President Trump Denies Trying To Undermine Post Office To Thwart Mail-In Voting

President Donald Trump told Fox News on Monday that he is not trying to undermine the United States Postal Service (USPS) in order to thwart voting by mail, Reuters reported.

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has instituted operational changes within the agency that include ending overtime, restrictions on extra mail transportation trips, and new mail sorting and delivery policies. Further, in some cities, trucks have been seen carrying away postal collection boxes.

Those changes have resulted in delays, in some cases potentially life-threatening ones. For example, a Texas man claimed that he had to do without his heart medication while it sat for 10 days in a Houston warehouse.

Meanwhile, the president has railed against expanded voting by mail, claiming, among other things, that it would lead to a fraudulent election. Of late he’s also claimed that the USPS would not be able to handle all of the mail-in ballots expected in the states that allow the process, particularly if it’s expanded. Indeed, as CNN reported, the Post Office has sent letters to multiple states warning that the agency may not be equipped to handle the expected surge of ballots.

Though the timing may be seen as suspect to some observers, Trump said Monday that there is no chicanery happening.

“No, we’re not tampering,” he said.

He added that, prior to his intervention, the USPS had been “one of the disasters of the world.”

“We want to make it run efficiently, run good. We want to make it run for less money, much better, always taking care of our postal workers,” he said.

Congressional Democrats, however, did not appear to be convinced. The House of Representatives, in which that party has a majority, plans to meet this Saturday to consider the issue. One option on the table is legislation that would prohibit the USPS from operating at levels below those already in place on January 1, 2020.

Further, House Democratic Conference Chairman Hakeem Jeffries and Representative Ted Lieu stated their belief that DeJoy may be acting criminally, and have called on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to look into the new Postmaster General’s actions to see if there is a criminal element to them, such as election fraud.

“There is evidence that making mail-in balloting more difficult may be one of the motivations for the changes instituted at the Post Office,” Jeffries and Lieu wrote in a Monday letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray.

The letter also noted that DeJoy is an investor in private carriers that compete with the Post Office.