February 23, 2021

Here's the smoking gun. DeJoy testified under oath (see above video) that he did not curtail USPS overtime when he not only did so, Republican Senate staff had a memo to that effect. Via a Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics In Washington (CREW) investigation:

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy ordered cuts to overtime for USPS workers last summer, according to a memo sent to Republican Senate staff and obtained by CREW in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. DeJoy denied under oath that he was the one who ordered the cuts during congressional testimony last August.

The memo—which was attached to an August 18, 2020 email from Republican Senate staff to a top aide in the Treasury Department—includes a section titled “USPS Operational ‘Shift’ to Reduce Exorbitant Overtime.” The section discusses “the recent plan put forth by the Postmaster General (PMG) to reduce overtime.” This statement appears to directly contradict DeJoy’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee on August 24, 2020, in which he insisted “I did not direct the elimination or any cutback in overtime.”

DeJoy’s denial was puzzling given the widespread understanding at the time that he personally ordered the overtime cuts. Senator Ron Johnson gave DeJoy credit for the cuts during an August 21 Senate hearing. And as CNN reported last year, a July 2020 USPS directive issued during DeJoy’s tenure “directly led to a significant majority of overtime opportunities being eliminated and prevented.” It’s unclear how this directive “could have been implemented without [DeJoy’s] knowledge or approval” given his role as “chief executive over the entire USPS,” CNN noted. The newly-disclosed memo shows that Republican Senate staff understood that DeJoy had in fact ordered the overtime reduction.

Republicans instead blamed delays on “postal workers taking the paid leave granted in the COVID Phase 2 bill.” Uh huh.

I'd say at this point, installing that new USPS board of governors rises from a priority to an urgent matter. Let's get this lying creep out of our Postal Service.

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