The former vice chairman of the Postal Board of Governors testified Thursday that the Trump administration “politicized” the Postal Service and used Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to inappropriately influence the organization for policy purposes that ultimately hurt customers and businesses. Service will have damage intended to serve.
David Williams, former USPS Inspector General and former Vice President of the USPS Board of Governors, testified before the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Thursday that he resigned “when it became clear to me that the administration was policing the Postal Service with the Treasury Secretary as the main figure for the White House in that effort. “
By statute, Mnuchin, as treasurer secretary, is responsible for providing the Postal Service with a line of credit, Williams testified. But Mnuchin “used that responsibility to make demands that I believed the Postal Service would make in a political tool, and end its long history as an apolitical public infrastructure.”
Mr. Trump has been basing the Postal Service for a long time, and he claims that agency companies like Amazon can benefit from it.
“Clearly, the president had determined that the Postal Service should do harm to Amazon delivery by sharply increasing package prices for anyone with 400% or more,” Williams testified. “On the way to attacking a political enemy, I feared that American citizens would feel the shock of the price increase and that American supply chains would lose much of their value, damaging businesses and our competitive position worldwide.”
Williams also said the president “mocked” the postal service “while a large number of our staff died every day as they struggled to carry out our mission, during a deadly pandemic.”
Williams noted that the president finally said on the plate what became clear – “that he was withholding COVID-19 relief funds so that the Postal Service could not vote reliably in its upcoming elections.” Mr Trump made that clear in an interview with a Fox News host earlier this week.
“If we do not make a deal, that means they do not get the money,” he said. said the President. “That means they can’t have universal mail-in-voice; they just can’t have it.”
But Mnuchin also did other things, Williams claimed. The former top USPS official said Mnuchin insisted all GOP nominees for the board and regulatory committee “came to his office to kiss the ring” before confirmation, and continued contacts with them about their achievements.
Mnuchin was also interested in labor deals, postage prices and volume discounts given to the likes of Amazon, UPS and FedEx, Williams said.
“The postal service responded to the secretary’s early demands and declared that his demands were illegal, but the concerns were ignored,” Williams testified.
Williams said he believed the Postal Services’ financial woes “could be remedied without becoming a policy tool and without shutting down infrastructure.”
.
