Louis DeJoy poses a serious threat to the United States Postal Service (USPS)—time and time again, the Postmaster General has failed to uphold his ethical obligations and protect our democratic system of free and fair elections.

His transgressions began when he was appointed in 2020: in apparent violation of a conflict-of-interest statute, he retained stocks and stock options worth tens of millions of dollars in XPO Logistics, a USPS contractor, and just three months after DeJoy’s appointment, XPO logistics coincidentally negotiated a $5 million contract with USPS. Similarly, DeJoy also bought up to $100,000 of stock options in Amazon, one of USPS’s fiercest competitors, just eight days after assuming his position.

Even more troubling than his egregious financial conflicts, however, are his actions in the 2020 presidential election. Publicly available statements and documents reveal that DeJoy, a Trump-appointee, pioneered policy changes at the agency to depress or delay mail-in-ballots—his actions not only constituted an abuse of power to pursue personal political interests, but they also likely violated federal law.

We’ve sent a letter to the USPS Board of Governors, urging them to remove DeJoy from his role as Postmaster General or, at the very least, explain why a leader with such dubious ethical standards should retain his position.

The Board of Governors should be committed to preserving the integrity of a vital democratic institution—if Louis DeJoy remains in charge of the USPS, conflicts of interest and corruption will continue to erode the integrity of one of our oldest federal agencies.

Read the letter here.

Header photo by Scott Ableman under a Creative Commons license

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