook wasn't convincing.