Transcripts For CSPAN2 Postmaster General Louis DeJoy Testifies On Postal Service Operations ... 20240712

[inaudible conversations] welcome, everybody, todays hybrid hearing. Pursuant house rules some members will appear in person and others will appear remotely via webex. Since some members are appearing in person let me first remind everyone that pursuant to the latest guidance from the house attending physician all individuals attending this hearing in person must wear a face mask. Members who are not wearing a face mask will not be recognized. Let me also make a few reminders for those members appearing in person. You will see members and witnesses appearing remotely on the monitor in front of you when youre speaking in what is known in webex as active speaker view. At time is visible in the room directly in front of you. For members appearing remotely i know you are all familiar with webex by now but let me remind everyone of a few points. First you will be able to see each person speaking during the hearing. Whether they are in person or remote, as long as you have your webex set to active speaker view. If you have any questions about this please Contact Committee staff immediately. Second, we have a timer that should be visible on your screen when youre in the active speaker with him know. Members who wish to pen the timer to the screen should Contact Committee staff for assistance. Third, thousand rules require that we see you, so please hae your cameras turned on at all times. Fourth, members appearing remotely who are not recognized should remain muted to minimize background noise and feedback. Fifth, i will recognize members verbally here but members retain the right to seek recognition verbally in regular order. Members will be recognized in seniority order for questions. Lastly, if you want to be recognized outside of regular order you may identify that in several ways. You may use the chat function to send a request. You may send an email to the majority staff, or you may unmute your mic to seek recognition. Obviously we do not what people talking over each other, so my preference is that members use the chat function or email to facilitate formal verbal recognition. Committee staff will ensure that i am made aware of your request, and i will recognize you. We will begin hearing in just a moment when they tell me they are ready to begin a live stream. Chair maloney . Yes. Point of order. You mentioned the mask. You dont have one on. Well, im talking. If you are talking you can have your mask off. I thought you said during questions you had to have it on. Well, too, the roof yelped at the mask on but as you talk him as you and i know, its very hard to talk with the mask on. So it can be removed when youre asking questions or [inaudible] mr. Raskin . [inaudible] the committee will come to order. Without objection if the chair is authorized to declare recess of the committee at any time. Without objection the gentlewoman from North Carolina ms. Adams as well as the gentleman from illinois mr. Quigley will be permitted to join the committee and be recognized for questioning the witnesses. In addition the gentleman from North Carolina mr. Walker was recognized at the proper time to introduce his constituent. I know recognize myself for an Opening Statement. Good morning. I would like to welcome postmaster general louis dejoy, and the chairman of the postal board of governors Robert Duncan to this oversight hearing, and i thank you all for being here. In all of our districts we are hearing from constituents about significant delays in the delivery of mail, medicines, food, and other supplies. These delays are especially concerning and potentially lifethreatening during the Coronavirus Crisis. These are not isolated complaints. They are widespread. Our offices have been receiving thousands of calls and emails about the detrimental effects these delays are having on our veterans, seniors, Small Businesses, and families across the country. When we asked postal leaders about these delays they downplayed them. They dismissed them as temporary. They discounted them as a minor, unintended consequences of reforms being put in place. But then we saw National Headlines describing these delays in much more detail. I have a document here that headlines from almost every state in the country talking about these delays. For example, in my home state of new york i quote, mail is delayed i do six days in new york city, Postal Workers Union says, end quote. In kentucky Ranking Member conyers home state, Postal Service costcutting is frustrating kentuckians and raising election concerns, end quote. In california found state of our vice chairman mr. Gomez, quote, rotting food, dead animals and chaos at postal facilities amid cutbacks, end quote. This list goes on and on. Last friday when mr. Dejoy was confronted in the senate with these widespread reports, he said he felt bad about what he called a dip in service. But then after his testimony in the senate, we obtained an internal Postal Service document entitled pmg breathing. This is a presentation prepared directly for the postmaster general. It is dated almost two weeks ago, august 12. According to this document, these delays are not just a dip. This document warns the postmaster general a significant and widespread drops across the board. In firstclass marketing periodicals and other categorie categories. This document shows that these delays are not a myth or a Conspiracy Theory, as some of my colleagues have argued. These deep declines did not start in april or may when the coronavirus hit us, but in july when mr. Dejoy came on board and begin making these changes. Our entire country is experiencing these delays as a result of his actions, such as his decision to restrict the number of trips from Processing Plants to delivery units. Perhaps mr. Dejoy thought his sweeping changes would not cause any delays. In my opinion, that would be incompetent at best. Or perhaps this was intentional. Maybe mr. Dejoy was warned that his changes would cause delays, vitae disregarded those warnings. That would be extremely reckless in the middle of a Global Pandemic with less than three months before an important election. Or perhaps there is a far simpler explanation. Perhaps mr. Dejoy is just doing exactly what President Trump said he wanted on National Television, using the blocking of funds to justify sweeping changes to hobble mail in voting. All of these options are bad, but when you install someone as postmaster general after he donates millions of dollars to your campaign, when he rushes to make changes without conducting adequate analysis and when he withholds Key Information from congress and doesnt level with us when people begin to ask, why did the world is going on . Given all of this, its not surprising that the Postal Service Inspector General has already open and investigation into mr. Dejoys controversial changes. We will be asking mr. Dejoy some hard questions today. Well also be asking mr. Duncan as chairman of the board about his own role in choosing mr. Dejoy as postmaster general, about his own role in vetting mr. Dejoy for conflict of interest, including mr. Dejoys ownership of stock in major Postal Service competitors and mr. Duncans own role in allowing these delays to happen under his watch. Whatever the cause of these massive delays, the American People want to go back to the way things were. They dont want these changes. They want then reversed. They dont want anyone messing with the post office, and they certainly dont want it politicized. They want to have confidence that their mail, their medicine, their ballots will be delivered on time. I look for doing from our witnesses, and i know recognize that distinguished Ranking Member comer for an Opening Statement. Well, thank you chairwoman maloney. I appreciate you calling this hearing today on the United States Postal Service, even though it would have been nice to do so before we actually vote on the bill saturday. We all agreed the Postal Service needs to be reformed to better serve the American People. We all want the Postal Service to be as efficient and effective as path to ensure americans receive the prescriptions on time, Small Businesses thrive in mail in ballots are delivered in a timely fashion. But meaningful reform is going to take bipartisanship. Something weve seen very little of in the last few days. Democrats fabricated of faceless baseless Conspiracy Theory about the Postal Service and hastily passed a a bill saturdy but before hearing from you, mr. The bill had no Prior Committee action to that the bill. No hearings, no markup. Because of this rush to process the bill was significantly amended by the democrats before it went to the rules committee. It then proceeded to the house e floor under processor prevented any amendments to the bill. There was no republican input, not at any step in the process. Just this morning we have learned that the u. S. Postal service opposes the bill that you all past saturday. They read the bill and realized that and makes it harder and more expensive to deliver the mail. At least this legislation is consistent with the obama biden years at the Postal Service. More delays, or financial losses. This chain of events should democrats are not serious about meaningful reform. The president does not support the bill. The Postal Service does not support the bill, and the senate will likely not take up the bill. This is a political stunt. During saturdays debate chairwoman maloney unveiled a 60 page powerpoint text she just received overnight from an apparent whistleblower. Madam chair, i dont need to remind you that your and adam schiff record with whistleblowers is less than stellar. The ashman played no role in the creation of your bill which was unveiled the day before. The deck contains delivery performance data updated since the u. S. Postal service is thirdquarter report. It shows the delays in july and august. Im very interested to from mr. Dejoy today about what he is learned about the causes of these delays. How much of an effect is the ongoing pandemic and increasing employee sick leave having on u. S. Postal Services Delivery performance. How does that compare to any temporary growing pains to make the Postal Service more efficient and selfsufficient. I say im interested to hear mr. Dejoys responses because they do not know the answers. I dont leave the chairwoman does either. This is one of repeatedly said, madam chair, that this committee is doing things backwards. When we make policy its our job to understand why something is happening, how would you find out why. You would have a hearing on the topic with the postmaster general. When would you have this hearing . Certainly before you pass a bill. Returning to today let me say that postal issue something i have long heard about a great deal in my rural districts. For example, i remember when the Obama Biden Administration a mail facility in paducah was close resulting letters that once took a day to get from point a to point b now taking three to four days. I also heard about the Postal Service from my grandmother who spent her entire career 27 years as the world mail carrier. My heart and so please got to our Postal Service families who have lost loved ones during this pandemic. As her grandson and the congress and rep sending the First District of kentucky and has a ranking of us can do what is service return to being a viable institution. But im disappointed at the hysterical frenzy whipped up around this issue by my colleagues on the left and the friends in the media. Lets look at the most often repeated claims again. As a Postal Service need to bail out an order to survive november . No. Mail on has declined but Package Delivery has shot through the roof increasing usps revenue by 1. 5 billion. It is nearly 15 billion cash on hand and can operate until at least august of 2021. Next question come as a postmaster general sabotaging election for removing blue postal boxes in mail sorting machines . No. The Postal Service is more than adequate capacity to handle the vote by mail. If everybody in the u. S. Requested via mail that still is less than one days average volume. That blue boxes and male sores were both components of longstanding programs in response to significant reduction in mail volume. 33 reduction over the past years. For reference under president obama proximally 12,000 blue mailboxes were removed and we didnt hear one word from the other side we needed that. A mail sores on track to be removed because they were sitting idle fix simply taking up for space or more productive activities. Is the Postal Service telling us there will be able to deliver ballots on time . No. What the Postal Service is doing and has for years has tried to dont take in account with the Postal Service can and cannot do. Usps can treat ballots as firstclass mail or better than first class mail but they cannot break the laws of time and space. The letters the democrats characterized as threats and propaganda are good faith efforts to prevent weeks of uncertainty and confusion such as what happened very recently with chairwoman maloney. The charges about over time, those came from an effort to reduce millions of dollars in overtime in extra truck trips the Postal Service spends every year. If overtime extra truck trips are normal or normal everyday part of your Business Operations that means something is wrong and you better fix it. On friday before the Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing, mr. Dejoy acknowledge the recent dip in service. He took responsibility for this performance labs. The logical step is to understand why this happened and come up with a plan. Even though your bill would prevent that, madam chair, i hope that today helps in the process. I yield back. I think the gentleman for his statement and i ask unanimous consent to place in the record the Service Performance measurement postmaster general briefings, an official report from the post office, data, research, facts. And in this report the facts speak for themselves and they show that under the first two months of the postmaster generals work, the service fail anywhere from six to 10 in all the major categories. My bill merely funds the post office and returns it back to the way it was so that the services didnt get the mail out to the people during a pandemic and before a very important election. After the pandemic we can revisit and have other statements and work go forward, lets not dismantle the services to the American People, the patterns, the seniors. People deserve to get their mail in a timely way, and most districts are having people calling frantically, where is my mail . Where is my medications . So the facts speak for themselves. Im placings into the record. I now recognize the distinguished chairman of the subcommittee on Government Operations who has been a great deal of work in this area, mr. Connolly, for an Opening Statement. Thank you, madam chair, and thank you for your leadership. I i was proud to cosponsor your bill that passed the house with 26 republicans showing the courage to address an emergency with respect to the most esteemed institution of government in america. We have an obligation, constitutionally, to ensure that something that is been part of the American Fabric since 1775 has a future. The Postal Service is not only fighting for its economic survival. Its fighting to maintain 120 years of professional, professional service rid of rotten systems that serve elected officials and not those who rely on the mail every day. We are here today to say the Postal Service. Rev in front of us and newly appointed postmaster general and chairman of the board of governors selected him for that post. We have pmg who six weeks into the complex and aweinspiring new job in the midst of a Global Pandemic and just weeks before a consequential National Election where the Postal Service will play an unprecedented role decides to announce a sweeping reorganization that he admits could slow down mail and will undoubtedly infuse uncertainty and confusion throughout the Postal Service and into our neighborhoods all across america. He announces these and other abysmally unsupported changes without engaging staff, unions, trade organizations, mailers, a recipients or congress. In fact, congress was told mr. Dejoy did not yet feel prepared to respond to any questions we might have for him. Yet he felt confident enough to freeze over time, delay mail delivery, and announced sweeping reorganizations. And mr. Duncan, congratulations of being a rubberstamp. The Postal Service board of governors is required by law to represent the public interest, not the president , not a Political Party or not even the postmaster general. Today the Postal Service employees 650,000 650,000 peop. Its the foundation for more than 1. 7 trillion mailing industry that employs another 7. 5 million people. But at the turn of the last century the u. S. Post office was nothing more than 77,000 patronage positions rife with gross incompetence and often investment. It was Rural America that use its political voice at the time to professionalize the post office. Instead of traveling miles to the closest general store to pick up mail from a political hack, rural residents lobbied congress and mass for rural free delivery and innovation that brought mail delivery to even the most distant of homes and businesses. The massive grassroots lobby effort brought those with acumen and expertise into the post office and refocus political leaders of what they were elected to do, serve the people, not their political parties. As as a nation the people transm the Postal Service the post office come into the Postal Service. This History Lesson resonates today. Yet another reckoning for this country and the Postal Service come here again the people of the nation have stood up loudly and consistently to condemn attempts to turn a crown jewel of our federal government i for the most trusted agency among the hundreds that serve this nation come into a spoil systems honeypot. We cannot and must not let that happen. During this pandemic the Postal Service is a lifeline to the delivery of lifesaving prescription medication, medical equipment, food in pantry staples, stimulus checks to pay rent and utility bills, census forms and even simply coupons to help struggling families stay out of poverty. What leader would think that even the possibility of slowing down mail in a time such as this is a good idea . What leader we take steps to freeze over time for a workforce literally risking its life every day to deliver mail to the people of this nation . 40,000 postal workers have contracted covid19 or been quarantined because of it. 40,000. As a few pmg, mr. Dejoy has recklessly cut hours and delay delivery times in the pursuit of unsupported Operational Efficiency. Hes never once asked congress to help despite a a team of members ready to provide financial and other support. The chairwoman and i along with a collection of hundreds of members have been fighting to provide the Postal Service with 75 million in support. To pay overtime and hazard cause come to dedicate a workforce come to invest any modernized and green postal fleet that doesnt explode, to pay for Information Technology investments that can streamline communications from come trucks and planes that are running late. Mr. Dejoy and mr. Duncan afield to work with congress to get this an active. Thus far the passage of Service Airline industry has received 25 billion in revenue stabilization. The Postal Service not a dime. On august 18 that bmg announced he would put a hold on some of these sweeping operational changes but his announcement did not come into reversing the Customer Service and capacity already made. They did not include an agenda to support mail that devastates a commitment to helping the Postal Service to fill aa stork role in the upcoming election. And lastly the pmg is still not advocating for additional funding for the Postal Service, despite the fact that the republicancontrolled trump appointed board of governors unanimously called for that package. Not a democratic idea, a republican dominated board unanimously. The reason operational and organizational changes mr. Dejoy has made may dash asa chairwoman just showed. Those are not our data. Thats yours, mr. Postmaster general. These delays of real impacts on real lives with real consequences. Most devastatingly, the damage to the Postal Service is credibility. In the very brief time, congratulations, mr. Dejoy. And esteemed institution that now is in doubt into American Publics mind. I applaud my colleagues in the house for passing diddley for delivery america ag bill because he didnt act now. We need to reverse this, reassure the American Public that they will get their mail on time and that their ballots will get there in time and be counted. This is about the future of our democratic institutions. This is the future about the most important election in my lifetime. Thats whats at stake today. I yield back. Madam chair . Yes . First i would like to make a point that you didnt notify our committee that mr. Connolly as ranking or as chairman of the subcommittee would be delivering an opening remark thats another example of this rush process, but i would like to ask that our Ranking Member mr. Connolly, subcommittee also be allowed to deliver opening remarks. Absolutely. The staff told me they reached out to you and your staff. Its general at the subcommittee that has the jurisdiction should speak on both sides. I have in my notes that mr. Hice will become who is now the Ranking Member on the subcommittee of Government Operations will also be giving an Opening Statement, and i was told that they did reach out. In future i will personally call you my self to make sure it gets to you. I was told by staff they talk to your staff, that theyd reached out to you. If that did not get to you, then i apologize. I will personally call you every time but it is usually the standard that we make an Opening Statement and the subcommittee with the jurisdiction makes an Opening Statement. I agree and i appreciate the chairwoman doing that. That is again important while we need to be prepared and not rush things like we have this postal reform bill. Madam chairwoman . Yes, mr. Connolly. If i can come to good defense. It is been your practice as chairwoman that when it is the jurisdiction of the a subcommittee of always led the subcommittee chair and the regular to have Opening Statements and thats practice, its not something you sprung on us today. I can think about lees four examples mac examples. Mr. Raskin is one, mr. Rouda, and the Ranking Member smith its actually the practice of the committee to do just that. Madam chair, fi maker i agree that it is practice. We just were not notified and it wasnt on the agenda item that we received, but we appreciate that and mr. Hice, its my understanding, is prepared to deliver an impromptu Opening Statement. Okay. First of ottawa to thank mr. Connolly for pointing that out and also point out the double standard that businesses such as airlines and others are receiving federal aid in the heroes package, in the covert release package, but the Vital Services from our post offers that so many people depend on, a lifeline to americans across america, they deserve to be funded, too. I now recognize the distinguished subcommittee chairman mr. Hice for Government Operations. Opening statement, and your recognize, mr. Hice. Thank you, madam chair. I appreciate that, and yes, we were not notified of this but it happy to take a few moments. Again, here we are having a hearing after a vote. I think this is absolutely disgusting. Certainly we had many votes without bothering to have a hearing, but i dont want i dont ever recall having a vote to socalled fix something and then have the hearing afterwards. This is unprecedented, and ben to me i believe is an example of political malpractice on the side of the democrats. We are here to talk about the Postal Service, and madam chair, im glad you brought up the heroes act because in itself, in the heroes act i believe is the unveiling of what the democrats are really trying to do. And that is themselves to fraudulently influence the upcoming election. In the heroes act is a requirement for universal mail in ballots. In the heroes act is a requirement that states cannot be involved in requiring voter id. And so were going to have tens of billions of ballots sent out all across the country to many people who perhaps are deceased, to people who have moved, to people who knows who they are, and states are not going to get to that any voter id at the democrats have their way and then we will have the ballot harvesting take place. This is what is at stake and i agree with chairman connolly thing this is a most important this is what is at stake, and if the democrats have their weight in this election it will be filled with fraud. It would be filled with confusion or it will be filled with lawsuits because thats what is in the he was asked to produce. If the democrats has away, and thankfully that bill is not going anywhere any further than the bill that was passed saturday before the hearing. Then we can talk about delays. At the usps. Well, we havent even had hearings on usps since i believe it was april of 2019, and now all of a sudden we are called in for an emergency over this whole thing. We had a briefing in april of this year, not a hearing. It was a briefing, and the purpose of that briefing was to discuss the delays the Postal Service do to covid19. And yes, there had been delays, and yes, there are thousands of usps workers who are not showing up for work due to covid19. Are we surprised that the related delays . Of course not. We had a briefing to discuss that just a couple of months ago. The postmaster general has nothing to do with covid19, have nothing to do with thousands of his workers not showing up. We also have cities that are rioting. Of course there are delays in many of those cities, the minneapolis or portland or chicago or l. A. Or wherever it may be. The fact of the matter is the bailout the past on saturday in the house of representatives is pointless. It refuses the opportunity to any reforms. And so we have a Postal Service right now that has 14 14 biln cash on hand, another 10 million available to to them with the treasury, and they cant even get access to the ten because they have too much money cash. And yet we pass a bill for another 25 billion, and in that bill we disallow them from making any changes. It doesnt matter how much money we keep throwing at the Postal Service if we dont allow for reform to take place, which is what is desperately needed. So with that i do look forward to this hearing going forward. I fully anticipate a lot of political theater on my friends on the opposite side of the aisle. I do anticipate i continued attempt to portray a conspiracy that does not exist when, in fact, it is their own party that i believe are fully committed based upon the heroes act and other comments to influence this upcoming election using fraudulent methods. And with that, madam chair, i will yield a back and appreciate you giving me the opportunity to speak. I now recognize mark to introduce our first witness who is constituent of congressman walters. Thank you, madam chair and Ranking Member comer. It is my privilege to introduce mr. Louis dejoy, the postmaster general of the United States. Mr. Dejoy has earned the respect of both charitable and business community. Since its creation in 2005 the Family Foundation has positively impacted thousands of people, duke university, the Health Center for student chilled, Police Foundation just name a few. I was present when mr. Dejoy was inducted into the hall of fame for the triad Junior Achievement business leaders, the Worlds Largest organization educating k12 students on Financial Literacy and entrepreneurship are just this past week i received in the mail that family contribution of the sponsorship of Family Services of the piedmont which serves 18,000 18,000 children and adults to many of those battling Domestic Violence issues that may be the most impressive act by this family is the one established for students from title i schools. The Scholars Program at elon university. Ive had the opportunity to meet some of the student who come from some of her most impoverished areas. Its that something lewis lost. Its just something he does. Throughout his professional career, louis dejoy has garnered a reputation as a genius in the logistical elevation and supply chain field as the ceo of new breed logistics he took a broken Trucking Company from new york to North Carolina and transformed into a prominent u. S. Provider and contract logistics creating close to 9000 jobs. Maybe thats why he was unanimously appointed to the position by the ups usps bipartisan board of governors. Mr. Dejoy has been on the job about two months but he hes bn playing for implement the Reforms Congress has passed. For example, back in 2006 it wasnt mr. Dejoy to pass the enhancement act. It was congress. The leading sponge on the still come hes the one with the biggest picture in the room, much of this committee henry waxman. Today, mr. Dejoy will be viciously attacked with prepackaged questions and false accusation. One member suggesting impeachment. Thats original. How sad is it when they cancel culture reached the halls of congress . The man before the screening date is not for the democrats of bill and i seem to be. He is here today because he supported President Trump. With this congress that makes you a target. Over the past month, they have enjoyed protest outside his home with hundreds of people blocking the streets and frightening their neighbors. Sadly in this day and age an Industry Leader with a passion for service can be persecuted in the court of Public Opinion for his apparent political affiliation. As the circus unfolds today remember that louis dejoy is a Community Minded philanthropist, and industryleading businessman and most important and main with a good heart doing his best to serve his country. Mr. Dejoy, i want to commend you for being here today. Many of your accusers did next in the same courtesy but unlike the senator from delaware lets hope they at least know how to mute themselves. Thank you, madam chair. Ideal for back. Thank you. Our second witness is Robert Duncan who is the chairman of the Postal Service is board of governors. He was appointed to the board of governors by President Trump in august 2018 and his term expires in december 2025. Please stand and raise your right hands. [witnesses were sworn in] let the record show that the witnesses affirmed this in affirmative. Without objection your written statements will be part of the record. That, mr. Dejoy, you are now recognized for your testimony. [inaudible] good morning, chairwoman maloney, Ranking Member comer, and members of the committee. I am proud to be with you today a map of the 630,000 dedicated women and men of the United States Postal Service. On june 15 i became americas 75th postmaster general. Since that time for a variety of reasons there is been a great deal of attention to the Postal Service our elected officials, the media and the American People. I want to begin by sharing this committee and the American Public that the Postal Service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nations how lets security and on time. This sacred duty is my number one priority nations balance. To be clear, we will do everything we can to handle and deliver election mail in a manner consistent with the proven processes and procedures that we have relied upon for years. Nevertheless, i encourage all americans who choose to vote by mail to request their ballots early and to vote early as a commonsense best practice. As part of this conversation there are many inaccuracies about my actions that i wish to again correct. First, i did not direct the removal of blue collection boxes or the removal of Mail Processing equipment. Second, i did not direct a i ct back on our site any of our post offices. And finally i did not direct the elimination or any cutback in overtime. I i did, however, suspended thee practices to remove any misperceptions about our commitment to delivering the nations election mail. Any further assertions by the media or elected officials is furthering a false narrative to the American People. And let me describe the actions i have taken in 70 days since my appointment. I came to the Postal Service with that decades of experiencn solving large and complex logistical problems. I plan to use this expense to help lead the operating change required for the Postal Service to grow and evolve in the path of sustainability. On the day of my swearing in the Postal Service Inspector General issued an astonishing report about the schedule delays and Postal Service transportation and substantial costs associated with our weaknesses in the fundamental operating principle. Upon review i directed the Postal Service Operations Team to develop and execute on a plan to improve our adherence to the transportation schedule of our over 40,000 trips a day. We have accomplished this goal. As an ontime departures are approaching 90 and wasteful extra chips are down by over 70 . While we have had temporary service declined which should not have happened, we are fixing this. In fact, last week service improved across all major mail impacts category and ion laser focus on improving service for the American Public. The second of two changes i made as postmaster general is installing a new organizational reporting structure to better align, and resources to still greater accountability for performance and to focus the organization on service and growth. These two changes creating our new ontime Transportation Network designing and engage functional Organization Structure will be the catalyst for significant improvements in costs, performance and growth that i planned for this vital american institution. Madam chair, the men and women of the Postal Service have demonstrated extraordinary commitment to our mission of service about the covid19 pandemic. And every community in america we continue to work to keep our employees and customers safe as we fulfill our essential role in delivering the medications, and if it checks and Financial Statements the public depends upon. Since the beginning of the pandemic theres been a public outpouring of support for our postal employees as they performed their essential Service Throughout the nation. This is a well deserved testament to their dedication. Chairwoman maloney, Ranking Member comer, i hope we can agree that the financial state of the Postal Service is unacceptable and needs to be fixed. I look forward to working with you and this committee and our stakeholders twist with the Financial Health of the United States Postal Service and to improve the way we serve the American Public. This concludes my remarks and qu and the kidney may have. Thank you. Thank you very much for your testimony the committee may have. We will recognize chairman duncan. You are recognized for your testimony and he will be appearing remote. Chairman duncan, you are now recognized. Thank you. Chairwoman maloney, Ranking Member comer, members of the committee thank you for allowing me to speak today. My name is mike duncan and for the past two years ive had the honor of serving as the chairman of the United States postal board of governors. Throughout my life i look for ways to help and strengthen and support institutions that are important to american communities. Thats what i spent five years on the Tennessee Valley authority board, i served on i served on numerous boards and commissions. When i accepted this position i did so because of my admiration of the United States Postal Service and its Public Service mission i spent my life in rural appalachia at an unborn the Postal Service is tech communities like mine. Also note the poster provides important jobs to more than 630,000 americans which at one time include my own grandfather who delivered mail my horseback in east tennessee. Since i joined the board ive made it a point to get on the road to visit postal facilities come to meet workers and speak directly with our customers, Union Members can union leaders. These conversations have only deepen my understanding for end of the imports of the Postal Service. Serving on the board of governors of this institution is a significant responsibility. The governors by statute represent the public interest. That means i will always member of the special role in our nation. It means i can never forget the challenges that are putting us at risk. These. These charges should, so surprise to members of this body. On two occasions i i sent you a Postal Services and report progress. In each of those communications i wrote that quote the Postal Service business is broken up only produce widening losses in the coming years absent change. Last fall postmaster general notified the board of her impending retirement. In response the board recognize that we would be faced with the most important decision we would make as governors. The selection of a new postmaster general. The board agreed the Postal Service would benefit from a transformational leader, one that could help us build upon the apparent confront its longstanding challenges. Postal service is an amazing institution and we can do make it better but we are unable to fix our broken Business Model or control our own without regulatory commission. What we can do is increase our efficiency and cut down on unnecessary expenses. We can also focus on marketability and modernization while reducing some expenses. This is as usual is not an option. Its for these reasons that after an organized thorough search process the board selected lose a joy to serve as her 75th postmaster general. Hes the fifth postmaster joe since 1971 to join institution from the private sector but we believe the private sector experience that he has will be an asset, unified ways to include the Postal Service. In addition mr. Dejoy has decades of experience in improving and managing sophisticated change. The fortune 100 companies, he has a a major contractor use Postal Service for more than 25 years, has deep knowledge about the i know it can be strengthened. Like the postmaster general the board has confidence in the Postal Service ability to perform for the American People in this election season. Five years from now the United States will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the american Postal Service. Throughout our nations history this institution has delivered for the American People. Now we have a sacred responsibility to preserve, defend and strengthen this organization for generations to come. Thank you for your time. I appreciate the opportunity and look forward to questions. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. I now recognize myself for questioning. Mr. Dejoy, weve all been flooded with concerns and complaints from our constituents about the delay in the mail. And in the vote on my bill delivering or america on saturday, 26 republicans voted with us and they expressed the same concerns. People depend on their mail for their medications, for business, for keeping in touch with their families. Its critically important, and we have seen headlines across this nation from many, many states, headlines, major news from other states about the delay in the mail. Its been said its a Major Institution in our country. People depend on it. And over the weekend we update this internal document, and it is dated less than two weeks ago on august 12, and its entitled Service Performance measurement for the pmg postmaster general briefing. Now, your office already confirmed to my office that this document is authentic. So lets go through a little bit of it now. This document clearly shows major degradations across the board, beginning in july when you started your changes. Here is the document for firstclass mail, and overall it is down an astonishing 8. 1 from the baseline before your changes for the past two months, beginning in july. Now, the second one, the next slide is the marketing mail, and that is down a stunning 8. 42 . Now, the next and its on the wall where you can see it better next periodicals, and that is down almost 10 , down 9. 57 . So mr. Dejoy, you and your aides have repeatedly downplayed these delays. You just downplayed it in your testimony. But this is just a disaster for the people who need their mail. Dont you agree . [inaudible] would you turn on your mic . We cant hear you. Thank you. We are very concerned with the deterioration and service, and a working very diligently. In fact, we are seeing a big recovery this week, and that fact report on the i requested that report put together. Oddly enough we didnt have measurement briefings at the executive level like this before my arrival where the whole executive team was involved a look at what the underlying circumstances were and where focus on fixing it. Weve seen, starting to a nice recovery and we will have it back my goal is to get it to a higher we were not beating metrics before. With this change, this fundamental change, we have a real good shot at getting to the stated metrics that we are supposedly governed by. Well, you just testified that you been on the job 70 days. So this is essentially your report card for that period of time. If any other ceo at this kind of plummeting record in his first two months on the job, i cant imagine why he would be kept on. Thats an unfair accusation. May i continue . When you testified on friday, senators ask you over and over about the status of these delays. They also asked you to produce analysis about the negative impacts of your changes. It wouldve been easy to mention to the senators that this document existed. You couldve said, as a matter fact, senator, i just received a detailed briefing and, unfortunately, the data shows major delays in nearly all categories. But you didnt do that. You dismissed is nationwide delays as, quote, and dip, and she refused to turn over any analysis. So my question is, why didnt you disclose this document and any analysis to the senate when you had it and they were asking for it . They asked me for it on friday. They asked before and analysis on my decision. I did of the delays. The delays. I watched. Why all these delays . Theres a lot of reasons for delays just beside the action i took to run your trucks on time. There were other reason for delays in the nation. Well, i would say running trucks on time would probably increase delivery what for some reason it back it up five to six days into district that i represent, so reported. But mr. Dejoy, on august 14 this committee sent you a ten page letter along with pictures of Ranking Members of the other committees, and we asked you to produce all communications. According from the letter, all communications, evaluations, assessments or reports regarding mail left behind or delayed as a result of these new policies that you instituted, end quote. We asked for this document by friday, and on friday night you did produce some documents to us, but you did not produce this one. So my question is, why did you leave this important internal document from the postal professionals that was delivered to you and briefed to you two days before the Senate Hearing . Why did you leave it out . Im not familiar with the request in total, how we supported it. Im sure the staff answered the questions as they were asked. And let me just for the record cleared up, i did not, that is not a policy change. That is a request that we run our or a thousand trucks a day on schedule. Your intuition is right. You would think the mail with move faster edit did a good portion it moved faster. It must have been fresh on your mind. Theres absolutely no excuse for concealing and withholding this information from the committee or your testimony when you are asked questions about the information in the document and unfortunately, this Committee Received it from someone else so mister dejoy, your withholding information from us, concealing documents and downplaying the damage youre causing so let me close with this. This committee expects a full and complete production of all the documents we requested no later than this coming wednesday. And if you continue to withhold information or otherwise fail to comply, you can expect a subpoena. I know many of our members plan to ask about how you intend to fix the problems. The problems you created and reverse these horrible trendlines so we will get to thosequestions next. With that i now recognize the distinguished Ranking Member for his questions. Hes saying virginia fox will be thefirst to respond. Genia fox from the great state of North Carolina thank you madame chairwoman. I do note that youre going over time a great deal but postmaster general dejoy, thank you very much forbeing with us today. Some claim the afternoon sort pilot and your changes are an effort to slow down mail and hurt Postal Serviceemployees. Is that true . No maam. Are you banning employees from charging overtime or trying to limit unplanned overtime to insure the Postal Services viability . At this time no maam and no time since ive been here. Thank you. Postmaster general dejoy, as a logistics expert and i believe representative walker outlined your expertise very well, what does the consistent use of unplanned overtime and the need for extra trips mean in terms of theefficiency of operations . Besides costing substantial amounts of money for the Postal Service in terms of billions of dollars, it also does not keep the Delivery System in balance which also results in delays in mail and in equilibrium in our production process across the whole network. Can more efficient on Time Operations result in better delivery performance . Absolutely. And does unplanned overtime intothe Postal Services ability to stay financially viable . Absolutely. My husband and i have experienced some very inefficient services on behalf of the post office in the past fewweeks. Im not going to go into those details but i want to applaud your approach to accountability and what we know from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle is a run away from accountability in every case in the federal government or in allied Services Like the post office so let me applaud you for pushing on accountability. Mister dejoy, as were all Aware Service is not a Government Agency that receives creations. In fact, it is law. The postal reorganization act of 1970 created the u. S. Postal service as an independent and self sustaining entity. Postmaster general dejoy, do you believe it is your duty to uphold this law and ensure that the usps is selfsufficient . I do. And what will it take to make the uspsselfsufficient . Legislation with regard to our healthcare, medical grade integration and our pension reform. Flexibility from the prc. Having decisions from the. In our 14th year of a 10year analysis. The Postal Service itself is a library oig reports identifying flawed practices and billions and billions of dollars of costs and waste at this committee, no one seems to Pay Attention to and Postal Service, our Management Team itself delivering, helping fix ourselves both in terms of service and cost and we have a plan now to do that and part of it includes running our truckson time. And these oig reports have come from democrat president s and republican administrationsboth , is that correct . Yes maam. If you have no Operational Flexibility can you possibly make the Postal Service selfsufficient . I think we have a good shot, we have new revenue ideas for the Postal Service also. We are beginning to finalize the plan but im very very excited about the Management Team, our new ordinance organizational structure. Im excited about the dedication, the 650,000 men and women and we can embark upon with a little help from this congress, were about to embark upon some significant exciting future affordable services. I believe insixday delivery. I think our postal carriers relationship with the American People is the most important ingredient in giving us the Approval Rating that we have and we have plans to really enhance that relationship and to help our growth. Again, i want to thank you for bringing your expertise to become the postmaster general of the United States. You have the exact background that we need and the commitment we need to make the post office work the way americans wantit to work. Thank you madame chairwoman and Ranking Member. I yelled back. I now recognize congresswoman norton. Congresswoman norton by webx. Thank you very much madame chair. This hearing is very necessary to clarify matters that were left open when we took the vote already on the bill. As mister dejoy, in your testimony you suggested that the coronavirus was having and im quoting, a significant issue in employee availability in many parts of the country. If thats the case sir, i want to know why youve been reducing overtime. His overtime even more necessary to postal employees during this national emergency, during this pandemic with so many people at home given what youve already testified about a significant issue in employee availability across the country and why would not more overtime be necessary to make up for allof that . Since ive been here weve spent hundred Million Dollars in overtime. Overtime rate before my arrival was 13 percent and it still at 13 percent and as i said in my Opening Statement this is a continued misinformation regarding what i did inside gotten there. I neverput a limitation on overtime. Thats very important testimony mister dejoy was in some states we are seeing 10 times the normal volume of mail and id like to ask about Additional Resources two weeks before the election. His expanded allowance of overtime and one of the items under consideration when you have already announced you will bring quote, Additional Resources to bear two weeks before the election. Does that include expanded overtime . Yes maam it does. 650,000 men and women of the Postal Service are very committed to having a successful election and our role in the election. Overtime, extra truck trips, postal inspectiontrips , rounds in each postal. Thats very important for the record that expanded overtime will be allowed to weeksbefore the election. My next question is on a png Postal Service document weve received. Im quoting now, the adoption ran titled png plans, overtime will be eliminated. There you see it before you. Again, we are paying too much for overtime and it is not costeffective and soon will be taken off the table. More to come on this. We asked the general counsel and he claimed that came from a midlevel manager and should not be treated as an official statement of Postal Office policy so i ask you what a postal manager extend this document without some kind of word from you or from the top of the agency and can you explain who this was and give us an idea. Iq, i have purposely not trying to find out who that was but there are many ways that people interpret. Youre trying not to find outwho that was . That was not a directive from me. Theres 50,000 managers within the organization and this is one of the reasons i changed the organization quickly after the rollout of the truck schedule. There was very very confusing. Ive been looking for whoever it was who jumped ahead of you and issuing that to all your managers. Absolutely. Would you give that name when you find it to the chair as well. And in the statement on august 18, you stated overtime has and will continue to be approved as needed and i want to understand as needed, what that means and postal manager , that employees continue approving and using overtime as they did before your tenure began or are there any changes since you took office . Same as prior to me being here. Have you issued any internal guidance to that effect and would you provided to us please. I didnt hear the question. Have you issued any internal guidance to that effect, the employees continue to approve and use overtime. I never issued a guidance against that effect. Are you intending to issue any guidance to the effect. I saw the executive team, the Operations Team. They know there is no different process than prior to my arrival. The gentlewomans time is completed. Can i just ask that you provide you any written guidance on overtime . Id like to make that request on behalf of the committee. I now recognize congressman gossar. Can you hear me. Yes we can. There you are. Mister dejoy thanks very much for coming today and i want to clear up some obvious political disinformation that the majority is putting out and then i want to say thank you very much for acknowledgment of the Different Services that we will get to that in a few minutes. On saturday on the house floor my colleagues said the post office is on the verge of collapse but thats not true. You have 10 billion cash on hand and access to a 10 billion dollar line of credit which makes you sleep viable through 2021, is that true . Yes but i would say only in washington dc would that be a good position to be in when i have 135 billion in liabilities and 2 and a half billion dollar a month, a week by week weekly payroll and a whole bunch of others but yes, we can get through the election the loans we take it. I dont know how we would pay it back but should we take it we should be fine for, through mid21. So isnt it true that youre generating more revenue at this time of the year than you did last year and processing more an uptick in mass mail government items such as a stimulus trip check and i sent this question about. We are seeing more revenue due to package increase, mail products are down 15 percent or so onaverage. Package volume is up substantially. Package volume is very costly for us to handle in overcapacity methods. Do you believe with the money on hand successfully seeing that the mail volume is down by 16 percent and the hard work of over 600,000 postal workers that you can handle the election increases that you will possibly see . I feel like i will be very clear that the 650,000 men and women are working with our Leadership Team and our employees, we will be able to handle all election mail for the 2020 election. I want to go back to this related to the pandemic. I want to highlight at the phoenix Postal Workers Union stated we are suffering from these pandemic workforce frames that no processing machines have been removed during your tenure and the United States Postal Service process over 700,000 in our recent primary election. Let me ask you a question mister dejoy. Have you noticed slowdowns like in seattle and portland or chicago because of the writing and the anarchy thats going on . Sir, any kind of rioting does produce delays with any type of Public Service so i dont have a specific measurement on that but i will say this, that as the coronavirus cases throughout the country have expanded it has had an impact on our employee availability and the urban areas that are hotspots. That averages dont play out what the real picture is like in areas like philadelphia employee availability is significantly below normal route run rates and would have been in a pandemic. We actually started to be in terms of employee availability issues in the july timeframe. Any policy changes to the Postal Service such as best elimination of overtime for extra trips and removing sortingmachines, is that true . As for the extra trips and they were prohibited, its true on Everything Else but the extra trips. My direction was need to work on getting our trucks on schedule and mitigating our extra trips. We still run seven, 800 extra trips a day and we still have thousands of trucks trips that run late and it wasnt a flat directive, it worked to our plan. That was my directive. I had come through a plan to work with our plan so the Management Team executed on the plan and Everything Else, i had nothing to do with. It was a longstanding plan on collection boxes and sorting machines and postal hours. That was, that was ongoing really in the areas that were taking care of. Another quick question, is the pony express bill available today . Ive been here the days sir, i havent seen that yet so i think its gone. Technology changes and any transfer of a new idea, it doesnt always go smoothly, does it mister dejoy . A transition where youre trying to make changes always goessmoothly, doesnt it . Your time is expired but you may answer his question. Transitions dont always go smoothly. You should have a Recovery Process. Our Recovery Process is taking too long. This should have been resolved in a few days and its not. So the impact, theres a lot of reasons, there are a lot of things impacting our service. This is one of them on the front end and we should have cleared it up quicker and i think we have a focus on it now and it will recover quite rapidly going forward. Chair now recognizes mister clay. Iq for conducting this hearing. Thank you madam chair for conducting this hearing. Mister dejoy, one of the most damaging results of your actions is the reports we have heard over and over again from people and families across the country who are not getting their mail or medications on time and its heartbreaking. The Postal Service delivers hundreds of millions of prescriptions, drug shipments each year. That is millions of shipments per day, six days a week. A vital medicines delivery. [inaudible] we are having a technical problem right now with mister clay. We cant hear you, its breaking up. Should we go to someone else . Okay. Mister clay, were going to try to correct this. Theres a problem, we cant hear you. Were going to hold your testimony. Should we go for it or not . This probably got aggravated during the Coronavirus Crisis because. [inaudible] for the sake of time. Mister clay were going to hold off on you and go to mister lynch and then go to a republican and come back to you. We have technical difficulties. Congressman lynch, you are now recognize. Thank you madam chair and thank you mister dejoy for attending. After dejoy, youve been postmaster general of the United States for a couple of months. 70 days. Ive been a member of this committee for about 20 years and since my mom and two of my sisters, a bunch of my aunts and cousins and inlaws work for the Postal Service, some of them are retired, some of them are still there and as a member of congress you might say ive been compelled to take a keen interest on matters affecting the Postal Service. Im also the president of the iron Workers Union in boston so you can get a sense of my perspective. Its bluecollar, common sense. Get your work done sort of perspective. So mister dejoy as master general of the United States for the last 70 days, did you know the Postal Service is never allowed itself to be in the situation that its in today . Throughout the Postal Service history theres been a tradition of Reliable Delivery from the beginning. Article 1, section 8 of the United States constitution going back to ben franklin, our first master general. The pony express as i mentioned before. I was watching a can burn special last week and he had these wrenching letters that were back and forth from soldiers during the civil war so even at a moment when the country was at war with itself, the mail was delivered. During the First World War when the spanish fluinfluenza of 1918 , through the great depression, millions of people out of work and 1000 bank failures, the mail was delivered on time. Even during the Second World War with the threat of not the uboats international wet mail was delivered on time. I was elected on 9 11, the date of the terrorist attacks on our nation. Some people forget and the days after 9 11 we had direct anthrax attacks on the u. S. Postal service. We lost two brave postal workers. From amtraks inhalation. But for the good of the country of postal unions continue to send their members into the post office to do their jobs to keep the country running. Two weeks ago after youd been postmaster general that all changed. In the middle of a pandemic that killed our hundred 70,000 americans and on the eve of a National Election at a time when the cdc is advising people not to gather and limit outside contact the Postal Service darted removing 671 ice the mail sorting machines across the country. To stop the apwu from sorting the mail and stop mail handlers from working overtime to deliver the mail for the first time in 240 years in our history of the United States Postal Service you sent out a letter embarrassingly in july 2 46 states that said the post office cant currency we can deliver the mail in time or the elections in november and we have reports from across the country as you acknowledged service has been delayed the mail is piling up. You have ended a once proud tradition. As a member of the Oversight Committee we have a chief Investigative Committee in the congress. We conduct oversight on every matter that impacts the American People foreign and domestic. Members on this committee that have been to iraq and afghanistan. It into yemen, somalia, you name it. They go to the ends of the earth to investigate matters that affect the American People especially when it involves our sons and daughters inuniform. It is our postal workers happen to be our men and women in uniform. They are on the front lines of this pandemic. Wrist their own health and safety to deliver mail, medicine and mail in balance to every home and business six days a week. As a member of this honest committee im supposed to ask you a question. In my heart im tempted to ask after 240 years of Patriotic Service how can one person screw this up just a few weeks . I understand you bring privatesector expertise. I guess we couldnt find a government worker who could screw it up this fast. It would take them a while. The president is running this post office like a business. Hes running it into the ground as he has declared bankruptcy a few times on his own businesses and in an effort to apply the facts, the real facts, not the alternative facts, based on what you have actually done one can only reach as a factfinder we can only reach 2 conclusions. One, either through gross incompetence you have ended the 240 year history of delivering the mail reliably on time or the second conclusion that we could gather his youre doing this on purpose and that youre deliberately dismantling this once proud tradition. To the gentleman time has expired. My last question is this, what the heck are youdoing . The gentlemans time has expired. First of all, id like to agree with you on the heroic efforts of our 650,000 employees across the nation and the history of the Postal Service, the 250 year history of serving the American Public. Im very proud to leave the lead the organization. I will not. There you go. [overlapping conversation] order, the gentleman may answer the question without being interrupted. The question is will you put the machines back . The answer is no and every accusation you made other than adhering to the truck jewels inaccurate and more misinformation for the American Public. You wont put themachines back so. Madam chair. Mister jordan is now recognized. Congressman jordan is here. I believe thats not the order. Its congressman palmer. Im getting differentsigns appear. Punishment palmer is now recognized. I want to point out a Washington Post article from august 2015 almost 5 years to the day that there was a decline in first class letter delivery of 1844 percent and a 38 percent to climb in a performanceover the same time in 2014. This was during the Obama Biden Administration. The United States Postal Office in 2012 started closing dozens of mail sorting facilities from january to june 2015 number 494 million pieces of mail that did not arrive on time, a 48 percent increase in delayed mail delivery and im sure that was intended to impact the 2012 election. Yet this committee didnt see fit to look into that. Mister dejoy, these will be yes and no for the most part. Is there any way the post office can know whether or not they are delivering to households or to eligible voters . Is there any way for the post office to know that . No sir. Theres an analysis released in 2019 and a recent Us Census Bureau five your community survey, there were 378 counties nationwide that have more Voter Registrations and citizens living there are old enough to vote. These are counties where the registration exceeds 100 percent and i in an iowa there are 650 extra voters. Under the National Voter registration act of 1993, Judicial Watch sent notice of violation letters to 19 large counties in five states, pennsylvania, colorado and real clear politics reported Los Angeles County at an estimated 1. 6 million in eligible voters 38 states counties where the Voter Registration is over 100 percent. Including Montgomery County maryland with which represented my distinguished friend mister raskin. The same article cited up you study that found thereare 24 million Voter Registrations no longer valid or inaccurate. This total includes 1. 8 million dead people and another 2. 75 million who were arrested in two states area of new york for instance and this most recent primary that impacted your race madam chairman at 84,000 ballots, almost a fifth of, over a fifth of all the ballots cast. 12,000 in your race that were disqualified so my question to you mister dejoy, is there any way to be sure more balance and a household should beeligible to receive are not being delivered . Say that again. Is there any way for the Postal Service to determine whether a household is getting more ballots than they should be . Were focused on delivering. The answer is no, theres no way to know that. And if there was some way to know that im sure the postal inspectors would get involved. Madam chairman, may i conserve my time. Whats going on . I think the chinese have hacked in or something. What is that noise . The clock is still running. And his time be restored . Have we resolved this, do you think . There trying to deal with technical, we will give you extra time. We have technical problems. I do appreciate your indulgence, thank you. The Census Bureau reports 11 percent of americans moving to section 8 of the Voter Registration act passed by the democrats in 1993 signed by president clinton and voted for by Mister Cooper and mister clay and madam chairman pallone requires to perform Voter Registration maintenance and is the responsibility of the federal government to ensure governments make sure their voter rolls are accurate and that they removed inactive voters and it should be noted that the Obama Biden Administration did not bring a single section 8 enforcement action and their entire term. That makes the post office task of only delivering ballots to eligible voters were difficult. My point is that youve been accused of trying to impact an election when the fact of the matter is for those people that have never had a real job in business, what youve been trying to do is improve the performance of the post office so that what happened in 2015 does not continue to happen. And its, the accusations are that youre trying to throw the election. When the fact of the matter is the fact that the federal government has not done its part particularly during the Obama Biden Administration to ensure the voter rolls are accurate and make your job more difficult. Its really not your job, is it one way or the other. No sir. And we count on the post office and delivery people do not deliver balance . Stacks of ballots to an address where the delivery person knows that theres nobody there. An abandoned house, abandoned apartment complex . That would be reported, wouldnt it . We deliver mail to the address specified. And if dozens or hundreds of mail and balance were dumped into blue mailboxes instead of left in the regular mail box or dropped off at the post office, would it make sense to report to the postal inspectors measure that those ballots are legitimate . There are processes postal inspectors deployed, im not fully aware of what they are but there are processes postal inspectors deployed to identify any fraudulent type of activity within the mail system. We need to make sure this election is not painted by fraudulent mail and balance and madam chairman im going to do something i rarely do. When mister gossar mentioned the riots in portland and seattle and other places around the country there was a chuckle from one of the democrats on this committee and i take offense at that. This is a picture of the burnt out post office in minneapolis. Okay . There was mail in the post office that was lost. There may have been Prescription Drugs that were lost there may have been so security checks that were lost. It is a fact that not only was the mail delivery delayed when you have anarchists laying siege to cities, it endangers postal workers. Delivery people. It may have endangered peoples lives were not able to get their medicine it burned up in the minneapolis postoffice. Thats not funny. And i hope that the democrats in this committee and in this congress will take seriously what happening in american cities. I yielded back. The gentleman yells back and were having difficulty connecting with congressman clay and i nowrecognize congressman cooper. Mister dejoy, heres what your socalled reforms have done to my district in 70 days. A lady named delano rosa paid five dollars july 22 to send a certified letter to the National Tennessee total security office. The distance is 20 miles. The letter took 12 days to arrive. Just this morning excellent reporting from the National Channel 5 tv, cruise nashvilles mail trucks are being forced to leave on schedule even when completely empty. Imagine it, the threefoot trucks forced to travel hundreds of miles completely empty due to your socalled reforms. Here are the truck records. Thats not efficiency. Thats insanity. For anyone thinking of voting absentee the effect of your policies is to unilaterally move up election day from november 3 to Something Like october 27. And if you force moreempty trucks on the highway , you will be able to singlehandedly up election day even earlier. According to npr already 550,000 primary ballots, absentee ballots were rejected in just 30 states. And one of the main reasons was late delivery. How dare you disenfranchise the many voters when you told a senate Committee Just last week you had a sacred duty to protect election mail. You know that its a felony or Postal Service officer or employee to delay delivery of mail. A postal employee can be fined or imprisoned for up to five years for delaying the mail but somehow you can delay all the mail and get away with it. They can be prosecuted but you cant . Even if your actions are 1 million times worse. Mister dejoy, do you have a duty to obey us law every other american . I do sir. Previous postmasters general have been punished for much smaller conflicts of interest. In 1997 the 70th postmaster general Marvin Runyon had to pay 25,000, 27,000 of a 350,000 conflict of interest. If youre 30 million flick of interest, 100 times larger than mister runyons were treated like your predecessors, you would have to pay a 2. 7 Million Dollars fine and probably be ousted from being postmaster general. So mister dejoy are you above the law that applies toother postmasters general . I dont agree with the premise. Im in full compliance of all ethical requirements that i need to have and theres no ig investigation and i welcome the results of that report. Mister dejoy as a mega donor for the Trump Campaign you are picked along with Michael Cohen and elliott brody, two men whove already pled guilty to felonies to be the three deputy finance chairman of thenational committee. If you pay back several of your top executives for contributing to Trumps Campaign by bonus and or rewardingthem . And outrageous claims are and i resent it. Im just asking a question. The answer is no. You do not bonus or reward any of your executives, anyone you solicited for a contribution to the Trump Campaign. No sir. Not in whole or in part. Actually during the Trump Campaign i wasnt evenworking at my company anymore. We want to make sure that Campaign Contributions are legal so. Im fully aware of legal, Campaign Contributions. What are you accusing me of . Im asking you a question, do your mail delays help Trumps Campaign goal of hurting the Postal Service as stated in his tweets. Im here to represent the Postal Service and it has nothing to do with, on the action have to do with improvement of the Postal Service. Am i the only one in this room that understands that we have a 10 billion a year loss . Will you get this committee your communications with mark meadows, with treasury secretary gossar . Mister dejoy, is your backup plan to be pardoned like roger stone . [laughter] pitiful. You have to seconds to answer the question. I have no comment. My time has expired. The gentleman from florida is recognized for fiveminutes. Congressman steube. Thank you madam chair. First of all i served in iraq in support of Operation Iraqi freedom and to compare postal workers to our servicemembers in iraq or afghanistan to me is offensive read last time i checked the drivers were getting their vehicles blown up or being shot at as they drove around so to compare our military servicemembers who sacrificed on the battlefield across this world to our Postal Service members is frankly offensive as a person that has served and its unfortunate there are democrats that have 100 percent politicized the Postal Service to try to stoke fear on the American People but we shouldnt be surprised. Its a familiar theme or democrats over the last two years. A subcommittee chairman of this committee when asked on National Television and i quote , are you saying directly is this an attempt by the president to interfere in the election the answer was absolutely. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that President Trump is using the Postal Service to interfere with the election. None in fact, quite the opposite. But democrats dont care about the facts so here we go again just yesterday we were hearing how the Trump Campaign inspired with russia to interfere with the last election and when the facts cannot was no evidence that ever occurred. This is absolutely a concocted narrative by the democrats to stoke fear in the American People like the rush of collusionhoax. Issues have plagued the Postal Service for decades and its vastly in need of reform. Mister dejoy dated the 10 billion loss a year, businesses couldnt operate that way but the democrats dont want real reform and if they were they would have worked with our witness and with republicans in crafting a bill. It would have worked with our counterparts in the senate and the administration to come up with reforms that would actually pass. This is a political stunt for the democrats newest interference hoax. I represent nine counties in florida and just last week we held our primary elections. Florida saw the largest turnout in a president ial Election Year primary 1992, that was 18 years. Avoid about 2. 3 billion mailin ballots were cast made up 59 percent of all ballots cast. Reports indicate there were minimal issues with ballots handled by the Postal Service and no issues in my nine counties with absentee ballots in this district that im aware of. Mister dejoy would it be fair to say the Postal Service successfully delivered during floridas primary . Yes, sir. The 2. 3 million mailin ballots cast in florida are a significant amount for one state. What are the factors that led to the Postal Service able to deliver the substantial increase and mailin ballots on time. When it comes about the Postal Service prior to my arrival and the heightened awareness of this particular election throws everything it has at moving ballots through the system. All ballots are usually identified with special markings and every employee is and manager is very much focused on making sure that ballots move quickly through the process. Sometimes in advance of firstclass mail so those particular processes were deployed and will be deployed as we come into the 20 20 election. And florida has am i correct in stating lorna had a reasonable timeframe for the Postal Service to return the ballots as opposed to some state that allow ballots to be requested at the last minute delaying their ability to get those ballots to the precinct in time. Thank you. That is a big part of the effort of the Postal Service. Prior to my arrival and since my arrival and the purpose of sending out letters to all the states with regard to what, we just want to make everybody aware of what is it that will really work. We can put all these additional processes on what it would be or helpful if we had reasonable standards from the election boards that comply with our processes to enable our best to do it more efficiently and effectively. So to clarify, do you need any additional funding to be able to successfully deliver ballots in florida this november . Know we do not sir. Are there any lessons other states can learn from the way florida handles our balance in absentee voting . Im not particularly familiar with florida but our general counsel and we have put out letters with regard to each States Election guidelines. We have a website thats just been posted on the normal process and in general, i will say on behalf of the 650,000 postal workers, get your ballots early and please vote early and that is just common sense. But if florida had a, florida had a good process, im sure their electoral board procedures were good. We cant do this all by ourselves so we appreciate every state help in reviewing their standards and taking the advice of the Postal Service general counsel and whats on our website. The gentlemans time has expired and we now recognize the interplay. If theyre still having an action robbins we will go to mister connelly. Hello madam chair, i hope youcan hear me now. Yes we can. Thank you for conducting this hearing. Mister dejoy let me start with a question read before you implemented your changes, did you conduct any analysis of the effect your changes would have on delaying description, Prescription Drug shipments, the delivery ofthose shipments to your customers . Did you analyze that for you implementedthese changes . Her, we have a whole operating organization that i asked to put together a plan and it wasnt a change. It was comply with your schedules and when we could comply with our schedules, i reviewed this with every regional area vp. On a discussion that they were ready and they rolled it out. Im not the coo, im the ceo of the organization but i received commitments that we would be able to roll forward with the plan to committing to our existing schedule. Mister dejoy let me say this. Prioritizing on time truck departures means letter carriers leave without all their packages. Including letters on board. Critical medicines like refrigerated insulin is reportedly sitting in sorting facility days longer than expected. Did you examine the effect of your changes on medicine like insulin that requires special storage . Served, no time did i say dont put the mail on the trucks when they left on time. This was not a hard direct everything must leave on time. We still have thousands of trucks the day leave late within a certain timeframe and there are still hundreds of extra trips so the intention was to put the mail on the trucks and have the trucks leave on time. That should not have been impacted. How about the impact or dejoy, what about the impact of missing that insulin and having it sit on the floor somewhere and it may spoil or whatever. At least we know it will be delayed. Did you all get that any consideration . Are concerned about the impact that each individual across the country and we are working extremely hard to bring the Service Levels back to where they were and to exceed that. And we will be there shortly. Mister dejoy we would like a copy of any and all analysis you conducted before you implemented your changes. Will you provide them to this committee . I will go back to the office and see what the operating team has on that and will seek to do so. And while youre at it misterdejoy , you have any information on the number of Prescription Drugs shipments that the Postal Service has delivered late since you began implementing these changes and will you provide that information to the committee by the end of the week . Im not aware of what we have on specific types of shipment. Im sure we have some and i will take a look at it but i want to remind you that the changes are misleading and what i ask is that the team right away to run the trucks on a schedule which is intended, the intention was we put the mail on thetrucks. Thank you mister clay. Madam chairwoman, can i ask unanimous consent. Mister lynch asked me to enter into the record a set of data from the american Postal Workers Union with respect to mail volume and the reduction in advanced systems delivery, barcode disorders, automatic sorting machine, and flat sequencing systems in its Mail Processingfacility. Without objection. Mister norman from South Carolina is now recognized. Mister norman. You chairwoman maloney. Mister dejoy, i want to apologize, youre getting a parading up here read congressman lynch owing into a fiveminute dialogue would not give you time to answer your questions, was yelling over you and its typical of how this earring has gone and whats amazing to me is this bill had to be rushed out this past saturday. You know that 67 members and not even take the time to show up . If your workers at the post office dont show up what happens . They dont get a paycheck the mail doesnt get delivery. Its an insult to what the democrat democrats are trying to do. Its a false narrative that has not worked for them. The molar report, the impeachment, none of its working now. Theyre going fishing for this and i apologize to you. Let me get yes, sir no answers. Are you and the Postal Service actively removing mailboxes that at the behest of President Trump to undermine the election or as president obama said, kneecap the Postal Service. Was the u. S. Postal Service Going to be insolvent if you did not receive the 25 billion included in their bill . Is the United States Postal Service equipped to handle voting by mail for the november election . Are you unlocking blue boxes to stopthe mail . Anything with blue boxes is stopped. With congressman farmer showed pictures of the burnout mailboxes and the cities on fire of portland, chicago, minneapolis, sacramento, new york. That slow the post Office Delivery down . Theres certain actions and procedures that we have for situations for public unrest that we deploy. A variety of Different Things up to and including getting our collection boxes out of there when it happens but i dont know all of everything that goes in but it would slow down themail. It would slow it down and the safety of the person delivering the mail is pretty much an issue now isnt it . The welfare of the person delivering the mail and the burnedout cities would kind of be a problem , wouldnt it . Absolutely, our letter carriers in many cases. Where you consulted on this important bill we have to take off this past saturday to add your expertise . I dont know, i think our legislative Affairs People had some interaction to comment on. Youre not the chief operating officer and ceo, youve been on the job 70 days and to be accused of everything youve been accused of is simply not right. Its unfair. Im glad the American People are getting a front row seat to what yourehaving to endure. Highyield back. Mister connolly is now recognized. My, my. Youre right. On the job 70 days and youve caused this much right ruckus. Thats called accountability and thats why hes here today. Thats why we passed thebill. If he wasnt consulted its because of the inspiration of the bill. A dubious distinction nonetheless. Mister dejoy, when did you take office, when you take over the job as postmaster general. June 15. June 15. Using this data you seen an eight percent decline in service in the Postal Service which most people would say correlates to the reorganization and operational efficiencies you undertook. Do you think thats a fair characterization . I think theres a lot of different issues going on within the country that would impact male delay including the actions that we took with regard to transportation. I think the organizational change was made the cause of the, was accelerated because of the poor role. I think that will strengthen the recovery. We all live in a context dont we mister dejoy. Youre in the context of the worst pandemic in 100 years, 176,000 americans dead, 146,000 employees who have gotten the virus or quarantines the cause of it and sadly a few dozen dead. And on the eve of a massive shift to voting by mail, 76 percent of all americans voting by mail, 70 percent want to vote by mail, 50 to 60 percent intend to vote by mail and along comes this. Stipulate that your motives are pure, that you came at this a normal privatesector ceo and you see some problems, you want to create some efficiencies and save moneyand make us work better. When you think though that you might take into consideration the context and if you didnt, as a good ceo and you thought, when you saw unintended consequences, youd have us believe these were unintended you would take measures quickly to ameliorate the unintended consequences. I understand that the context and we will look in terms of the context it was the summertime, mail volume was down significantly. So it was not, were getting ready for the peak season and the election is three months away. It was a good time to start to try and roll this out. Again the request was just run your trucks on time, put a plan to run your trucks on time. The impact, let me just, the impact is probably about, for that, because if the mail gets processed and the truck leaves, that mail will move on the next truck for the next day. Okay. Long story of the 90s so forth were not, in fact, forgive me for interrupting but i have limited time. Thats why have to interrupt you. You made a statement before the senate the of the day, you had no contact with the Trump Campaign during her tenure. Is that correct . I have know, ive had no contact with the Trump Campaign. I have spoken to the president. I is spoken to Steven Mnuchin. I have spoken to other people but i have not, ive had no contact about the poll, not spoken to anybody about the postal. Did you not tell the board of governors in this month in august you have had contact with the Trump Campaign to ask for them to stop their attacks on the Postal Service and voting by mail . I have put word around to different people that this is not helpful to speedy so you did have contact with the Trump Campaign . For good purpose. Im trying to think where, when you say the Trump Campaign, i have not spoken to Trump Campaign leadership in that regard. Ive spoken to people that are friends of mine that are associated with the campaign, just. One of whom was Steven Mnuchin . Steven mnuchin, secretary treasurer. I know dick. I never told steve to talk to the president to not do something. Thank you mr. Dejoy. The time of the gentleman has expired but you may answer his question. What was the question . Im sorry. The question was what conversations did you have with the secretary treasurer mr. Mnuchin about the Postal Service, your hiring and the consequences that seem to have unfolded with these operational the conversation i had with the secretary were when they came your we had this note that was kind of stuck in the mud and i worked with him to get the note done. It was really, you know, im going to try and control costs and grow revenue, very high level thing, and lets try get the deal done. That was really it. Thank you. Mr. Jordan is now recognized. Thank you, madam chair. Mr. Dejoy, wasnt the Postal Service is false that took six weeks after the june 23 chairwoman maloney is primary election for to be declared the winner . Was not your fault . Im not i know took a long time. Im asking that wasnt your fault, was it . Was at the polls or voltages you are still counting ballots for weeks after the primary election last month . No, sir. How about the democrats i will caucus . Was at the post offices fault we did not who one i dont know if we still figured out who won the Iowa Democratic caucus. Is that the post offices fault . No, sir. I want to be clear. You got 14 billion cash, 10 million line of credit, right . Yes, sir. Genji out the sorting machines and removing and changing out mail collection boxes is nothing different than happened before, right . Every postmaster general every year we do this sort of things, is that right . Yes, sir. So theres no different. In fact, was the number, 20112016, 12,000 mail collection boxes that were removed, changed out by the obamabiden Administration Come right . It was a lot. It was a lot. And you didnt order reduction over time. Why do these guys off the gate . I dont, i dont, they have their own concerns. I assume they are legitimate with them and speedy you assume their legitimate. Mr. Dejoy, they that people protesting at your house last night. They been doing it for weeks. Some of these people are called for you to resign. They passed a bill before the even talk to you, before the even had a hearing. They are not in any bipartisan solution as evidenced by the fact the chairwoman we needed contact the white house chief of staff who had a bill that he worked on the previous gem, the late chairman come exam of operas and built to address concerns at the post office. Why are they after you . First of all you were appointed by the board of governors, right . I was appointed by unanimous the point of my bipartisan unanimous about, bipartisan, democrats that you with right guy for the job come right . Yes, sir. So why are the out to get you . I i have no idea. You have a lot of support of their amongst employees and people in america though. I receive it every day. Got an amazing record in business. Got amazing history of community service. You help kids with their education, serve your community conserver country of these people are out to get you. None of the facts at the wall street journal said this is one giant conspiracy from the democrats. Im just, i want to know what, what, what could be the reason . What could be, mr. Dejoy . We know its not based on the facts. What could it be . You might it be politics . Might it be . Might be the election coming up . Might it be the fact that they actually want to wait and count votes after election day . May be due what six weeks after the election. Maybe you want to be counted but six weeks after the election, the president ial election, the biggest election were going to have. Maybe you want to be counting posts six weeks after like they did in the chairwoman sprays or four weeks at selected individually or maybe you want to wait forever like they did in the democratic ill caucus. By that be the reason, chaos and confusion with all through those elections maybe thats what they want. Could that be the reason, mr. Dejoy . I dont know what motivates people to a different opinions of me. They have called you on kinds of names today already. Purchasing outside your house. They with her last night banging pots and pans outside your house, disrupting her neighbors and you. When the facts as you testified are not anything close to what they been saying for the last three weeks come with this is saturday on the house floor. This is can we know at this is about. We all know what this is about. This is about these guys wanting chaos and confusion because they come i think you know this. They know a lecture President Trump is going to win. They know i election day the vote count election at President Trump is going to win and want to keep counting six weeks, four weeks, i will caucus come whatever, i dont know when they. I still dont know it was bernie biden or whoever was running thin. Thats what they want. They are willing to go after a guy like you to assert a country served his Community Helps kids with their education amazing record in business they willing to go if you can you been on the job 70 days and everything you testified is nothing to this been done by same thing by other postmaster general and get their come after you because thats a much the want to get this president. Its disgusting and we all know whats going on. The fact you know, you wont say it. I think that should you purchase will but ill say because its the truth and the American People understand it and see right right to it. I yield back. The gentleman could morning. Before becoming postmaster of lee youll probably resigned from being the finance chair for the Republican National convention, greg . I did. I say you operably resign because even in your written testimony you said we should keep the nonpartisan tradition of the usps, and in this case occupy highlevel political post at the same time you would be occupy highlevel usps post would create at the least appearance problems if not more, right . Yes, sir. I also think i couldnt hold both positions. Yes, sir. Mr. Duncan, are you on the line . Mr. Duncan . Yes, congressman. Yes, sir. As chairman of the board you are one of the highest ranking officials at the usps, correct . As chairman of the board i am a member of a parttime board that is senate conference. You are the chair of the board, highestranking official at the usps. Id like to point out that you are also on the board of two republican super pacs come namely the Senate Leadership fund and american crossroads, correct . Yes, sir. And i just went to the usps website and i looked at your bio and and i would be remiss if i didnt point out on your official government bio at the usps website you said as rnc chairman he, name of you, raise an unprecedented 428 million and crew the donor base to 1. Milligan, record at the time this is on your official government usps bio. Mr. Duncan, i have a couple of the questions for you. In your written testimony you mentioned that a outside Research Firm called Russell Reynolds associates was contracted to find the quoteunquote best person for the job come best person for the java postmaster general, correct . Correct. You further noted in your testimony that Russell Reynolds reviewed 212 candidates, and a narrowed the search to 53 after they reviewed those peoples bios and backgrounds and they vetted them, correct . Yes, sir. Interestingly, according to David Williams the former vice chairman of the board, former Inspector General for 13 years at the usps, as well as a published report over the weekend, mr. Dejoy, was not among the 53 presented to the board. Either one, Russell Reynolds considered mr. Dejoy, and decided there were 53 better candidates than him, or mr. Dejoy, was not considered by Russell Reynolds at all before proceeding to 53 finalists. Which was it, mr. Duncan . We were still in a process of developing the pool before we had our first round interviews at that point. I understand. You talk about the firstrate interviews, the route of 14 but you dont dispute obviously in your answer that mr. Dejoy, did not make the initial cut out 53 finalists presented to the board, but he was inserted into the round of 14 not by merit but by his connections. It would be the same as the ncaa team not making the rounds of 64 had been swooping in to the route of the sweet 16, and thats what happened here. So let me ask you this question. Mr. Williams repeatedly asked the board to do a background check on mr. Dejoy, by Postal Inspection Service. Do you know what the Postal Inspection Service is . Yes, sir. And you and the board refused to do the background check, and that was not shared with the board before they voted. Now let me turn to my final set of questions here. Mr. Duncan, you were once quoted in the republican fundraising letter saying quote, the obama biden democrats and the liberal special interest allies are trying to steal the election victories from republicans. I assume you still believe that about joe biden and the democrats . I have no knowledge of that. Its in the cnn article that quotes you directly right here. Do we have another article from the Las Vegas Sun. It says, again, you wrote in a letter democrats will soon be trying to pad their total at ballot boxes across the country with votes from voters who do not exist. Do you still believe that to be the case, mr. Duncan . What is is the dates of thee letters . This article is from the Las Vegas Sun from 2008. Used to believe this, the sentiment . I dont believe anyone at this point, the nominee of the major party is trying to steal the election. Thank you. That would be in contravention of what the president said in a tweet august 20. They are trying to steal this election, the democrats. The time of the gentleman has expired but the gentleman may answer. There were lots of false premises and its about making the cut. The process work that we had lots of people who had input including members of congress, minnesota administration. I think i put in a half a dozen different names. We ran into a period of time after the holidays when covid started that we were not moving as fast as possible, got together and talk about we need to make sure we have as many candidates as possible because you get a better quote, the better choice at the time. It during that time that mr. Dejoys or availability became known to me. I submitted that meant as i had many others. The time of the gentleman has expired mr. Massie, you are now recognized. Mr. Massie, you are now recognized we could then go to mr. Higgins. Mr. Hice. Okay. We had some difficulty. Were going to go to mr. Roy and come back to mr. Massie. Mr. Weissberg can you hear me . We can hear you but were not seeing you. Now we see you. Okay, excellent. Appreciate it. Thanks for the indulgence. 2027488000 at a couple of questions for me. When you nominated by the president of the United States or selected by unanimous bipartisan board . I was selected by unanimous bipartisan board. Thank you. I minute ago my colleague mr. Connolly lamented your done quote 70 days of damage, yet mr. Connolly if im not mistaken has been on this committee for 11 years, chair or rank of the government operation committees for seven years and given that the Oversight Committee held a hearing in april of 2019 about the Financial Condition of the usps, why do they we are having a hearing today 71 days before election and 48 hours after we voted on legislation before we have a hearing . Why do you think we were havia hearing today . I do not know, but i will say that i am surprised at the lack of attention to the Financial Condition of the Postal Service over the last ten years. You were saying the Financial Condition of the Postal Service is nothing new, that this is something that we have no has been coming for a long time that the Postal Service has lost money for what at least 13 consecutive years . I think ten years. Okay. Mr. Dejoy, does the United States Postal Service deliver 8 billion pieces of mail a month, give or take . Yes, sir. Does it have about 14 billion dash on had to manage the affairs of the Postal Service for right now, is that right . Yes, sir. Is every single american if every single american voted by mail, which wont happen we all know that, it would be less than about 2 of the total mail delivered in a given month, right . In other words, is the usps perfectly capable of handling any bill that will be attached to our election in november . We are ready to handle the election mail. Mr. Dejoy, do you believe that this hearing today so far this morning or at any point today will cover any of the following the ppp extension to ensure Small Businesses can survive while governments are keeping businesses shut down, the thousands of wrestlers come the thousands of live music venues in the thousands of hotels, the thousands of barbershops across the country that are struggling to survive . Is anything in this hearing going to discuss any of that to the best seven out . No, sir. Are you aware of this Democratic Congress holding up any legislation to do with these issues this month rather than going home i get Holding Congress back on saturday to have a hearing im sorry come have a vote before we even had a hearing on saturday . Are you aware that was that the only thing we have been voting on in august . I havent been following the agent of congress that much. Ive had my own issues to deal with. I appreciate that. There hasnt been that much to follow so i appreciate that. Are we discussing, for example, Human Trafficking . Will that be discussed today . I been asking for hearing on the scorch of Human Trafficking what we can do to stop that . Ive been asking for hearing on the over year. Were not having that hearing today, are we . Were having a hearing on this topic, right . I think we will be sticking to post service matters. Thats right. Mr. Dejoy, i i appreciate you being here in front of the committee. I think the fact of the matter is pretty clear. This is a political exercise. This is a show hearing. I have already seen a social media some of the typical, come technology. The fact of the matter is we are jamming through this for theater or doing a hearing on the monday after a vote on saturday that has no prior of becoming law and this is exactly what the america people are sick of. They want the Postal Service to operate and georgia to work on try to make it operate. We should have you feelings abt the health and defense financial steps of the Postal Service. We should work on legislation to improve it. There are bipartisan efforts to do that. We should roll our stays up and do that work. I would say the same thing about the ppp. I whispered to work with dean phillips in june to pass Bipartisan Legislation to help Small Businesses. Why are we not doing that right now . Why are we not doing that today . That is our job. There are people who are struggling who cant make a check, cant pay the mortgage and wanting whether the revenue in order to survive for business they built up, for people of work for them for years. Also we should be working on and i would just posit this is a waste the time for the United States congress, the American People are sick of it and we should be aligned also serves to go back to doing its job. We should be focusing on doing ours. With that i would just back. I think the gentleman for yielding and his comets, just as a point of information, the Democratic Congress did pass the heroes act on may 15. They did find all kinds of help to people fund that a city a Mitch Mcconnell stressed as well as this bill. So he has a choice, standalone or move the heroes act. I now recognize mr. Raskin. You are recognize. Thank you, madam chair. Ive got diabetic constituents are waiting for insulin. Ive got constituents with cancer waiting for chemo drugs to come in, but this headline really took the cake for me. Rats reported feeding on packages of rotted fruit and beat as postmaster generals cutbacks unleash chaos at californias mail centers. This is from not some haven of liberal fake news, Business Insider magazine. Mr. Postmaster general, why do you celebrate ontime departure of postal vehicles if the deterioration service that you regret has cause caused letterd packages left stacking up in the mail centers . Should we be celebrating vehicles going out on time if they dont the people packages and letters on them and their Prescription Drugs . We are concerned with every late delivery and every package build up, and there are a lot of contributing factors to why, you know, and let me finish. The process is an integral part of delivering the mail, to costeffectively. Why would we, if the alternative is to run trucks late and run extra trips, extra trips were empty also. Thousands of the anti are giving because ive limited time. President trump called the post office a joke. Is it a joke . Postal service is not a joke. Mr. Dejoy, if i i wanted to become a letter carrier or a meal handler, a postal clerk would you hire me without a background check . We have a process that i do believe includes background checks, so no. Its compel come right . Of you we has to take a background check except they didnt have one for you. Thats not true. I had background checks. See quickly, fbi background checks, everything. So you would be willing to release the background check . No. Why would i release a background check . Thats interesting let me go to duncan about that. Mr. Duncan, would you be willing to allow Russell Reynolds to turn over the file from this process . Mr. Duncan . Let me come back to you, mr. Dejoy. The former chairman of the postal come vicechairman of the poster board of governors, mr. Williams was also the Inspector General, also reported that you didnt come to the normal Russell Reynolds interview process. But you are apparently the product of different nominations by different political people, and the astonishing thing about what he said last week was that when you finally brought in for the first interview he basically interviewed a Selection Panel rather than then interviewing you to the point of one of the members joke they had better ask you least one question so that it could be said that it wasnt a real interview. Now, you also reported stating that you were not you were not sure you want to accept the job and you need to interview them about what it entailed. What gave you the confidence of the job was basically yours for the asking when you finally met the Selection Committee . I did not think the job was mine for the asking. I dont know what mr. Williams contention is of what his problem is with me. He was the Inspector General for 13 years of the Postal Service and the vice chair. These part of the report said been stacking up that this committee hasnt done what you make of the former chairman of the board of governors calling secretary mnuchin at home in the Selection Process absolutely unprecedented . I Steven Mnuchin had nothing to do with my selection, okay . I was called by russell speed is due to talk to secretary mnuchin speeders totally inaccurate and outrageous. Youve never talked about before to get jumping of talking about taking the jump . I talked about the jump after i received the offer. I did not accept the offer immediately. But you never spoke to them before about his soliciting your interest in the job or i did not solicit any interest. I kept my interest which is identified, i did not know i had an interest, either perfectly good life prior to this but i was interested in helping and i was called by Russell Reynolds out of the blue. One of the reasons we have background checks ill be very interested in your permission and mr. Duncans permission to see see a background check is we identified patterns of misconduct for potential conference of interest that are out there. I have no patterns of misconduct in my back and. Let me finish my speedy madam chair his overtime. Logistics has contracts with the Postal Service stretching back many years. [inaudible] okay. The question is, they identify problems with contract performance and billing practices in the contract file. Would you consent to releasing that contract file so everyone can see what i dont even know what youre speaking about. Are you not aware of xp l logistics . I am aware. So do you have 30 billion invested speedy speedy hes gone way over his time. Do you have 30 million invested. Was a significant speed is he doesnt have to answer. Which i had before with the Ethics Department of the Postal Service and i was given specific types of guidelines that it did to adhere to. Its a very, very small part of the Postal Service business. I have nothing to do with, and my, i comply with all applicae requirements and we had an investigation. I guess ill get to everything that youre interested in and well see what will happen. Mr. Raskin stein has expired. [inaudible] fiveminute break. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible the recess is over. We are now back to work, and our next representative representau are now recognized. Okay, thank you, madam chair. Can you hear me . We cant see you but we hear you. You cant see me. Turn on there you are. We see you and we can hear you. Mr. Massie is now recognized. Madam chair, i ask unanimous consent to submit to the record two press releases from the u. S. Post office, the first one is from april 20, 2011, the second one is from a february 23, 201. Without objection. I want to read some excerpts from these press releases and then ask chairman duncan to respond to the press releases because these are from kentucky. In 2011 posts office announced, and ill read this, as result of the study began in september 2010 the Postal Service has made the decision to move Mail Processing operations from the ashland processing and distribution facility to the charleston, West Virginia, processing and distribution facility. What this means is here in Eastern Kentucky when we mail our next door neighbor, the envelope goes to charleston, West Virginia, before comes back to our nextdoor neighbor. I i want to read from disk of the press release from the u. S. Post office, the kentucky district. Says, this essay bertoia third, 2012, as a result of studies began five months ago the Postal Service has made the decision to move all Mail Processing operations from a, the bowling green, kentucky, moved to nashville, compton kentucky, elizabethtown kentucky, hasid kentucky, lexington, kentucky, our secondlargest city lost their Mail Processing facility in 2012. Paducah kentucky moved to Evansville Indiana and somerset kentucky, knoxville, tennessee. This was in 2012. This was an Election Year and this was while obama was president and biden was Vice President. I want to read a quote from chief operating officer Megan Brennan at the time if the decision to consolidate Mail Processing facilities recognize at the urgent need to reduce the size of national Mail Processing network to eliminate costly underutilized infrastructure. Consolidating operations is necessary if the Postal Service is to remain viable to provide mail service to the nation. That the democrats cooked up this Conspiracy Theory that the post office is to somehow going to be at fault for disenfranchising voters or suppressing votes because, in the media is complicit in this. They have shown video of mail sorting equipment being moved out of facilities. Here ive just mention ten for sales and kentucky that were shut down in an Election Year and so want to ask chairman mike duncan. Mr. Duncan, do you believe this 2012 as part of some conspiracy to disenfranchise voters in in the 2012 electionr part of some conspiracy to keep people from getting their medication or Social Security checks . Congressman, i have no knowledge of a conspiracy to keep people from voting or getting their solstice could be checks but as a resident of it. I know its added to the number of days it takes to send or receive a letter. Right. I believe you know chief operating officer Megan Brennan, she was the ceo in 2010 and the became postmaster general. Do you question her motives in the course of these operations . No. I worked very closely with Megan Brennan when she was the chief of this organization and she has high integrity, she knows the system and shes been an operations person. She was a letter carrier and worked her way up. And she has a business degree from mit i would add. This wasnt a part of any kind of conspiracy been. It was a part of realigning the research of the post office to the changing needs of the u. S. Customer. I want to close by highlighting some irony and hypocrisy. Postmaster general to joy, how long the polls office be funded it theres no more transfers of cash to the post office . How long can you operate . Would you turn on your mic, please . Late 2021. Okay. Late 2021 pixel at least for one more year i hope the members of this committee are aware that the u. S. Government ceases to be fined on september 30 of this year. So we holding a hearing about it post office that is funded for fully another year. Meanwhile were not even in town because Speaker Pelosi is an concerned that government funding in some september 30. Everything but the post office shuts down on september 30 at midnight if we dont do something. Also one other element of authority and hypocrisy. Our democratic governor shut down 95 of the voting precincts in the state and that democrats are some of trying to blame the post office for disenfranchising voters. With that i will yield back. The gentleman yields back. We now recognize mr. Rouda. Thank you, madam chair. Lets level set for the thickheaded individuals that dont understand why were here today. Let me sum it up for you. First and foremost, the mail is being delivered late at the expense of those who need prescriptions, at the expense of Small Businesses who need supplies to stay in business or reopen for business. For Social Security recipients and veterans who need the benefits. Thats the first reason. The second reason we have president of the United States is as that mailin ballots are fraudulent, and if he doesnt win the election its because it was fraudulent. We know thats not true. We know thats a lie and that life continues to be continued by members of this committee on the other side of the aisle. Third, we know from a memo from mr. Dejoy to 46 dates telling them they should be worried about receiving mail in ballots to the voters on time and for them to be returned back in time to be counted. And forth, we who because the United States Postal Service has requested financial help from this institution. Let me turn to my questions. Unlike any private enterprise the Postal Service have the universal universal Service Obligation to deliver mail to virtually every address in the United States regardless if its profitable or not. The Postal Service also has a ridiculous mandate to prefund and ten dangerous time 75 yearf Retiree Health benefits unlike any other private or public institution. Mr. Dejoy, in your testimony you stated you are against the prefunding mandate the trump appointed board of governors postal workers and senators on both sides of the aisle are against that mandate. As you know there is a bipartisan bill sitting on Mitch Mcconnell subtask that would eliminate the prefunding mandate and free of tens of billions of dollars for the u. S. Postal service. Heres some free business advice. Advice. Pick up the phone please call Mitch Mcconnell because one vote and one stroke of the pen by this president would free of billions of dollars for the u. S. Postal service to be able to accomplish the opportunity to revitalize that organization decades to come. I have some questions about your Business Plan. Its Standard Practice as an example to come in and meet with the team and develop a Strategic Plan before operational changes. This was the plan released in may just before you became postmaster general. Did you make any written modifications to this point since you have taken office . First of all, sir, you are incorrect in my position on the prefunding of the healthcare. In my written statement that spirit i know, you supported. I said that, yesterday supported. But back to my question have you make any modifications to this Business Plan . Im working on making modifications to the Business Plan yes. In fact, on august 13 developing a Strategic Plan to achieve Operational Excellence and financial stability. Is that when youre working on what it usurp this plan . If approved by the board of governors it would, and i must say we do need to identify the legislation also requires a Postal Service to be selfsustaining and it has that been selfsustaining for the last thats what getting rid of the premandate is so important. I want to make sure were were g on a written plan of some kind. If you have made any written modifications in memos to team members will you provide this committee with that information so we know how your modified his fiveyear plan . I when we come out with a plan surely of memoranda and other document floating around, right . I would not speak you cant give us a draft . We discover report with the kpi showing you were down 10 natiy when we know in battleground areas it down even more. You were able to get that too was late. Can you get us that information as requested . Probably not. Let me ask you this. Lets turn to the impact you have had with the internal communications that show senior managers not to even plugged in the previously disconnected machines without approval from headquarters. Mail processing equipment and blue collection boxes will remain where they are. When you tell your workers and American People right now that usps employees can plug in disconnected machines . Im unaware of the directive that you are speaking about. Its an internal communication from the usps. So you will then allow them to plug in machines to be able to do the job . Im not going to agree to something im unaware of or the memo you speak of. You not actually insane this is . Its like telling there must be a reason to i didnt do it but the organization has speedy but you were ahead of the unit, the head of the business, the buck stops with you. The buck on what machine gets plugin . Thats an outrageous statement. The fact youre down over 10 nationally that has nothing to do with a plugin machine anywhere. I yield back. We now recognize mr. Oconnor excuse me, mr. Hice. Thank you, madam chair. I will just bring up, tried if i may the fact that you allow mr. Raskin to go significantly over his time while at the same time cutting off mr. Royce. Its not going unnoticed. I think to his point regarding gears act that it was 3. 4 trillion of swap spending and didnt even extend the ppp which was what it was supposed to do. What heroes act did include was universal mailin ballots. No voter id for all those ballots, about harvesting. Its funny to me that the heroes act which was supposed to be about covid help and relieve did not extend ppp that it did have a whole lot of voting reform in it that actually brings us into the conversation here today. Mr. Dejoy, let me just, i think you would agree with me, would you not, that the sanctity of the ballot box is a paramount issue for americans . Would you agree . Yes, sir. And im sure all of us would. Now, in 2017 there was an investigation by the office of special counsel that concluded that the United States Postal Service improperly coordinated with the Postal Workers Union in support of hillary clinton. And the investigation, the investigation went on and stated it was a systematic violation of the hatch act that was involved and, in fact, may be postal workers had to come were required to work overtime to make up for the absence of all of that. It is also very interesting that the union we are referring to, the National Association of letter carriers, which did just ten days ago endorsed biden for president. Let me ask you, how many fraudulent votes are necessary for it to be considered too many . I have i dont know, sir. I guess one. I would say one. We dont want fraudulent votes. Theres a reason for us to have that. Your predecessor ms. Brennan committed to congress to fully implement some of the recommendations the impact all the recommendations from osc to avoid future hatch violations. I would like to ask you what kind of changes have you made to prevent these type of violations from taking place in the future . Congressman, that is not a focused ive had in my 70 days, but i will a look at the status of that initiative and get back to you. Okay. I would appreciate you getting back to us. Theres a question in my mind that the vast majority no question in my mind that the vast majority of usps workers are faithful, honest, dedicated Public Servants. That being said, what the osc has identified is without question many cases of political bias. And, in fact, just lay this out. When you have a union that consists of 300,000 workers, and that union comes out and endorses a candidate, in this case biden, and then that union is supposed to be expected to accurately handle and deliver ballots to both parties fairly, does that raise any concerns for you at all . Sir, i respect everybodys, you know, right to support candidates and donate to candidates. I have done so myself or 20 years, so in my mind it doesnt raise awareness on, concern with regard to postal workers and their initiative. How about the rights of you know, the Postal Service has 650,000 people and we will have like the rest of the american society, we will have people that dont Pay Attention to the loss. But for the most part i believe in the ability to donate and support thank you for your answers. I get for your answers and i respect the right for people to vote and support to the want to as well but this is a case where you have 300,000 workers, a union that has endorsed biden. There must be in place some sort of mechanism to ensure that the handling of those ballots and all political material, election material, is properly handled and not in a biased way, and i look forward to you responded to us in the next week or so. I yield back. Thank you. The gentleman yields back. I now recognize mr. Oconnor. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you mr. Dejoy, been you. I want to see if we can find some Common Ground to resolve some of the differences. Can you begin by sharing with the American People and this committee the unofficial motto of the Postal Service . No rain, no snow, nor sleet nor hail will make its about service, correct, not about profit. You know how many veterans serve in the Postal Service, about . 100,000. Do you know what percentage of veterans about were not on the Postal Service for their prescription medicine . I dont know. A high number. Its about 80 of veterans. I guess in the beginning want to ask you this. Our Defense Department we dont tell them you have to go sell weapons to make revenue to serve the American People. We dont say that about our Health Service for the National Institute of health. Why should we have a different standard for the Postal Service . Why do you make a profit in sturgis serving the American People . Its an interesting and good question, and its not that we need to make a profit, its to be selfsustaining which means at least cover your costs. Profit, we thought they should serve in one of the reasons they served in our military as Public Service. I appreciated one point, you assume that those who disagree with you have a legitimate different, a legitimate perspective. Your perspective is the mail sorting machines are not required because packages need to be delivered and open up floor space. Major testimony you do not direct at, who directed it . It came to operations. You dont know who directed it, you dont know who implemented it. Hundreds of them around the country in different places, initiative within the organization. Your perspective this is necessary to make efficiency packages. You understand this means the people in america who have the opposite view who are concerned this may slow down the delivery of mail, you have any sense of how much it would cost to restore these machines . Would they be more than 10 billion. 10 billion . It would be less than 10 million. Less than a billion . I would assume so. Lets stipulate you may be right about the deficiency, lets stipulate, we have donald trump tweeting out bettys up in the polls, he thinks hes going to win, nate thinks fighting is going to win and everybody can agree on one thing, whoever wins the American People should have confidence in that result. So if it would cost less than a billion dollars regardless of efficient or not, what is the harm in putting those machines back into election day just for the peace of mind and the confidence of the American People. First of all weve heard all statistic about the mailing votes and so forth, we dont need the machines to process but you make a statement about florida billion dollars, youre not going to give us a billion dollars. If you gonna make a request you have no way of getting us a billion dollars, we have not been funded in ten years, you cannot pass any legislation. If we give you the money, do you see my point. The hypothetical. You havent given us any money. What is the harm. Your accusing me. As a committee ivan accused anything. Im trying to understand. Im trying to understand what most americans are trying to understand. What is the harm even if your machines dont do anything, what is the harm to do it until election day. To washington to make funny of sense to me it makes none. You not expand why. Theyre not needed. If it will restore peoples polarized elective. Get me the billion in all get to the machines. That the commitment will find a way to get you the money. Reagan said trust and verify. I understand you committed to the number can people you will have these delivered in time, can you give us a specific and detailed plan intimate that to congress on how youre going to make sure that the ballots get delivered in time. There is a plan that we can normal processing plus enhance processing of procedures, i can probably give you some type of summaries that we will private fulfill. A billion dollars and you put the machines back. Thank you. Thank you. The gentle man yields back. I now recognize congressman comber. They command armchair, you went over four minutes, i may go over a few minutes and i hope you will indulge me in my questioning. Mr. Joy, thank you for being here today, im sorry for the rhetoric you had to endure over your first 60 days and thats something i want to remind everyone, you have been postmaster general for around 60 days is that correct . 70 today. I went to make this clear to everybody watching, you report to the postal board of governors is that correct . That is. The postal board of governors is a bipartisan board comprised of democrats and republicans is that correct . It is. Its makeup is that way because the statute passed by congress requiring about bipartisan board of governors. Yes, sir. If theres one thing i hope my democrat colleagues learn, you report to the board of governors, not the president of the United States pertaining to all the changes and i want to reference a tweet where hes chained himself to one of the blue boxes that have been in the news a lot lately, and your opening testimony, you said you did not remove, you did not order the removal of sorting equipment or the reduction of overtime. Can you explain who did and what that process was because i think its important for the making people to know because is a lot of democrats even though they talked about politics and the fact that the president wants to sabotage the election, the democrats are using this as a political ploy. They are spinning this to try to benefit politically, he has received 32000 from the Postal Workers Union since 2012. So im sure his Campaign Donors probably appreciated that photograph. But if you would not mind telling us about the process briefly in the removal of the blue box of who ordered them and how that came about. This is a longstanding thing thats been going on in the Postal Service for a long time, the fact that im here at the committee to talk about boxes and things i would much rather take the time to take the time to help get us into a sustainable position and other matters and nothing the hunted with boxes or machines or restricting overtime or throwing the election or anything. Correct me if im wrong, 3100 collection boxes a year over the past seven years have been taken offline dating back to when obama was president. Its been a long time yes. Am i correct to say during the obama a administration they removed 12000 blue boxes, is that correct . I think its hard for me too associate box removal with the president of the United States. You guys can do that here i have a hard time. Do remember the democrat calling for the den postmaster general to resign because president obama removed 12000 blue boxes, do remember that. I dont think i recall postmaster general to resign. Lets be very clear, removing the sorting machines in the blue boxes that were removed, they wont affect the Postal Service capacity to handle ballots, you testified. Correct. The democrats want to portray you of implementing new policies because of the false narrative that the president wants to sabotage the election. Is that narrative true . I am not engaged in sabotaging the election. Absolutely fall. As a matter fact are you planning on voting by mail. Will somebody tell me that. You have full confidence, when your ballot is in the mail it will get to the appropriate election official on time. Yes, sir. When you pledge here today that the Postal Service will do its best to return all balance the selection on time. I do sir. What we tell americans are concerned about something happening to their ballot once they put it in this election season, what would you tell americans. Theyve seen a lot of that on the democrat side. This is been there spin since the russian hoax fell flat since the impeachment sham died in the senate, every Conspiracy Theory today that the democrats have used two try to hurt the president has fallen flat and this is a new flavor of the day. And have the consequences of putting a lot of americans concerned if they drop the absentee ballot in the mail, it will not get to the election official. How can you relay their fears that the democrats have cost. The American People have a commitment of 650,000 women and men in the United States Postal Service that we will do everything within our power and structure to deliver ballots on time but again we remind them to request your ballot early and vote early. It is discouraging to hear the rhetoric for the democrats about the whole postal issue. My grandmother and mother was a role carrier and spent her whole career as a rural mayor under mail carrier. They work extremely hard and they deserve better than the rhetoric in the postal bashing that has been coming from the other side, all for political purposes. We went to see the post office succeed, especially the district like mine and very rural district that hasnt recovered from what congressman mentioned the changes that obama made when he took the sorting facility in kentucky. But ill close my question with this, this is a sad day for the Oversight Committee. The Oversight Committee is responsible for identifying the strong abuse, the Oversight Committee is supposed to be responsible for making government transparent accountable. Postmaster to dejoy, youve come here with us drooling background, you are one of the most qualified postmaster generals we have ever had with your background and the Logistics Business, it is an honor for the federal government to have you to trying to reform the post office but the bill that the democrats rushed through saturday without even having a Committee Hearing on it, that bill ties your hand and also gives 25 billion to the Postal Service which i find ironic because mr. Mcgovern and the rules Committee Markup on friday said he did not trust you. We had a couple of other democrats say they did not have confidence in you but they gave you 25 billion blank check with no strings attached, they tried your hand to where you cannot make any needed reforms. Thats not what the committee is supposed to be about. I apologize i was a minority member of this committee, i hope that we can do better in the next congress. Madam chair i yield back. The gentleman yields back and i recognize myself for a point of personal privilege and information. The bill that the house past that i offered, i offered that bill after the postmaster general came forward with changes to the post office that slowed the mail down. It does not in any way hinder any effort to make the post office more efficient and effective. I also funded the post office because it deserves to be funded, its a national treasure, National Service and i now recognize mr. For five minutes. Please turn on your mic. Thank you, madam chair, some of us represent the people we represent so in no way i can assure members of this committee that this is some sort of hoax. We are here as you might imagine from the people who might hire us people who live across the country in this district, for me that the people of baltimore city, Baltimore County in Howard County maryland, just like all my colleagues as others im sure have complained and i want to keep this focus on the face of those people, these are Senior Citizens like you and like me, they have worked hard, the at a point in their life where they depend like the boys had had depended on the mail, some of them have high Blood Pressure and the wait for the medication other have heart trouble and they wait for the medication, citizens men and women who put on uniform in various wars and conflict and representatives and rely daily on the mail for their va checks, medicine, these are Small Business people, like you used to be in many of the members of the committee may have been who watch their Small Business compete now, not being able to keep abreast of basic things that they rely on to come to the mail and then theyre just average citizens, somebody wants to pay a bill because they do not believe in the internet and they believe in writing in oldfashioned check and then theyre told by the company that theyre being charged with a late fee because it did not arrive on time. These are real real stories and when the mail slows down, has a disparate impact on communities in particular communities of color around this country. These changes i assume are changes that you have vetted, im talking about the one to implement it with the board of governors. Is that correct . The change, the organizational change and the requirement with the initiative with not the trucks leave on time are within my authority but i had discussed them. Major changes are required to have an advisory opinion, is that correct before submitted to the board of governors. Not the change, there is some level of change that is in the closing plan and so forth and we need to go to the prc. Tm analytics to justify the changes that you made and if so can you provide them at a later date to this committee . I need to get back to you on that. Its my understanding the removal of mailboxes whether it was 20 or 30 years ago or last week required density studies, is that still the case. I believe it is. Could use applied to this committee the Density Study for the last three months because theres been an accelerated removal of boxes and accelerated removal of sorting machines, 671 to which he said earlier you would not put back online. Im not a Conspiracy Theory but i do not believe that Humpty Dumpty fell, i think he was pushed. When i see these things back up in such a way that we get your report dated august 12 that says there has been 8 decrease in mail arriving on time, 9 decrease in periodicals arriving on time and a decrease in all other classifications it just makes a suspect. Im sure you would understand that. Let me ask you are you familiar with expedited street afternoon sorting program. Im, was introduced on the 25th of july. It affects 1200 zip codes across the United States, are you aware of that . I am aware of that and it defected a lot of zip codes. Are you aware of longstanding zip codes of the post office questioning. I am aware of what the process was whether there is longstanding procedures, the intention with the decrease in mail volume and get back on schedule it was not a change was a Pilot Program to the delivery to homes and businesses with the schedule of incoming mail. Are you aware the National Association of letter carriers filed an official grievance against program . I am but ill tell you before the program and before the pilot went off, we had a discussion with the Union Leadership and they were great in rolling out the program. Just before i yield back my time, what would you say to the veterans, those Senior Citizens, those average americans and the Small Business people that have been disproportionally impacted in the last five or six weeks because of the slowdown. We are concerned about every delivery that is late and were working very, very hard to get back on track. Thank you, madam chair. Mr. Grossman you are now recognize. Hi can you hear me now . Yes we can hear you but we are not seen yet. First of all thank you for being here mr. Dejoy, sorry the questions have been congruently and increasing regular deliveries would dissipate because of the election this october to impaired to last october. Im sorry i did not hear the question. What increase in mail deliveries do you expect this october compared to last october . I think the election mail its over the course of about 2 of normal mail. Can you compare that to other days or times around christmas for example. I think the narrative goes mothers day is higher, christmas is higher, we just handle census mail. It is not a lot of mail but is critical with the cutoff days and its important we put extra effort to make sure it gets there on time. You dont consider with how much mail you had three years ago is on a volume issue, we just want to get everyone of them. Okay, i know here in wisconsin and i assume nationwide the postage comes with absentee ballot, a matter fact in wisconsin do you have plans that you will get on the election . You broke up but i think i can guess what you are trained to get out. We are not charging anything extra for anything, all are racing classifications. Your losing the point, in wisconsin the local unit of government the issues the absentee ballot pays to have about set out and actually put the stamp on the ballot coming back, at least in wisconsin you can get more revenue and with the election. What do you plan on doing with the additional revenue youre getting an or do you plan on doing anything special at all . Im not understanding how would beget extra revenue. One way or another we would had a stamp going out or stamp coming back, in any case the revenue any revenue we get if it was additional would go to cover our losses. Im assuming when you get additional revenue, you like it when more mail is being sent because youre ahead of the game that you have more ballantine day cards for christmas cards or in this case more absentee ballots or whatever. We love mail. You should be happy you right now, im told about 14 billion in debate, do you anticipate the election causing not to be run down at all or do you anticipate going up or have any dents . I dont think you have too much of an impact in either way. You 14 billion in the bank, you will still have 14 billion as far as you know on decembe december 1. It depends we will probably lose ten or 11 billion, depending on how package volume stays, we could have less cash and if i may, having 14 billion and we also have 12 billion worth of liability that needs to be paid at sometime over the next six months, we are 135 billion of liability and we have 633,000 Person Organization that does not get funding even though the federal government ends in september, theyve in expectation of getting funding, we dont have an expectation of getting funding, we have to increase revenue and that is a big difference that we have in any other agency. 14 billion sounds like a lot of money but its not a lot of money for what we do. You still have money after the election . Yes we will have cash. The gentleman into the question. We have plenty of operating capital right now to get through november. Yes the gentleman yields back, congresswoman scholz is now recognize. The culture of the u. S. Postal service is every piece to every day. Ive been embracing this with florida local Postal Service that censure arrival, this is no longer the mission of the usps. Overtime to finish delivering mail is not allowed on piles and piles of black blood mail being delivered, sorting machines are being sold with scrapper being roped off. My first question, is this still the policy end goal of the usps to deliver every piece of everyday or have eliminated or change that in any way . First of all that is misrepresentation of any action that i am take and yes always to deliver every piece of everyday and maam we were not doing that before i got here. Reclaiming my time, it is gotten worse censure arrival, where piles upon piles of mail that as a result you made appear to have delayed the mail even further than supposedly delayed previously. No change i made. But the changes that you ma made. Ive made one change. Youve made far more than one change. That is not true. Reclaiming my time. You are not being honest with this committee. Not true i am being honest. I would ask if you had time back to not interrupt me. Mr. Dejoy. Is a false accusation. I did not interrupt any other member when i was talking and i expect not to be interrupted. The time is mine mr. Dejoy, youre not being honest with the committee about removing the sorting machine. We have been asking for details for weeks and you have been hiding them from us while removing them, on august 4 the staff gave the committee on the briefing on the issue and all they told us that moving the machines around to where we needed most, we have the slide from the briefing, it was no mention that taking any sorting machines offline on august 11 the council responded to our request for more information when no mention of taking any sorting machines offline, your culture of misinformation has trickled down to florida postal leadership and on the 14th my office asked whether sorting machines were being removed at the palms facility which covers all of south florida and were assured that capacity was being as stated but only after i spoke to local person under postal workers that has been shut down in roped off in july. They finally reveal the internal plan to remove more than 600 sorting machines, you are not transparent we had to get it from news reports. I want to take this opportunity to enter into the record on august 18, 2020 email from usps director of maintenance operation kevin the email reads, please message out to respective managers, they are not to reconnect, reinstall machines that it been previously didnt enter been disconnected without a approval no matter what direction they are getting from their manager. Mr. Dejoy, yes, sir no, you indicated in this Committee Hearing it is not your job to decide whether sorting machines are on or off line but at the same time you told us they will not bring them online because they are not needed. Yes, sir no has any plant manager requested machines be reconnected . Yes, sir no. Im not asking you anything other reclaiming my time. Yes, sir no answer. Yes, sir no has any plant manager across the country in the usps requested meal sorting machines be reconnected . How would i know that. You are in charge, you dont know whether there are plant managers that have requested. Let me assure you that there are land managers that was reported in the press in washington, there are plant managers in texas and washington and i have articles that i can show you that have asked to have sorting machines reconnected and brought back online and they have been too scared to come forward to say so. Youve indicated that his local leadership and in this hearing i heard you say its not your job to decide whether sorting machines are brought online or not, someone needs to meet matt enter. Please mute the people that are listening, please mute. I need additional 30 seconds from the interruptions added back onto my time. You said in this hearing it is not your job to make decisions about sorting machines and at the same time you have said you will not bring them back on line because it is not needed. It cannot be both. My local handlers who work with sorting machines regularly and the specific barcode sorting machine would not be difficult to plug it back in. How difficult would it be to reconnect machines that have not already been destroyed, for example on display like we can bring that up on the screen, i would send a photo from a Processing Distribution Center in florida with the power cord hanging from the ceiling and not plugged in. My local handlers tell me the sorting machine regularly in that specific machine specifically it would not be difficult to plug back in, do you believe it is a local handler job to decide whether they need a sorting machine and will you give them the freedom to put the machine back in and bring machines have not been taken apart back online to make sure we can get the mail on time which acknowledge has gotten worse censure arrival. The general womans time has expired. That was a long list of accusations. I want to simple answer for the question of whether. Is it my time. No it is always my time and i would like an answer to the question. I would like an answer to the question, whether or not. We have a Management Team that is responsible for making decisions as to what machines are used to not used. Those are decided locally. The general womans time is expired. Congressman, you are now recognized. He has not told us the truth and it is your fault. Your time is expired. Her time is expired her time has expired. Congressman higgins you are now recognized. Taking manager, that was quite a debacle. This is exactly why america does not trust congress, our cities are on fire, violent mobs roam our streets, the chinese have crossed the American Economy with a virus and the democrats are talking about a mailbox conspiracy postmaster general, are you aware of any evidence whatsoever that supports a mail delivery conspiracy. No, sir. Would you repeat that. No, sir. America needs to hear, are you aware of any evidence whatsoever of the mailbox or mail delivery conspiracy. I am not. Postmaster general, thank you for being here today, let me ask you are you here on the subpoena or voluntarily. Voluntarily. You are a better man than me because your sitting attempt after attempt by my colleagues across the aisle to assess nature character, and my i suggest as American Patriot and a constitution, if i was you i would not appear before this Committee Without a subpoena in the future. Congratulations on your character for being here voluntarily to submit herself to this harassment, during the course of your lifetime say ill be 59 today, i cannot remember a time when the Postal Service was not in some sort of financial trouble, do you recall any time era that the Postal Service was totally squared away and operating within budget and was never in financial trouble. I think in the late 90s an early 2000 a few years it was covering its cost. And happy birthday sir,. Thank you, sir, that was very kind of you. I recall the same, out of the last 40 50 years, theres only been a couple of years. A dedicated men and women but the fact is that the agencies are legendary within the Postal Service, let me just asked you postmaster, why did you accept this job, tell america why you took this job . Sir i have a certain experience in my life, businesswise with large projec projects. We know that you qualify sir. I get that but America Needs to hear from your heart, why did you accept this job, this incredible burden to serve your government, your nation in this way. What is your purpose. I have been active in my community in the country and most of my adult life and this is something that was asked for me to participate in, i think i can help them fix and lead to a better place and thats why i took it. From this american and for my constituents, thank you, sir for taking on this task, perhaps next week the Oversight Committee will have a hearing suggesting that the smoking cigarettes can cause cancer. Who did not know in america that the Postal Service is counseling going through modernization after attempts to become more efficient and the struggles to become solvent into the future. They had a lot of mail and i have one question in closing, you have about 471 million meals a day, can you handle the mail of the election cycle given the fact that 150 million americans are registered to vote in your average mail delivery is 471 million a day, can you handle the mail delivery for the election cycle . The whole organization is committed to delivering an election now and we will do it. Roger that, thank you, thank you for appearing before today, i apologize on behalf of all of america for the way that you been treated by my colleagues across the aisle. Madam chair i yield back. The gentleman yields back, congressman you are now recognized. Thank you postmaster for being here with us today. Ill be candid, i dont trust you right now, i dont know whether its i dont trust your judgment or your motives, if you think you could implement the changes that you did without having the negative impact that weve seen, then i worry about your judgment and if you did understand that im concerned about your motives but you got an opportunity here to demonstrate that your judgment is sound and your motives are pure. Your businessman, we heard a lot about that today, youre an expert, apparently in supply Chain Management which requires a lot of planning, specifics, details, all kinds of minutia correct . On friday when you were in the senate, you said as we head into the election season, i want to assure the committee of the American Public that the Postal Service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nation to election mail securely on ontime, the sacred duty is my number one priority between now and election day. Is that what you said. He said it again today, the idea of getting the mail to people securely and on time. I gotta tell you im very concerned about the issue whats going to happen with the mail ballot, he heard that from others today, with the president admitting that he is opposed to usps funding because these hoping the Postal Service will not be able to handle mail ballots in your own general counsel has worn 46 states that the mail ballot may not be delivered on time. Traditionally as you know the Postal Service is always prioritized sorting election mail separately and pushing it out as fast as possible and including daily sweeps of males facilities for any election mail otherwise missing processing. The states and localities have been left wondering if this is no longer the case and what the president continued broadside against mail ballots will need and practice for those efforts, on friday again for the senate colleague, first class are better of election mail would not change quoting you in response to senator peters, yes, sir we will deploy processes and procedures that advance any election mail and in some cases ahead of first class mail, i will note on the website there is an faq to Election Officials that says they should use firstclass mail or higher level of service for election mail using usps marketing meal service will result in slower delivery times and may increase the risk that voters will not receive their ballot in time to return them by mail. You are saying that the post office is going to handle this on a firstclass basis but the same time the faq is telling Election Officials that they should take responsibility for this or otherwise the marketing mail service will come in more slowly. So weve heard about your commitment to our senate colleagues, you said it again today but to be honest mr. Postmaster general we need something in writing that would be very helpful, a detailed accounting of how you will execute on your promises, your specialist and logistics, we want to know what youre doing at usps to make good on these words, how is usps designing its interface was states and localities with election mail vendors into make sure they get priority treatment, we need written policies and directives, not just words. I assume that you know that usps has long offered memorandums to ensure the systemwide execution of key policies and procedures, i was looking at a bunch last night and in that im asking, can you commit today to the immediate issue of a formal usps policy in writing that will guarantee all delivery of election mail is treated as firstclass or better for the 2020 general election. Can you do that for us . Our process is to do that physically, i have to get back on what i can give you in writing on that. We would like to see that in the form of a memorandum so we can verify the commitment you are making, this is where your motives can be shown to be pure. Were talking about a physical process, we could advance mail and front of firstclass but its not called firstclass mail. I just want to see in writing a memorandum that the post office and the public, we can get some confidence. Were talking about your ability to issue these reports, can you commit as well that you will give us some data specific updates on how the efforts regarding the mail ballots are going and do that on a periodic basis, weekly perhaps, that would be very, very helpful. Without due, i will give the committee an update on improvement of the service, lets say next monday where we stand on the service and i need to check if we can get down to the individual ballot level and see if we can do that. That would be very helpful and that will demonstrate that you take the sacred duty seriously. I yield back. If i can add the letters that went out to the state was not awarding or an indication that we were slowing down, is trying to educate the state with Election Officials on what the process was. This is been done years and past with the pandemic, we increase the content because we knew vote by mail, we made 50000 contacts with state and local officials and our regional areas and their headquarters to try and integrate their process and our process so we would have a safe and secure election. The gentlemans time has expired. Congressman you are now recognized. Congressman gibbs pgh thank you, madam chair. I gotta apologize to some of the behavior. Can you hear me . We can hear you and we can see you. Postmaster general i want to apologize for the treatment you had today, obviously i was hearing you dont really need this job and im not going to direct him to take this job, im sure you dont need to like most people including the Trump Administration including the president but they want to make this country better and help people and i think you fallen that category. I want to apologize for the statements made today, i thought they were very disturbing. You just try to do your job. We were hired to do this job by board of governors. You have any discussions with the president on what to do with the post office or just for the homeowners . I never spoke with the president about the Postal Service prior to getting the position and i have not spoken to him about anything about the pope enter Postal Service. So you were brought in to do this job which helps be more costefficient, make changes so obviously to do their job and get out, you are doing your job in attacking you for doing your job. Now i think we have an agreement that the firstclass mail has dropped considerably but has increased significantly and thats one of the reasons why youre making changes very efficiently and with the sorting machines, is it true to say that the mail volume even with additional senses and additional ballots that it is higher mealtime than anything else, there will still be enough sorting machines to do this and by making the changes you are making. Is that a true statement . We will have plenty of sorting capacity. Some other delays covid19, in the Postal Service i saw theres an article a couple months ago about the Postal Service took a liberal policy about making sure that people have common sense. Are we having trouble on a daytoday basis they getting drivers and mammon shortages of personnel, with the situation with that. Across the country are employee availability is down 3 4 on average across the country but the issue is in some of the hotspots in the country, areas like philadelphia, detroit is probably 20 and if the averages cover that, they can be done 20 . And that is contributing to the delivery problem that we are having. We have challenges and i want to make that point. I believe the vast majority of our postal workers are honest Public Servants in the special counsel is bias back in 2017 in the 2016 campaign by a storyteller clinton. Considering the substantial increase in middle ballots, the post office to ensure that political bias does not factor the delivery of ballots. I dont see it in the report. I have not reviewed the report but i have full confidence in the 650,000 men and women in the Postal Service and insecurely, like the rest of the country, they are individuals to things they shouldnt and we have an Inspection Service that looks for that kind of stuff. I have full faith that we will deliver safely. I appreciate that. Some of the challenges, i know in ohio that people will request ballots and meal out on saturday before the tuesday election and i think its a real challenge in the not a lot of states do that. Which post office is making sure in working with states so people realize that we came before tuesday in the election there might be a challenge of getting about. The gentleman may answer his question. I think he asked, it was breaking up, with regard to one of the reasons we are working with the state Election Officials to make sure into educate the public, we will send a letter out to every american again describing her participation in the election process and requesting the ballot early into vote early. When it gets down to the last days, we will have various procedures, suite procedures, ive heard stories of postal managers running ballots over to the election board. We will do everything we can to make sure every ballot gets where it needs to be. Thank you all. You are now recognized. Thank you very much and i want to think postmaster general to joy and i want to think the chairman of the board for your patient answering the questions. As both of you know, it was president nixon in 1970 who has signed a postal reform bill to guarantee the independence of the post office in the Postal Service website is history, something about that bill was to remove the Postal Service. From politics. I assume the both of you agree that that is an essential mission of the post office. Yes, sir. Mr. To joy, i have asked for documents labeled with the political donation to be presented and i want to ask you a few questions about that. Mr. Did joy, young the right to make political donations within the law and i want to go through them because of the questions that are being asked. According to the fellow of action records since 2016 you have donated 300 threepoint to Million Dollars to republican candidates and committees, does not send her . It sounds about right. In the Republican National committee was a beneficiary of 1. 3 million in contributions. Correct. Yes i am a republicans are. Right. You contributed one point to Million Dollars to President Trumps fund correct . I would need to check that but it sounds about right. My understanding and may, in 2019, you were announced of the chairman of the National Convention Fundraising Committee for the convention that was to take place in charlotte, is that correct . That is a Nonprofit Foundation that i was elected by the Host Committee which is a bipartisan and convention for the city. He stayed on the position until june 12, 2020 shortly you putook over as the post master general correct . I did. From january through april of this year, before you were selected as postmaster general, you provided 18 contributions in the amount of 650,000 with a republican committee. Correct . You seem to have something in front of you that i dont know what to looking out, lets go for the record, i gave you a lot of money to the republicans. Let me ask an obvious question to republicans is totally within your right, youre a big supporter President Trump, how do you square a major supporter of the president and the committee with other members of the postmaster general and President Trump has made very hostile statement about the Postal Service, he called the Postal Service a joke, i assume you disagree with that . I do and he has repeatedly attacked mailin voting in saying mailin ballots will be massive electoral fraud in the 2020 election. Do you agree with that. Im in charge of delivering ballots, i dont really want to comment. That is not my responsibility. It is not but is it your view that if it is fraud it will have nothing to do with the United States Postal Service. It is my view if there is fraud its our intent not to have any fraud with the United States Postal Service. If the mail is not delivered on time and republicans and democrats who do vote by mail do not have a Timely Delivery to their town clerks, that would result in them being disenfranchised. Is that not correct. The mail will be delivered on time. We heard that you made significant reform to try to improve Postal Service in the significant delays in those delays coincide with the rebalance to the election, you apologize for that. Its not just the postal boxes in the mail sorting machine that you heard from congressman cooper. The gentlemans time is expired, the gentlemans time is expired but the gentleman may ask the question. Thank you congressman. Again i will repeat i had nothing to do with the collection boxes, the sorting machines, the postal post office hours or limiting overtime, the change i made was to run the trucks transportation on time and would mitigate extra trips and based on the review of an ig audit and that was absolutely astonishing in the amount of money we were spending and the number of late trips and extra trips and it was a plan that was rolled out with operations and it was very important aspect of the network, very good people of why do trucks matter, why do on time trucks matter, they do matter, its a fundamental premise of how the whole mail network is put together. If the trucks do not run on time, the mail carriers cannot leave on time, they are out there at night and they have to come back and get more mail, collection processes late in the plant process are distorted i see several thousand dollars in potential savings in getting the system to connect properly and thats why we ran out and put a plan together to get the fundamental basic principle, run your truck sometime, i would not know how to reverse that in mind to say dont run the truck sometime, is not the answer that were looking to get me too say here today. The gentlemans time is expired, now we recognize congressman keller, youre now recognized. Thank you, madam chair and i like to think the postmaster general for being here today, underlying 292020 usps general counselor sent a followup letter from a too 46 states including pennsylvania expressing concern that the state deadline for requesting and casting ballots by mail do not fit with the Postal Service delivery standards. Mr. Joy can you confirm these letters and outreach is something usps has done in the past under previous postmaster general . Yes this has been done in the past and listening to a letter a week ago that was sent out before the 16 election also. We have intensified the effort to work with the election board and communicate to help gain more knowledge on water processes in high places to understand on how to use a postmark. I would agree with that. The democrats have been making a lot of noise about these letters, your general counselor said the state election board. I like to clear this up in the letters to the state that the city would not deliver. No, sir and do they state that they will not or cannot process ballots is november. No it does not. Did they say that the voters should not vote by mail. No, sir does not. The letter recommends that the voters mail, people voting by mail to complete their ballot no later, complete intimate by no later than october 27 to comply with pennsylvania. Pennsylvania would need to change current laws to request the ball as late as tuesday october 27 to ensure that the usps can deliver ballots in time to be counted by election day on tuesday november 3, 2020 by 8 0d under pennsylvania law, you agree pennsylvania should move the application deadline for mail and absentee ballot back, for example on or around octobet in order to ensure voters can receive the violet incomplete them and return them no later than tuesday october 27 as recommended by the Postal Service general counsel. I dont know why we would want to put this in conflict, this very important process and the democracy. I dont know why we should take any chances other than to have a properly integrated system between election boards and the Postal Service and that is all the general counsel and the team that supports them is trying to do, make people aware why would we want to put more risk in the system than is necessary . The state law says the valves should be received by november 3 by 8 00 p. M. And anybody, im 55 years old and ive used the Postal Service for the past 37 years to deliver my mail and to pay my bills and everything and i dont wait to the day the bill is due to mail the check, i mail it in enough time knowing that it is only reasonable that i have to walk to the mailbox and i have to put it in the mailbox and someone has to come collect it and it has to be put on a car or in a plane to be processed and delivered and it is only reasonable to put the state should take that into account when they set up their laws. When going to move on because theres another point i would like to get to also. Governor tom wolf recently announced pennsylvania will cover the cost of postage for every meal and valid this year. The United States Postal Service handbook for area Mail Processing postmarked are not required for mail and bearing postage and its a prepaid postage that they send with the ballot to be returned and will they be postmarked . We will work to try to set up the process to postmark as much as we can. But currently the process is either way, the prepaid postage is not yet posted. So if he were to change which the charwomans bills that you can change anything so if nothing were to change you will not be able to postmark those letters. If we didnt not make a special effort to postmark prepaid mail we would not be postmarketing but we have other ways of identifying an election mail which is how we have tried in the past to postmark but they are not seamless efforts. You would have to make adjustments to make sure that is secure . I wouldve thought the chairman would have made that and that she wouldve introduced a bill before she made changes because youre trying to make changes to make sure that the items you handle are done in time so i do appreciate that and that is one thing postmaster general, could you guarantee that you will deliver every ballot to the people when they request them and every ballot when it is returned . I guarantee we will use every effort for the 650,000 people that work at the organization to fill that. You wont change anything . The time is expired. The gentleman can answer the question. I think i did. Congresswoman speaker is recognized. In queue. I have two documents i would like to submit for the record, one from the post office from reorganization and citizens responsibly in ethics. Without objection. Thank you. Mr. Dejoy thank you for being here today. You have answered some questions about your contributions to the president and you contributed 586,000 to attend a dinner for him in february of this year, is that correct . I dont think so, no. There are records that show you did. Your wife has been nominated to be the ambassador to canada, is that correct . She is, yes. Mr. Duncan, wherever you are. Yes. Mr. Duncan, youve been active in President Trumps campaign and as director of the american crossroad super pack, is that correct . Im the director of the crossroads of super pac yes. And you contributed over 1. 9 million to present toms campaign. That is not correct. Not you personally but the pack. I dont know if the answer the record should show that. Youre both vested in making sure that the president gets reelected, is that correct . Im not here to talk about the president election. Im here to talk about Postal Service issues. Okay, mr. Duncan, how much did the Postal Service pay Russell Reynolds to see the company to look for a replacement . I dont have that number and would be happy to try to get it for you. In your own testimony he said they started with 212 and then they vetted 50 and got down to the first round interviews and there were were 14. But mr. Dejoy was not one of them so we paid this company to do a National Search for the replacement of the usps postmaster general and he was not in that group but i guess mr. Berger said that we have another candidate so did you recommend mr. Dejoy is a candidate . We were still taking recommendations at that point in time before the first interview. Mr. Duncan, all right, answer the question. Did you recommend mr. Dejoy is a candidate . I gave mr. Dejoy name as a candidate as i did with other candidates. I submitted it through the process. But he was not part of what was provided to you by the search firm . Lets move on. The president has been very critical of amazon in the contract they have with the Postal Service. Have you reviewed that contract . I have not reviewed that contract specifically in any detail, no. But you did offer testimony, i believe in the senate that you had, in fact, reviewed it and that you thought the rates were dash. The question was about rates and it was a contract and i have studied the rates building process of the Postal Service on the nsa. So you did look at amazon. I did look at amazons rate, yes. On your statement of finance. As long as hundreds of othe others. I understand. In your statement of Financial Disclosure you sold your amazon stock on june 22, i believe. Then you purchased options on amazon on june 24. That would suggest to almost any one that there is a conflict of interest and it doesnt require that you make a decision and it only requires if you participate. Did you check with the Government Office of ethics to see if that was appropriate . Before i went into the Postal Service and you filed your forms the day you arrive at work and i filed my forms and i was going through a meeting on amazon and i owned stock someplace in the call at Morgan Stanley and they told me i had to recuse myself from reviewing the number of contracts or sell the stock. I called our broker to sell the stock and we actually had calls. Mr. Dejoy but i did not buy options and i had calls back at a loss and that is what i did to get completely out of the stock and had to unwind calls. But you still have those calls do you not . No, i had to pay more money for the calls and i sold them for. I thank you should get an understanding of what a covered call is before you accuse me of any improprieties. Let me just ask one less question that have you removed any machines that automate the post marking process . I have not removed any machines. The gentleman the answer for the womans time has expired. I will repeat for the 100th time i have not removed anyones machines. But that is separate from the sorting machine. I have not removed any machines. I repeat. Congresswoman miller, you are now recognized. In queue madam chair. Can you hear me . Yes, we can. Thank you Ranking Member and is a special thank you to our esteemed guests today are taking the time to participate in this socalled hearing. Postmaster joy my constituents in rural West Virginia rely on the Postal Service to receive their essential prescriptions through mail and passages in thank you for your continued work during the pandemic to ensure that these Critical Services continue. In the year that is riddled with conspiracy theories such as planes of russian inclusion we are wasting another hearing opportunity to attack our duly elected president over the most blatant and verifiably false claim that republicans are destroying the United States Postal Service. This cannot be further than the truth. Everyone knows the Postal Service needs a serious overhaul but based on a Postal Service without its having necessary forms is not the answer. Democrats here today are doing a great disservice to the postal workers and undermining american confidence in our electoral process. The postmaster general has been repeatedly that the usps will have no difficulty delivering ballots but my colleagues across the aisle placed the blown blame on the Postal Service instead of their own states and competence to properly hold their own elections. The usps can handle the absentee and mailin ballots from the 2020 election and has enough money to remain solvent well into next year weaving the postmaster general and Congress Time to work on a solution to put usps back on a sustainable path while all of us here today recognize that the Postal Service is an essential duty of the federal government there seems to be only one party that is serious about making sure it is working effectively for the American People. Postmaster joy, on average how many pieces of mail does the United States Postal Service deliver in a day . About 451 million pieces, maam. Thank you. If every single eligible voting age americans voted by mail in a single day about 153 million or so, would that United States Postal Service be able to ensure that these pieces of mail were delivered . I think we have adequate capacity to handle the mail or the election, yes. And you will do this without Significant Impact to your normal day to day operations . You are asking me in one day and i have not done that but the way ballots flow throughout the week we would handle it very easily. However, you cannot control what lines estate sat in terms of requesting and returning ballots or how long it will take for these election boards to count the ballots, isnt that correct . Yes, maam. We saw huge delays and election revolves in new york and as i am sure the chair is a well aware. The core issue of why you are here today to mr. Postmaster is to ensure that every american has their right to vote to protect it. What is becoming abundantly clear is the Trump Administration, republican in power and the usps are not offered that right but rather youre helping to ensure voting access despite incompetence and partisanship on the part of a great many state Election Officials across the country. Last week skating analysis by npr astound did that 550,000 mailin ballots were rejected in the president ial primary election earlier this year. Of those nearly half of those rejected ballots came from new york, new jersey and california where there isnt a single republican in statewide office. This november you must ensure that all americans can and should be able to vote safely in person at their local polling locations and those that do need absentee ballots can and should be able to vote securely through the usps as they have in past elections. I hope my colleagues and her counterparts at the state level heed the recommendation of the usps on how to execute this undertaking free from politics and partisanship. I yield back my time. The gentlewoman yields back. An outright coastline recognize congresswoman kelly. Thank you, madam chair. Ive been on this committee for over seven years, five years in the minority and the hypocrisy around how witnesses are treated and around the post office is astounding. Thank you for being here, mr. Dejoy. Small businesses are a vital part of the United States economy and they represent nearly 75 of all employers and account for 40 per percent of all economic activity. Small businesses, many without significant savings or access to credit, have relied on the Postal Service to stay afloat during this pandemic. The Postal Service plays an important role, as you know, and enabling their growth and commercial success. Last friday you testified before the Senate Committee and i quote, we feel bad about the dips in our service. There are a few businesses that feel pretty bad too. [inaudible] of luanne louisiana was forced to abandon the Postal Service after losing nearly 10000 due to a shipping delay. A michigan Business Owner had to fire an employee to recoup the cost spent making up for her delivery delays. 2013 oig report found Small Businesses are a key customer segment for the Postal Service generating more than 9 billion in annual revenues. Before implementing the numerous operational changes discussed here today were there any analysis reforms that changes would have on these key customer segment . There was, there was not numeration all operational changes but one we request we adhere to about transportation of the schedule and i did not perform any operational analysis myself but we looked at how we were going to rule out the change and that team was againse country and i, i dont know how much analysis we would need to do to comply with our schedules that we are already established. Thank you. It seems decisions were made without taking account the real world impact. My district has not received mail for a week to ten days and bills may be delivered late which can have a terrible effect on their business. Another person spoke to said she received her mail now every other day and still has not received a check she is relying on. When i went to the post office myself to mail a package the postal workers there said we know who you are and we just want to apologize but we are just doing what we are told. I did not get those phone calls when president obama was the president. Will you commit here today to reversing any policy or practice that has the effect of slowing down mail and package deliveries . To represent the sewage cargo land area and im hearing from postal people themselves and they want you to address the lack of staffing in the late start time which they feel has greatly impacted the delivery of the mail. Maam, we are very concerned about every delay to a package or piece of mail and we are also interested in fostering the support for Small Business and i can tell you we are working feverishly, very hard, to get the standards back to where they were before and there are a variety of issues that have contributed to this, not just requiring the trucks to leave on time but we are working across the country to improve service. My district is urban, suburban and rural. My colleagues asked for something in writing and i would support that they we need to see something in writing, not just. An estimated 4. 5 million Rural Americans lack access to reliable Postal Service to meet their basic needs, including receiving lifesaving medications and their bills and paying their bills. Its important that people have access to rely on affordable Delivery Services or they too inefficient to service. Since we talk about were trying to be efficient and they just forgot about. We have not forgotten. We are working to deliver to every americans on a timely basis. Your chase for Operational Efficiency has been at the hardworking expense of americans. I hope you take these concerns into account as you assess your decisions over the past 70 days and beyond. I very much do maam and the changes i am making are for the betterment of the Postal Service and we lose 10 million a year and there is no end in sight. We have 145 billion in liabilities and 14 billion in cash. We can blame me for this but these conditions have been around long before my time and they need to be addressed. Congresswoman greene, you are now recognized. Thank you, chairwoman and Ranking Member. Thank you for the Conspiracy Theory that President Trump has put the Postal Service in great jeopardy and this is just more hysteria in a long line of democratic including the russian probe, the molar investigation and remember adam schiff . He saw with his own eyes proof of russian collusion and i guess he must have kept that from a molar but who can forget the impeachment sham, by the way, attacking the president s business associates, his own, his tax returns name nothing to ask or offer the record people on the [inaudible] but the postal union should realize and i know they have endorsed joe biden but they should look at this. The democrats are throwing postal carriers under the bus just to get a trump. It is despicable. Postmaster generals donations are a conflict to his doing a good job with the postal union, millions in donations over the years for democrats disqualify them from delivering the mail . Message to all postal workers, the democrats are insulting your integrity. Weapon icing the house Oversight Committee fuels Speaker Pelosis postal Conspiracy Theory of an outrageous abuse of power. Dont be pulled by the partisan rhetoric. The reality is usps has the money they need certainly through the election and the Postal Services most cash on hand in his hat on years and has access to a 10 billion cares act alone that is not even tapped into yet but they had to come back to this weekend to vote on more money for the usps. The Postal Service will prioritize ballots over other male enable process election mail regardless of the posted used and postmaster general joy has assured the American People and i quote, the United States Postal Service is fully committed to delivering that they nation election mail securely and on time. The democratic tax on the Postal Service are baseless in the Postal Service can loan them some money, 8. 8 billion last year and the big reason for these deficits is the evolution of technology, the internet, first class mail is down in this issue significant leap predates the Trump Administration but now due to the pandemic Online Business is booming and package volume through the roof and package revenue this year increased 2. 9 billion compared to fy 2019 and in other words, the Postal Service has made more revenue that it did in the last time last year. Usps is in no immediate physical danger. On june 30 the board said that they have and i quote, significant liquidity to continue operating until at least august 20, 21. Postmaster joy said i dont need anything to deliver mail till election but we do need legislative and freedom from a change in the postal revelatory commission and we do need to be reimbursed for our costs. The fact is the Postal Service well prepared for the election yes. Postmaster general joy has had a long career in logistics and unanimously selected for the post by the board of which has two democrats, by the way and has commonsense costcutting measures to address the problem and saturdays bill which passed tries to halt those reforms and operational changes while in the Short Term Services will be fine and they must eventually be instituted to ensure solvency. As far as these protesters outside the home of postmaster general these protesters who are banging pots and pans and intimidating and bullying the postmaster is terrible and unconscionable. Its completely in line with the book Burning Police by lacing criminals who are destroying lives and property and democratcontrolled cities but hey, thats who they are now. Lets not call the congress back to fix the lost of employment in a pandemic but lets call the congress back to give the post office more money they dont immediately need before we hold the Investigative Committee hearing and all the support in the conspiracy theories that are bipartisan lee selected postmaster general is trying to steal an election. This is theatrics and its a joke. What a way to end the democrats the majority time leaving the house. Another Conspiracy Theory and an attack on the present. Typical. Actually, its saddening. Our postal workers are quite capable and they for the 2020 election. Madam chairman, with that i yield. Congresswoman you are now recognized. Congresswoman lawrence. Thank you, madam chair. Postmaster general, shortly if you took the office i reached out to schedule an introductory call with no agenda in particular just to share my experiences as a career Postal Experience and welcome you to the seats. From my request was turned down and i was told you needed your time to get acquainted with the agency and that you do not have time to have that meeting. I have seen since you have been in office the time to get antiquated to make these really, really impactful decisions on delivery and processing of the mail and you were comfortable with doing so. I want to ask you, mr. Joy, are you familiar with chapter one of 39 u. S. State code. No, im not. Okay. The United States Postal Service shall be operated as a basic and sentimental Service Provided by the people, to the people by the government of the United States authorized by the constitution created by act of congress in supported by the people. Mr. Joy, to do take an oath of office when he became the postmaster general . I did, maam. I remember when i took my oath of office in two ba employee of the Postal Service and to just tell you my journey because im sure you are familiar with the names and i started as a distribution clerk working tier one and then i moved to being a letter carrier and then to being a acting supervisor and then a supervisor and delivering selections. I served in hr and is served in safety and health and as an investigator and i had the entire state of michigan in a district role of the Womens Program and her peer counseling and development. I ended my career after several tax forced out to monitoring and tracking the males before made decisions like taking out equipment and i as supervisor of delivery and i know what it took to remove a post office box called a collection box and it is not a blue box but a collection box and so i wanted to talk to you about, have you ever served as a letter carrier . I did not let me congratulate you on your career path and no, i never served as a letter carrier. I did serves the Postal Service is introducing a new initiative called expedited to street afternoon sortation and it reduces the Morning Office time to allow carriers to leave for the street earlier and then upon returning from the streets the carriers are then to sort on deliver mail through the next day. Are you aware what that initiative that you have rolled out that impact it has on delivery carriers . For the intent that that was a program that was on the shelf the intent of that program is to adjust and is been a significant decline in male as you know and adjusted that was worked out with Union Leadership to run a pilot in the pilot i stopped the pilot and when i stopped Everything Else so the intent of it is to get the carriers out earlier so they can come back earlier and that is basically in the day. Mr. Joy, i really stressed that you do some delivery work. Excuse me. Do some delivery work to understand the impact that it has because if the carrier does not come back this is the challenge we have all the time. The carrier has only one piece of advertisement and must stop at every home so regardless of those volumes if youre making the same amount of stops were not going to shorten the time and so when you do that the carrier will be out basically the same amount of time and so when they come back you are delaying the mail and i have complaints in my office and people getting delivered once a week now and that is not reporting to your oath or according to what the chapter one of 39 says your role is and in my short time, madam chair, or would like to end this with some of my colleagues have said this is a theater so why are you here and you are here because the citizens of the United States rely on the Postal Service to deliver and seniors are veterans and one thing is clear, you have been a major supporter of the president as documented. I dont resent you for that and you have that right but when you are giving messages daily in tweets that the Postal Service says we dont make a deal, they dont get the money and the money means that you wont have universal mail in and i want you to know that you have an oath of office. The gentlewomans time has expired. Yup expect you to uphold it. Maam, i will live up to that oath. If i could expand on her question with regard to the expedited process, that would not result in one day a week mail across any area and we do have some employee availability issues and some of the hot spots across the nation where we have, as you know, 700 routes and only 500 carriers. For crying out loud, why would you not implement that . I did not implement anything to affect that. But you are adding fuel to the fire. I am trying to, i am committed to safely delivering and i am committed to growing the Postal Service and have ideas for new Business Opportunities for the Postal Service and i am trying to, in the code it also says we must be selfsustaining and we are not. That is what were trying to do. The interesting the gentleman has been testifying for quite a long time and we are now going to have a recess for five minutes. Recess for five minutes. [background noises] mr. Dejoy, first before i have that discussion with you, my line of questioning, clearing my colleague talking about abuse of power was just such an outrageous statement and what he said was an abuse of power. I think we, in congress, are here to ensure that there is no abuse of power in any of the branches of government and when he talked about the collusion we see that when the Senate Republicans finally get off their butts and do their job eventually there is cooperation to some of the work that is happened here in the house. At least, the house will do its job and there are issues that need to be addressed here today and that is what we will do. So, postmaster joy your general counsel, thomas marshall, said we are currently unable to balance our cost with the build to Funding Services to fill our mission and other legal obligations. That letter went on to outline a number of drastic operational changes that are being attempted to implement in the name of costcutting. Youve spoken here today about the measures that need to take place and in one instance youre saying how you want to get those done and then i hear you say that it was not you or you are not responsible for the changes that have been made. In your august 13 email to all postal employees you took credit for the changes that are being made and here is what you said, you took credit and you said also unfortunately quote, this Transformative Initiative has had unintended consequences that impacted our overall Service Levels. That is what youre in meal and is that correct . That sounds like it. As a Transformative Initiative it is fair to say that these changes were intended to have a meaningful impact. Yes, maam. These changes are happening across several states and across the country. I dont know what you are reading from. The transformative changes that are that you all have intended. It was not costcutting measures. The two changes i made were the organization and the complying with the schedule. And those transformative have happened across states several states and. Every state a truck moves in. That would be several states. Yes, thank you. I would like to show a slide about firstclass mail. If you can see from the side you can see that it discusses the pre source firstclass mail and appears there been a decline since july and this slide reflects nationwide numbers and would you agree with that, mr. Dejoy met yes, it does. Of big drop in one thai meal is a meaningful impact in the headline from across the country this committee has collected shows how widespread these delays are. Would you agree that there are delays presently . Thank you. I know my own district relies heavily on the mail because we cannot drive two different big boxes or other locations being in island so [inaudible] blake prescriptions take threefive days but it is taken two weeks. Shannon who runs the small retail store in st. Johns usually ten days max per priority which is long for priority but we are an island it now takes weeks. Ivan jacobs Priority Mail typically takes four days but is now taking 12 days. Sherilyn stapleton Summer College program item have disappeared and it goes on and on and on. Now, in 39 usc section 3661 b provides when the Postal Service determines that there should be a change in the nature of Postal Services which generally affects service on a nationwide or substantially nationwide basis it shall submit a proposal within a reasonable time prior to the Effective Date of such proposal to the postal regulatory commission, trc requesting an advisory opinion on the change. Now you have agreed with me in a previous question that this has been a change that has substantial nationwide basis and it generally affects Postal Services and that it is a change of nature of Postal Service which generally affects service on a nationwide substantial basis. Have you served or submitted a request for visor re position . A request for an advisory opinion i am asking the organization to adhere to that transportation schedule is not required. I did not ask about the transportation schedules prayed i asked you that is the only change i made. If i make, ill finished my statement and let you finish yours that one of Postal Service says there should be an change and Postal Services which generally affects service on nationwide basis the changes that have occurred are or have had a meaningful impact on service one, under buchanan versus u. S. Postal service the three factors for legal requirements are a meaningful impact on service, change that must be in the nature of Postal Services and a change which would quote, affect a broad Geographic Area and is that not the case. The gentleman may answer. The change that was made and that was none expected to have the impact it had it did not contribute to ten or 12 or two week delays and mail that was processed did that make that on the track was the next truck and if you look at that chart you would see as soon as we went into day plus one we were back up into the 90 and there were other factors that are contributing to excessive delays throughout the country and for these longer delays. Yes, covid as well as others. The gentle ladies time has expired. That has really question the legitimacy we are working working very hard across all the country to get all the mail on the truck we are seeing rapid recovery and we will, once this is put back in balance we will have a better system and a much more costeffective system. The congresswomans time has expired. Congressman gomez you are not recognized. Congressman gomez. Thank you so much madame chair. I want to focus on the change that you take credit for which is making sure that the trucks have gone out on time so i will lead a series of questions most of them at the beginning or yes or no. You instituted a change with this extra mail delivery quote, requiring trucks to run on time and on schedule. Correct . Yes, sir. Referring to this new delivery schedule you told the senate quote, our production process within the plan was not fully aligned with the established schedule so we had delays in mail. Correct . Yes or. Mr. Dejoy, when precisely did you implement the change of acquiring the truck to leave on time . The date. It was the second week, i think, the second week of july. Thank you, sir. You told the senate that the u. S. Postal service did an analysis showing the theoretically it would mean quote, all late deliveries would happen through and then he told senator williams that it did not happen quote, for a variety of reasons and then he continued quote, the analysis we did which show that we would improve service to every constituents. Could you briefly describe the variety of reasons that that did not happen. You confused me. Basically, the fact that you said this would actually improve the delivery of mail on time and you said that would happen and then later on you said for a variety of reasons that did not happen but what are those variety of reasons . So, this will improve service and reduce costs and substantially and there will also be the fundamental baseline of operations. Mr. Dejoy, i will reclaim my time. Im asking specifically because you said this at the beginning for a variety of reasons. For a variety of reasons has to do with why mail delivery is down of course and across the nation. With regard to this specific change the production schedules within the plan were not aligned the transportation schedules going between the plans. That was about 10 of the mail is not aligned, production plans were getting done late in the trucks were leaving. This was not a mandate that every truck leaves on time. We still have a significant amount of trucks that are on delay in the significant of extra trips. Judgments were made at each individual plant that provided for transitional issues in doing it. You will get this back and we will work as very hard and will be as successful for the United States Postal Service. That is what we are hoping bring mr. Dejoy, you cannot make this commitment to the senate on friday been would you commit to providing the analysis for the truck schedule that would show there will be low or late deliveries and would you provide that to us by friday . I will go back and see what i can do. I have this for you, i can read a quote. I will go back and look to what i said and i have something i will send it to you. I highly doubt you will do that. Why would you doubt that . Because youre not forthcoming. I am here today. Why have days turned into weeks . Trying to figure that out. But i find interesting is that you are supposed to be some logistics experts and that is what you have been brought in and that is what people have said and then all of a sudden you said will get these trucks to leave on time but you do not focus on getting the mail to people on time and you said that would improve, right . You would reduce late deliveries but the opposite happened and then you said it would take only a matter of days to fix but that did not happen. Right . I know people who works in operations with my wife works in operations and shes very good at it. They look at data all the time and see what operation changes can be done to change the flow whatever youre trying to accomplish. That is what people are questioning your ability and i talked to a lot of postal workers in los angeles and i represent los angeles and was out there and they said that the delay in the packages in these changes is causing mail to back up where you have baby chickens that are being left in boxes and going silent that are starting to rot and food starting to rot, buys that are infesting the facilities. They brought up the same fact that they took an oath to get the mail out on time. They are asking are you living up to that oath . I was actually avoiding following other colleagues who asked me to resign but i do think now it is time for you to resign, not because were necessarily this grand political conspiracy but just the incompetence that we have seen when it comes to the Postal Service. It is time for you either to step down and have someone that can run it for the board of governors should fire you. I yield back. The gentleman yields back. Congresswoman you are not recognized. Thank you very much, madame chairwoman. Thank you mr. Dejoy for onscreen your testimony today. When your announcement in your new position as postmaster general was announced some folks that were waiting concerns that he would be the first postmaster general in two decades without previous experience or service directly in the usps but to be fair and as you mentioned, you do have extensive career experience in supply chain logistics, correct . I do. You are the ceo of your supply chain for 34 years. I didnt. That was up till about 314 when you emerged logistics with another company, ex po logistics where you also served as ceo for a year and then served on board of directors until about 2018 when used to manage your resignation, correct . Madame chairwoman, i would like to submit to the committee three documents for the record of the postmasters new entrants report detailing his Financial Disclosures. Publicly available data detailing the usps cap suppliers that will last three years and the recent x po sec filings. Mr. Dejoy, you received, thank you, you received about 1. 86 Million Dollars in rental payments from your former company x po, correct . Approximately, yes. Have you taken any medians with x po logistics since becoming postmaster general . I have not. Have you emailed texted, o or i have many friends of the company and if spoken in casually over several months, yes, i would have spoken to them. Thank you. You started in her role as post mr. General on 216 of this year. I dont think so. You dont think so. Do ethics officer at usps have access to counter to screen conflicts of interest . We have an ethics officer who looks at meetings that i have yes. I have full access to your calendar . Yes. Can we get a commitment from you to submit your calendar dating back to june 162 this committee . I dont know. Ill check with counsel. Well set up president for my calendar to be submitted every two months. According to regulations that we currently have, electronic calendars that are submitted and maintained on usps computers our agency records, and so can we get your commitment to hand the calendar over to the committee as a matter of investigation . Im due to this. If that is, in fact, the process that counsel says i must comply with and i will do that yes. Madam chairwoman, i would say the details of this coming are extraordinarily important to the committees investigations and if we cannot receive them voluntarily i would recommend a subpoena for these details. Lastly and selfishly, i represent new yorks 14th Congressional District. We have written the agency several times regarding accessibility for rep and a historic Jackson Heights post office, and i would greatly appreciate return corresponds to make sure we can ensure that are disabled and elderly constituents can get access to the post office. Thank thank you very much. I yield my time. Gentleladys time. [inaudible] whenever. [inaudible] you are now recognized. Thank you chairwoman maloney. [inaudible] gaslight and mislead our constituents. I knew to get the truth the American People deserve that. To direct the system the slowdown mailed to deliver during a pandemic within months of a National Election is incomprehensible. At best these actions represent irresponsible leadership, novice is absolutely no business leading a Government Agency. At worst they are cruel come unethical and at the democratic and this is certainly no way to repay the 600,000 dedicated and great employees who risked their lives privity to deliver essential mail. The pulses of one of the largest employers of veterans and is one of the most diverse workforces in our country. 40 are people of color and for generations working for the usps was one of the only living wage jobs accessible to black and brown americans. No doubt many of the stems have personal story of how the usps job made it possible for them to buy their first oh or send a child to college. Its well documented many of these same femmes have been disproportionally impacted by the covid19 pandemic and will bear the brunt of any efforts to dismantle the usps. So mr. Dejoy, in the interest of time, yes or no, at your direction the Postal Service is currently under a management hiring freeze, yes or no . At Management Level yes. For the record mr. Dejoy, does a hiring freeze apply to any other category of workers . No, maam. You are also seeking to push early retirement, correct . We submitted yes or no . Yes, yes. Mr. Dejoy, 40,000 postal workers about to quarantine. Over 6000 have tested positive and over 60 have died from covid19. Do you know if these numbers are the most accurate and uptodate . Eightythree have died. And said to be clear doesnt this mean that you are collecting in real time for more data on covid19 and its impact on your workforce . We have a task force that has complete visibility of everything from ppe to cases, cases in the geographical area, cases with the Postal Service. You to have a mechanism where you are collecting data and as to the invective covid19 on your workforce . Yes, maam. In the Greater Boston region alone more than two other 20 postal workers have contracted covid19. A letter carrier in chelsea a city of my district was hospitalized and was told by his doctors his respiratory system would never be the same. Mr. Dejoy, will you commit to providing this committee with the data you say you already are formally collecting diss aggregate by Congressional District on covid19 related deaths, positive tests, and quarantines the postal workers by friday . This is quite literally a matter of life and death. Can you commit to that come to providing this committee with the data disaggregated on covid19 related deaths, positive tests and quarantines the postal workers by friday . I will look into our ability to provide that to the congress and if its available we will certainly do it. There would be in keeping with the oath that you took. What you offer here so i look for to receiving that by friday. A few days ago before the sink you said the delays in delivery are attributable to quoteunquote employee availability and many, many parts of the country. Isnt it true pursuing a hiring freeze and early retirement when your workforce is stretched thin by coronavirus would exacerbate delays in the mail . Yes or no . Pursuing a hiring freeze as to do, not anything to do with speedy yes or no. No, no, no. Mr. Duncan were you aware when you selected where is mr. Duncan . Hes not here. Okay. Mr. Duncan, were you aware when you selected mr. Dejoy, that his company new logistics was to come by the National Labor Relations Board to acted with antiunion animus, yes or no . No. We always equal Opportunity Commission one of 1. 5 million lawsuit against new breed for Sexual Harassment or retaliation . No. Were you aware that women suffered miscarriages because the Company Refused to accommodate the request for lightduty, yes or no . No. Did you make any attempt to investigate these labor Employment Practices before making him the head of one of the largest and most diverse federal workforces . If not, why not . Yes, we had various background checks. Russell reynolds prior pc from to do an addition background check on them we want i question the integrity of that background check if you dont have answers to these questions and try for the hardworking of the United States deserve a better leader in my opinion the only thing you should be delivering is the resignation. Madam chair. Okay. Mr. Armstrong join now recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madam chair im the last one on our side that gets to go so im going to ask bob will be the most important question of the day. Past 25 billion from the house of representatives is to and if you dont get that money will the post office be fully operational on november 3. Yes, we we fully operational. Thank you. I sat right there in the chair in april 2019 the last time we do here on the post office and postal reforms and we listen for the as it is about the systemic problems all of the consequences, the years long of losing money at all to strategic disadvantage is that exists in the post office, and something happened. The witness in your seat at that time managed to do something which is unique in this committee, and she drew equal opportunity criticism from both sides of the aisle. Just to be clear you were not the postmaster general and apri. Know i was not. I was on a telephone briefing in april of 2020 when we heard about the impacts of covert from overtime to your postal workers, contracting the disease and the democrats of this committee outsole he said that we needed 25 billion or the Postal Office wouldnt exist and you do want to say im sorry for the 83 people have died and all the people in your organization have been sick. I didnt agree with that theyve added dont agree with that now but to be clear you are not the postmaster general in april 2019, were you . No, sir i wasnt. I would ask unanimous consent just to smith the memoranda from april 2019 or without objection. And we have to ask what this is about and what it is about his driving fear, placing blame and probably most significantly raising money but its not about raising money for the post office. Its about raising money for elections and i have here dccc, members of cars, members of senate all running ads on the post office. You know what . About saving the post office. None of these red in 2019. None of these rent in april 2020. We are asking for the same thing we ask for in april 2019 2020 oh we waited until august to run these things. Your organization had issued a cease and desist on move ductwork, did they not . Im not aware. I think i heard something about that. I will ask consent to a the post Office Record on a cease and desist and moveon. Org. Without objection. I love your organization. I love your carriers. I love your rural carriers. I was early republic that on this committee to cosponsor the prefunding bill on the pension bill. Best thing ever just of the is your committed to sixday mail because maybe one of the reasons we are not assist with partially impacted in dakota is because weve been going through this for a long time. So thats the best thing ive heard all day long. I do have a couple questions and you talk about making sure the elections and doing all that but some of this is based on, youre talked about votes as as a comt throughout the system, right . North dakota 23 of their votes is typically absentee ballot. Ohio the important state 21 of the ballots is typically is typically absentee wisconsin 20 . Now i dont think its beyond the realm of possibility that those numbers get to 60 this election cycle. Would you agree with that . They are going to be a great deal higher. But you cannot deliver about unless it is requested. If a voter does a request it, the post office cant send it. Thats true but in places where i dont know the particular state rules but thats what im getting too. So if the ballots tracked throughout the course of this in a normal rate, but wisconsin doesnt require you to request a ballot until october 29 and required to be back on november 3 pick the difference between 28 and 60 is about 2. 9 million pounds. Have the different between 21 and 60 is not to. 1 million ballots. They dont require you request when until october 31 and it is due back on the psyche. North dakota my state to cut one of these letters doesnt require you to postmark your ballot until november 2 election. The difference between 23 23 d 60 would be 126,327 ballots. My question for you is how are we going to deal i mean, how do you possibly deal with different capacity issues at it under as it exists there . The capacity to handle is not really going to be the issue. The issue is going to be as with the dates that you identified, as we get closer, we have had situations where, when the ballots, and on the same day, the turnaround time is so slow that we need to really scour and look amongst all the other 450 million pieces of mail, find ballots and make sure they get delivered and postmarked here the problem comes in once we do that we get it over to the state election boards and its what they decide to do with the timing and everything with about, whether the ballot gets counted or not. I have one last question that doesnt relate to elections anything but you see an increase in packages on at the u. S. Ps since the pandemic began, and weve seen a decrease in first class mail over the course of time. Our law firm went from 30,000 the year 20, that are you looking into because youre making more of a profit on packages that you may be prioritizing packages versus firstclass mail . Theres a lot of judgment used in each location and one of the things im trying to get in my hands around, but the general intent is what comes incomes out according to its class. So if its a firstclass package it would move ahead. So theres no specific direction to do everything. I appreciate your support on the 60 the week delivery. I think there are many, many ideas were working internally right now to help really connect with the American People and the new economy and growth some revenue and achieve sustainability so thank you. Thank you. The time of the gentleman has expired. Ms. Tlaib you are now recognized. Thank you so much madam chair. Welcome to the peoples house, postmaster general dejoy. My residence and and i dont ho miss amount of time i really would appreciate straightforward answers to the questions i have. As a lawyer mr. Dejoy, believe its an entirely important that all the citizens especially Public Servants leaving major federal agencies are fully aware of and understand fully the law. Do you agree, yes or no . Yes. Good. And as an educational exercise and to ensure everyone is clear on the law id like to start by paraphrasing 18 u. S. Code 1701 which is as whoever knowingly and willfully obstructs the passage of mail shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months or both. I recommend that you and your lawyers familiarize yourself with this passage in particular but as well as 18 u. S. Code clause 595 and 16. So mr. Dejoy, lets look at how you came to work for the impeached president. Before this role you have never worked and the federal government as a public servant, correct . Thats correct. So clearly you are not hired for your experience or deep understanding of the fabric of it so lets see what experience you do have. The resume so to speak. Before becoming the postmaster general you were fourtime Deputy National fund recent gems of gop and since 2016 2016 youe approximately 1. 2 million to the impeached President Campaign and groups that supported. On june 24, 2020 you bought between 60,000100,000 of which refer to as quote covered calls in the Amazon Corporation poll lets be very clear, mr. Dejoy, no matter what financial maneuvering you perform to try to hide it, the fact is that your Financial Insurance in amazon. So mr. Dejoy, yes or no, are you aware that amazon uses the u. S. Postal service for 40 of its shipping . I disagree with the premise that i do you know 40 of its shipping . I know theres a lot of shifting with us this. I understand your amazon covered calls expires in about october of this year. You will have to make a decision regarding this financial interest in a potentially Sensitive Information about amazons business with u. S. Postal service which may this appears to be a classic example of conflict of interest and Insider Trading. Yes or no would you commit right now to divest any and all financial interest in amazon to avoid illegal Insider Trading . I was a lot of time at an issue that doesnt matter. I dont own any absence. You have some special interest. You can call it whatever you want. I dont own anything with amazon. You can continue your financial interest in amazon will continue to be problematic and illegal at a conflict of interest. Regarding this matter you have a simple choice, mr. Dejoy, you can either resign or divest in that interest. It is very clear you have a vested interest in seeing the present remain in office and your financial interest in amazon demonstrates a clear concept of interest that would be greatly concerning even if youre not in the process of dismantling the Postal Service, which you are. Ive heard from a a number of carriers, number of people in my Postal Service that completely conflict with what youre saying to us and this committee. Over the past few weeks i heard from folks that it said that not only significant tuition changes youve made that some of [inaudible] critical medication. Again due to the late your accu. I would like to remind you that unlike in the private sector, mr. Dejoy, where you serve your own self interest, your job is posted general postmaster general is not to serve your own trumpet scheme on the taxpayers a dime. You are to serve the United States Postal Service. Its workers and the American People. This impeached president , mr. Dejoy, yet realize has a track record of employing crooks who end up in a lot of trouble for the legal activities, mr. Dejoy. Rick gates implemented for, like lincoln Michael Cohen, roger stone come steve bannon. With all due respect your not in good company right now so do the right thing and resign and i think the manager for bringing this to our attention, please on behalf of the 13th Congressional District all we want is for our folks to have access to a qualified postmaster general that understands the importance, and understand the workers need protection at the workplace and that were going to actually get the mail delivered on time because what we hear on the streets, mr. Dejoy, is completely the opposite of what youre saying to us and youre done so much damage the short period of time given that i do believe theres a conflict of interest and need to understand that are legal consequences to that. Thank you, madam chair. The gentleladys time has expired. Ms. Porter, you are now recognized. Ms. Porter. Mr. Dejoy, thank you for being with us today. What is the cost of a firstclass postage stamp . Fiftyfive cents. Just wanted to check. What about to mail a postcard . I dont know. You dont know the cost to mail a postcard . I dont. What is the want to mail that you set the devices for firstclass stamp of what it a greeting card and a square envelope in what is the posted . I will submit that i know very little about postage stamp stamps. What is the weight limit shipping logistics can whats the weight limit for Priority Mail . Seventy pounds. And what is the starting rate for use post office come usps Priority Mail . The starting rate for what . Usps Priority Mail. Fourteen ounces. No, the rate, the price. I dont know. I dont know. You know about within a million or so can you tell me how many people voted by mail in the last president ial election . No, i. The nearest 10 million . I would be guessing and i dont want to guess. Okay. So mr. Dejoy, i am concerned, unclenching of the price of a stamp but i am concerned about your understanding of this agency. I am particularly concerned about it because you started taking very Decisive Action when you became postmaster general. You started directing the unplugging and destroying of machines, changing of employees procedures and locking of collection boxes. As a professor i always told my students that one of the most important rules in life is to read the instructions. Did you actually read and independently analyze the Major Overhaul plan before you order them to take effect . Again, i will repeat that i did not order Major Overhaul plans to the items you identified were not directed by me. I did and [inaudible] would you please tell me reclaiming my time. Could you please tell me who did order these changes if the u. S. Postmaster general did not . These changes have resulted in the Postal Service has been around for 250 years. There are plans, meaning many executives, almost 30,000 executives reclaiming my time. Mr. Dejoy, are planted that existed prior to my arrival that were implemented. Mr. Dejoy, if you did not order these actions to be taken, please tell the committee the name of who did. I do not know. Mr. Dejoy, did you analyze these plans for the went into effect . U. S. Postmaster general supervisor over did a fairly as i stated numerous times the plans were in effect and being implemented before i arrived. But mr. Dejoy, you take responsibility for these changes . I take responsibility from the day i sat in the seat for any Service Deterioration that has occurred. Youre asking about youre asking about operational changes that go on throughout the whole organization around the country. Mr. Dejoy, reclaiming my time. Mr. Dejoy, would you commit to reversing these changes . No. Mr. Dejoy, will you commit to, i want with you commit that if the Inspector General finds that you committed misconduct with regard to your financial interests in any other company such as spl logistics or amazon we commit it Inspector General finds that you committed misconduct . We commit to then resigning . I dont believe they will find misconduct, but it dont see why i would committee right now to resigning for any reason. You dont think theres any reason that you should ever resign . No reason that ive heard here today. Okay. Mr. Dejoy, do you today you come back and forth a bit. I want to ask one final question. Do you own any financial interests, whether options or stocks, covered calls bought or sold, do you own today any financial interest in amazon . I do not. The gentleladys time is expired. The gentleman may answer in more detail if he wishes. The chair recognizes the vice chair, mr. Gomez, for the purpose of unanimous consent request. Madam chair, im asking unanimous consent to enter into the record the transcript of mr. Dejoys testimony in the senate on august 21 what he specifically says senator, i will go, go back and get the truck schedule, the analysis, the truck schedule that i directed. Without objection. The chair recognizes congressman quigley. You are now recognize, understand quickly. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you for being so patient. I, too, and not accustomed to this longing at the end of the question but it does afford us an opportunity to try to put this in the larger picture. One side says blaine. The other side says accountability. Doing what you did in the private sector you recognized accountability. Appreciate the fact it would be hard to sense that you accepting it now. Youve accepted the responsibility for the delays but we are still not clear what exactly, what changes took place and what were your spirit under questioning you said you stopped by the program when you stopped Everything Else. I ask you, what in your mind were you stopping beside the Pilot Program . I stopped the removal of collection boxes around the country. I stopped the process of reducing hours at the postal retail centers, and i stopped the removal of the flat in mail boxes, machines. So your argument for doing that is that you saw, your argument for doing that was it wasnt working . No. It just, i met with speaker and i met with the speaker and senator schumer and we collectively thought about the heightened discussion going on around the nation, why that and not the overtime issue and not the overtime, pretty dramatic impacts given the fact they didnt go well. Coming from the private sector, maybe that is impacting negatively. Was there some other reason i am not going to change those, the truck schedule. I spent 700 million. Post Office Locations cutting back on overtime. They are following somebodys order and dont mention who that is so back to accountability you got to admit you own it. How do you know they are cutting back on overtime. To stop cutting back on overtime in postal retail centers. I havent done an audit yet. Is that part of what you talked about . I dont know what you are asking. When you stopped everyone else it included the overtime issue as well. There is no directive to reduce overtime anywhere in the organization. Are you certain they were cutting back on overtime . Im not certain and that is one of the problems with the Postal Service and what im trying to get my hands around. That is why there was a reorganization. A lot of judgment in local areas what you are taking credit for. The cynical person would say you are just trying to avoid going before the body because these arent changes but your own party says you stop these changes, you said yes and in your document you talk about the fact that there were changes, you cant have it both ways. You have a line you dont want to have because it means you have to go before the regulatory board. Sound like what happened. And have you communicated with anyone in the Administration Since you were considered for this body, to operate usps, no one has communicated with you. Who works in any way with the Trump Administration and you havent communicated with anyone who works in the Trump Administration or the Trump Campaign about how to operate the post office . The only time i communicated with someone in the Trump Administration was secretary mnuchin when we were negotiating the terms of the 10 billion network. My discussion in general was early on, the generalities were that i think we have some opportunities here looking to try to grow revenue, improve service and get some costs out, the Postal Service is mine to run. My time is expired. Before we adjourn i want to thank you for your time. Wait a minute. See here . She is virtual. I saw her earlier, one member of congress has waived from the great state of North Carolina, elma adams is here but shes now virtual. Adams, you are now recognized. Adams. I assume shes not here with us now. Is she around . It doesnt appear she is here now. Before we adjourn i have a few items to wrap up with the witness. You will get the opportunity when i am finished. She is here. My apologies to you, mister louis dejoy. Congresswoman adams, you are now recognized. Can you unmute yourself. Okay. [silence] louis dejoy, you might want to hire the democrats computer guy to help with the mail. I apologize for the delay. We were trying to accommodate from your home state of North Carolina, wanted to question you. Louis dejoy, on friday senator peters asked if you are going to discuss the changes to postal operations with donald trump. Mark meadows, anyone else at the white house, anyone in the campaign and you said no. I believe mark meadows has accompanied you to meetings on capitol hill and you stand by your statement that you had no conversations with mark meadows about any changes in postal operations . I am trying to remember the answer that i gave. Mark meadows accompanied Steve Mnuchin and myself and senator schumer and nancy pelosi. We were in the room and started talking about machines. From the standpoint of that conversation mark meadows was a after i left. We had a discussion that you made a decision here at the Postal Service to stop the process of developing sorting machines. I cant remember when i spoke to him about that, but i called senator schumer, that particular process we spoke about the stop we are doing. With changes with regard to the organization, i didnt speak to anybody about that. Have you spoken to anyone else at the white house at any time about changes to postal operations . Okay. If you didnt if you didnt consult with these people, lets go to ourma adams who is ready to talk. Alma adams, you are recognized. Madam chair, can you hear me . We can hear you and see you. Thank you for convening the hearing. Thank you for being here today. I want you to know my office has received almost 5000 calls and emails asking congress to save the post office. As a matter of fact the people love the Postal Service, over 91 , more than any candidate i know. I represented the county for 50 years, the twelfth district in charlotte. Folks cant afford their medication or their balance to come late or their voices to be silenced. You have been charged with running the Postal Service, louis dejoy, not a business. I have a photo of my post office in charlotte, are you getting your mail on time . I do not know. I heard you say in your opening that you did not directly remove all the Voting Machines and postal collection boxes and indicated who was doing that but since you were in charge, helpful with all the questions that have been asked for us to know that but since i am mentioning this, in my district here the boxes have been covered with trash bags. I dont understand that. I dont know if you know about it but do you . It is in the post office i go to. I did visit the center yesterday on friday, i was told the usps senior management, the influx of election mail going into the election of november 3rd. Is that correct . I didnt hear your question. Not going to have an influx going into november. I dont know how anybody would say that. Or how to handle it. A dozen machines are missing, removal from charlotte. We have a demand in North Carolina, 400,000 people. In my district, 53,000. The sorting machine i dont know about sorting machines missing in your district. You came on. You think you can be helpful. Putting things back. Considering the testimony today. Not getting a male or reelection, things getting spoiled, those a Second Thought about that. As i said, very concerned about each delivery and my goal right now is to have these truck trips filled with mail and seeing a great deal of improvement and the transportation, we will be in much better shape over the next week. I dont know about that part. I wanted to know if you have any Second Thoughts, on august 18th, the expansion of the Postal Service Leadership Task force. The board of elections announced bipartisan mail committee. This initiative is different from the passport you announced on the eighteenth . We have a task force at the Postal Service, the Union Leadership, the board meeting, decided to show the connectivity of the board, to the Management Team for 600,000 workers. Altogether and guaranteeing your time is expired. Elaborate more if you would like, your time is expired. If he would allow you and Ranking Member to appoint a staffer to participate as an observer on the committee. Time expired right now. It is a good request and im sure he will give some good consideration. Louis dejoy, if you did not consult with these people about the operational changes but we are also interested in who you did consult with before making these changes. The unions have raised concerns. Will you provide this committee with a complete list of people you did consult with about the changes, people inside the Postal Service and other agencies, any outside parties in the government or in the private sector. Will you provide a complete list . I can tell you right now, with all the Vice President s and the coo of the existing Management Team, when i arrived, the vps around the area, no big complex problemsolving necessary to get your trucks to run on schedule, designed to take the mail from the Processing Plant to the delivery units so it gets on time. The oig audit that was delivered to me, show the damage given to the organization, not running this on time. I asked the Management Team with seven Vice President s to run your trucks on time, three weeks later they came and said we are ready to go and we went. That is the extent of the analysis. I will ask you about the people you consulted with. And i would like it in writing. If you refuse, and are you still with us, Mister Duncan . Senator rosen to ask any nonpublic board meetings from this year. The chairman of the board, will you commit the transcripts because of any close, nonpublic board meetings this year, the emergency meeting you just held. To provide anything legally possible for the committee . Any lingering concerns the council may provide all the information. The minutes of something available . I think both of you for testifying. I recognize the distinguished Ranking Member for his final thoughts. To submit the record for the political article. And this Committee Hearing was a waste of time. I want to thank you for being here today and spending this much time and taking the job. When we have hearings like this as we have seen for the last year and a half it will get harder for good people like you to come to the private sector to put your name on the line. It is supposed to be the role of the committee. I dont know what was more disturbing for me to watch, listening to democrats who never owned a business was less a Logistics Business try to tell you how to deliver anything quicker, for what it actually was. Todays hearing serve to confirm our suspicions of democrat motives for this whole hearing and the bill they passed on saturday. Our suspicion all along that it was politically motivated as weve seen with the picture, with representatives of fazio, a photo op for tweets and likes to fire up their base. With representative armstrong and mountains of evidence where members of the Democrat Party our fundraising off of the post office. Our suspicion was the majority had little more than conspiracy theories and baseless to make against you and we have seen that. Our suspicion is democrats have no interest in doing anything to address the real issues that affect the Postal Service. We heard that today. They provided the Postal Service 25 billion because, quote, it is a worthwhile institution. I agree it is worthwhile. It is not sustainable unless we implement reforms. Louis dejoy made clear, postmaster general, good faith attempts to improve the organization. I would love to say all the time we spent over the last several days moved the needle in a positive way. Not sure i can. By the time republicans spent talking about real issues that provide momentum to leave with something positive. Hopefully the time spent on partisan democratic attack helps to understand the real situation. If the majority is serious about fixing the longstanding financial and operational challenges then we stand ready to work together. Congress needs to have a working relationship with the Postal Service. This week has been the opposite of a partnership and has done longterm average to the Nations Trust in one of its most sustained, important and citizen serving federal entities. And the democrats conspiracy theories risked americans faith in the elections away the russians and chinese could only dream of. There is no way the process we have followed will help the post office be better and serve all americans. We can do better. I work with my colleagues to ensure the post office is around for decades and centuries to come. Thank you, i yield back. Gentleman. In closing i want to thank our witnesses for their testimony and commence my colleagues for participating in this important conversation. With that and without objection, letters from organizations and support of the Bipartisan Legislation passed by the house on saturday shall be part of the hearing record along with articles and letters from across the country depicting the effects of the delays on veterans, the elderly, the chronically ill, Small Businesses, farmers and ordinary americans who depend on the mail to be delivered. Without objection all members have 5 legislative days in which to submit written questions for the witnesses to the chair which will be forwarded to the witnesses for their response and i ask our witnesses to respond as promptly as you are able. This hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] booktv on cspan2 has top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Saturday at 8 00 pm eastern been watch programs with the late author Christopher Hitchens whose books include no one left to live 2, the missionary commission in the trial of henry kissinger. On sunday at 9 00 pm eastern on after words gail University Professor edward ball on his book life of a klansman which looks at White Supremacy through the lens of his greatgreatgrandfather, a member of the ku klux klan in post civil war louisiana. He is interviewed by the author of georgetown University Professor of law and the civil rights and social justice. At 10 00 pm in her book how i lead, Susan Eisenhower examines the leadership style of her grandfather, president white eisenhower and the important decisions he made during his presidency. Watch booktv this weekend on cspan2. Next, a virtual discussion on current us strategy in the indo pacific region. We heard about us relations with china and india, the impact of covid19 in those countries and us troop withdrawal from germany. Held during a virtual discussion by the center for strategic and international studies, this is half an hour. Good morning, everyone