Democrats in the House of Representatives are calling on Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and U.S. Postal Service chairman Robert Duncan to testify about the recent changes and cutbacks to the United States Postal Service. The USPS officials have been summoned to testify in a hearing on August 24th over policies designed to suppress voting by mail in November’s presidential election.

DeJoy, a major Trump donor with financial conflicts of interest, was appointed to his position in May, and has been systematically dismantling one of our oldest and most sacred institutions. As a result, there have been massive delays in mail delivery, a service that is crucial for countless Americans.

Today, @SenSchumer, @RepMaloney & @SenGaryPeters join me in an urgent call for Postmaster General DeJoy and @USPS Board of Governors Chair Duncan to testify before the Congress. https://t.co/U1Jg03vaKd

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) August 16, 2020

People have been protesting outside DeJoy’s Washington, D.C. home, where they have been stuffing fake ballots in his door. And a growing number of Americans have been calling and emailing their representatives to demand action, with the words “do something” trending on Twitter. And while many politicians have paid lip service in the form of sternly worded statements and tweets, it looks like now they will finally do something about this ongoing constitutional crisis.

In a joint statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney said,

“The President has explicitly stated his intention to manipulate the Postal Service to deny eligible voters access to the ballot in pursuit of his own re-election. Alarmingly, the Postmaster General – a Trump mega-donor – has acted as an accomplice in the President’s campaign to cheat in the election, as he launches sweeping new operational changes that degrade delivery standards and delay the mail. The Postal Service itself has warned that voters – even if they send in their ballots by state deadlines – may be disenfranchised in 46 states and in Washington, D.C. by continued delays. This constitutes a grave threat to the integrity of the election and to our very democracy. As House and Senate Democrats continue to respond urgently to address the sabotage of the Postal Service, House and Senate Republicans have been missing in action.”

And while the House and Senate democrats are taking action, republicans in both houses are curiously quiet. The joint statement calls on Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, the chair of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, to hold hearings in the Senate with DeJoy. But Johnson is too busy investigating the Obama-Trump transition of power and trying to promulgate conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden and the Ukraine.

And if there was any doubt that these baseless investigations were in service of re-electing Trump, well, Johnson said as much in a recent interview. “The more that we expose of the corruption of the transition process between Obama and Trump, the more we expose of the corruption within those agencies, I would think it would certainly help Donald Trump win reelection and certainly be pretty good, I would say, evidence about not voting for Vice President Biden,” said Johnson in a radio interview.

With only 78 days until the election, time is of the essence. Our democracy quite literally depends on it.

(via HuffPost, image: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

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