WaPo: Top Republican fundraiser and Trump ally named postmaster general, giving Trump new influence over Postal Service

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A top donor to President Trump and the Republican National Committee will be named the new head of the Postal Service, putting a top ally of the president in charge of an agency where Trump has long pressed for major changes in how it handles its business.

The Postal Service’s board of governors confirmed late Wednesday that Louis DeJoy, a North Carolina businessman who is currently in charge of fundraising for the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, will serve as the new postmaster general.

The action will install a stalwart Trump ally to lead the Postal Service, which he has railed against for years, and probably move him closer than ever before to forcing the service to renegotiate its terms with companies and its own union workforce.

The confirmation came after The Washington Post asked for comment on the decision.

“Louis DeJoy understands the critical public service role of the United States Postal Service, and the urgent need to strengthen it for future generations,” Robert M. Duncan, chairman of the board of governors, said in a statement.

“Postal workers are the heart and soul of this institution, and I will be honored to work alongside them and their unions,” DeJoy, who will start June 15, said in a statement.

Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees the Postal Service, denounced the move as a reward by Trump to a “partisan donor.

“The Postal Service is in crisis and needs real leadership and someone with knowledge of the issues,” Connolly said. “This crony doesn’t cut it.”

After criticizing the agency for years, Trump has been consolidating his influence lately. Three Republicans and one Democrat sit on the board of governors after the vice chairman, David Williams, a Democrat, resigned last week.

“[Williams’s] main frustration is that he felt the Treasury Department was interfering in an apolitical board and an apolitical agency,” said one person who spoke with him.

DeJoy will be the first postmaster general in two decades who did not rise through the agency’s ranks. He would have to navigate a financially fraught agency while also working with its powerful labor unions, among the last public-sector unions left with significant clout in contract negotiations with the government.

 

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