New report says Louis DeJoy met ethical requirements for appointment as postmaster general

In response to several congressional requests from this summer, the USPS Office of the Inspector General released a report this week assessing the operational changes implemented by the agency's leadership, including President Trump appointee Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. 

The report found that the agency's "mail service performance significantly dropped beginning in July 2020," which corresponds both with the coronavirus pandemic and with the implementation of various significant "cost reduction strategies on top of three initiatives the Postmaster General launched to achieve financial targets." 

The inspector general found that the post office did not conduct a formal analysis of the service impacts that the changes would have prior to implementation and that "documentation and guidance to the field" pertaining to the new policies was "limited and almost exclusively oral," resulting in "significant negative service impacts across the country."

However, the report cleared DeJoy of some of the alleged ethical violations of which some members of Congress this summer accused him — after conducting interviews with Postal Service ethics officials and reviewing DeJoy's investment information and other information.

"Information the OIG reviewed to date indicates that Mr. DeJoy has met the ethics requirements related to disclosure, recusal, and divestment upon entering the position of Postmaster General," the report reads.

The report states that the OIG didn't have the opportunity to review all of DeJoy's account information and that the process remains ongoing. 

Recently, DeJoy came under fire following an article from the Washington Post that accused him of violating campaign finance law by pressuring employees at his North Carolina business to donate to Republican campaigns and later increasing their yearly bonuses to offset the personal cost of the donation. 

The USPS Board of Governors responded to the elements of the report that it did not agree with, and defended the actions of DeJoy. "We do not agree with the premise that underlies the report: That the initiatives reviewed are strategic in nature, or that they are 'transformational' to postal operations, either individually or collectively."

"The noted efforts this year are similar to efforts that the Postal Service pursued over the last several years, predating the hiring of Mr. Louis DeJoy as the Postmaster General," said the board.