Suit Filed Against Post Office Changes As President Trump Denies Sabotage

As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi prepared to call the House back into session Monday to deal with alleged administration efforts to slow mail delivery, a federal lawsuit was filed in New York requiring the government to shore up the U.S. Postal Services finances and President Trump denied he’s trying to sabotage mail delivery.

The postal service has been reeling under the weight of crushing deficits for more than a decade as the result of legislation that requires it to prefund pensions and health insurance, along with falling volumes of first-class mail and competition from commercial delivery services.

Trump said last week on Fox Business Network he was holding up emergency aid to the agency, which is established in the Constitution, to make it impossible for it to deal with what is expected to be a surge in mail-in voting as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

“While President Trump himself is holding up necessary funding for the post office, a flurry of steps taken by [Postmaster General Louis] DeJoy all but guarantee that thousands upon thousands [if not millions] of ballots will simply not reach their destinations on time, will likely lack postmarks that are required by state law, and that the volume of election mail that is coming may be delayed for weeks,” the complaint filed in Manhattan read.

Attorneys general in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Massachusetts and North Carolina are discussing filing their own suit, the Washington Post reported.

Trump shrugged off the criticism Monday in a Fox News interview, saying, “I’m just making it good” and criticized the way the post office has been run.

“What am I supposed to do? Let it continue to run badly. So, if you fix it, they say, ‘Oh he’s tampering with the election.’ No, we’re not tampering,” he said.

Trump long has railed against widespread mail-in voting, alleging without evidence that it would lead to widespread fraud.

On CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday when it was pointed out there’s no evidence of widespread fraud in states where all elections are conducted by mail, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows responded: “There’s no evidence that there’s not either.”

DeJoy, a former logistics executive with investments in companies that compete with the postal service, has pledged to transform postal operations, cutting overtime and second deliveries, and issuing new rules on when carriers can sort mail.

Hundreds of demonstrators showed up outside DeJoy’s gated mansion overlooking the Greensboro Country Club golf course in North Carolina Sunday, decrying the changes, which also included the removal of high-level managers and high-speed sorting equipment.