Postmaster general announces he is suspending policies blamed for causing mail delays

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Postal Service will halt its controversial cost-cutting initiatives until after the election - canceling service reductions, reinstating overtime hours and ceasing the removal of mail-sorting machines and public collection boxes, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced in a statement Tuesday.

The declaration comes as lawmakers prepared to question DeJoy and USPS board of governors Chairman Robert M. Duncan in a Friday hearing in the Senate and at a Monday hearing in the House on those policy changes, which have caused mail slowdowns and threatened to jeopardize ballot collection during the November election.

DeJoy, a former logistics executive and ally of President Donald Trump, took office in June and swiftly made organizational changes to the nation's mail service, cracking down on overtime hours and banning extra trips by postal carriers trying to ensure on-time mail delivery. The result was mail delays in localities across the country that ensnared prescription medications and election mail during some mid-summer primaries.

The Postal Service also planned to take 671 mail-sorting machines, roughly 10 percent of its inventory, offline to cut costs, and had in recent days removed, relocated and replaced public mailboxes in a number of states including Oregon, Pennsylvania, California, Ohio, Montana and Arizona, among others.

[In rule change, Postal Service forbids employees from signing absentee ballots as witnesses]

Democratic lawmakers had begun in recent weeks to take DeJoy to task over those changes, with several calling for him to resign. Postal Service Inspector General Tammy Whitcomb launched an investigation of those policies last week, along with DeJoy's financial portfolio.

"I came to the Postal Service to make changes to secure the success of this organization and its long-term sustainability," DeJoy said in a statement. "I believe significant reforms are essential to that objective, and work toward those reforms will commence after the election.

"In the meantime, there are some longstanding operational initiatives - efforts that predate my arrival at the Postal Service - that have been raised as areas of concern as the nation prepares to hold an election in the midst of a devastating pandemic. To avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail, I am suspending these initiatives until after the election is concluded."

DeJoy said he would expand the agency's leadership taskforce on election mail to include labor union leaders and industry associations. He also said post office hours would be unchanged, mail processing equipment and mailboxes "will remain where they are," and that "we will engage standby resources in all areas of our operations, including transportation, to satisfy any unforeseen demand."

Clamors from Democrats in both chambers for hearings with DeJoy grew over recent days after President Trump said he wanted to withhold funding from the Postal Service to attempt to hobble its ability to process election mail.

Democrats have alleged that DeJoy, a former Republican National Convention finance chairman, is taking steps that are causing dysfunction in the mail system and could wreak havoc in the presidential election.

Republicans brush off those allegations, saying DeJoy must take decisive action to cut costs at the long-beleaguered agency.

The USPS confirmed Tuesday that DeJoy would appear at the Friday hearing.

The Postal Service is in the process of removing 671 high-speed mail-sorting machines nationwide this month, a process that will eliminate 21.4 million items per hour's worth of processing capability from the agency's inventory.

On Thursday and Friday, it began removing public collection boxes in parts of California, New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Montana. The agency said Friday that it would stop mailbox removals, which it said were routine, until after the election.

And White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that it would also halt sorting-machine removals.

Meadows also said the White House is open to Congress passing a stand-alone measure to ensure the U.S. Postal Service is adequately funded to manage a surge in mail voting in November.

"The president of the United States is not going to interfere with anybody casting their votes in a legitimate way whether it's the post office or anything else," he said.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the Senate committee chair, will gavel the Friday hearing remotely, and is expected to press DeJoy on whether the Postal Service truly needs the $25 billion in emergency funding that the House has pushed. President Trump's administration has backed away from its hard line stance against any postal aid, and signaled it could be willing to approve $10 billion. The agency has $15 billion in cash and another $10 billion it can access in a Treasury loan. Analysts of its finances say that is more than enough liquidity for the Postal Service to make it through the November election. The Postal Service's own estimates say it has enough cash on hand to survive through at least March.

Senate Democrats - including the party's presumptive vice-presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris of California, and Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, who launched his own investigation of mail delays last week - are poised to grill DeJoy on his connections to the Trump White House.

DeJoy has given more than $2 million to the Trump campaign or Republican causes since 2016, according to the Federal Election Commission, including a $210,600 contribution to the Trump Victory Fund on Feb. 19. He has given more than $650,000 to the Trump Victory Fund and more than $1 million to the Republican National Convention. Democrats in both the House and Senate have labeled his selection patronage from the Trump administration.