Postmaster general to testify before House
FILE – In this Aug. 5, 2020, file photo Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, left, is escorted to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office on Capitol Hill in Washington. The U.S. Postal Service has sent letters to 46 states and the District of Columbia, warning it cannot guarantee all ballots cast by mail for the November election will arrive in time to be counted, The Washington Post reported Friday, Aug. 14. DeJoy, a former supply-chain CEO and a major donor to President Donald Trump and other Republicans, has pushed cost-cutting measures to eliminate overtime pay and hold mail until the next day if postal distribution centers are running late. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
maylen
WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — Postmaster General Louis DeJoy will voluntarily testify next Monday before Congress, along with the chairman of the Postal Service board of governors, amid controversy over the United States Postal Service.
The Postal Service said it has stopped removing mailboxes and mail-sorting machines as lawmakers debate legislation and funding. President Donald Trump denied he was trying to impede mail service.
“Wouldn’t do that,” Trump told reporters Monday at the White House. “I have encouraged everybody: Speed up the mail, not slow the mail.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling the House back into session over the Postal Service situation. Mail-in voting is expected to be a popular method for casting ballots ahead of the November election but has been criticized by President Trump.
Pelosi cut short lawmakers’ summer recess with a vote expected Saturday on legislation that would prohibit changes at the agency. The package will also include $25 billion to shore up the Postal Service, which faces continued financial losses.
The Postal Service is among the nation’s oldest institutions, strained in recent years by declines first-class and business mail, but now hit with new challenges during the coronavirus pandemic.
Associated Press reporters Matthew Daly and Lisa Mascaro, writers Darlene Superville and Jill Colvin in Washington and Bruce Schreiner in Frankfort, Ky., contributed to this report.
