And they're sabotaging the Postal Service. Even removing mail boxes from the blue areas of red states, in this case Montana, where the blue boxes have been disappearing from the state's college towns and most populated areas, like some in Missoula "[a]cross from the center of University of Montana," and "[d]owntown in front of a large senior citizen living facility and several office buildings."
Vice News has also reported on Postal Service internal documents it obtained outlining existing plans to slow down the mail sorting process by removing sorting machines. The Postal Service originally proposed removing 20% of the machines but revised the plan down to 15%, taking 502 out of service according to the document Motherboard received. One document is dated May 15, suggesting that the plan was in the works before DeJoy took the position. But those documents are not reflective of how this is playing out, according to the Post.
They've obtained a grievance filed by the American Postal Workers Union that says the Postal Service has removed 671 mail sorting machines from across the country since June, concentrated in high-population areas. That represents a reduction in national mail sorting capacity of 21.4 million pieces of mail per hour. But the Vice disclosures make it clear that the plan to start hobbling the Postal Service has been in the works for months—DeJoy just stepped in to carry it all out. And then some. It's hard to know whether the warning from Marshall, the general counsel, to the states was a genuine attempt to save this election or an effort to stoke more panic.
What is clear, though, is that this requires immediate action from across the board—from state AGs to try to get injunctions to stop this interference with the mail (a federal offense, by the way) to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who could start immediate investigations and impeachment proceedings against DeJoy. Waiting until Sept. 17 to have him come to the House for a hearing on all this is not acceptable.
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