DeJoy Says Mail Sorting Machines Were Stripped For Parts And Can't Be Reinstalled
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told a federal court that hundreds of high-speed mail sorting machines he ordered removed cannot be returned to service because they were stripped for parts.
DeJoy and the U.S.Postal Service presented the excuse in a response filed Wednesday to a nationwide order issued by U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian in Yakima, Washington, last week demanding the return of some 700 machines that had been taken out of service.
“Dismantled machines ‘are generally dissembled for their usable parts, with such parts being removed to maintain or enhance other machines,’” DeJoy, a loyalist and major contributor to President Donald Trump’s campaign, stated in his response. “It is therefore not possible to return such machines to service.”
But witnesses reported that many of the expensive machines were quickly dismantled and tossed into dumpsters as scrap. The injunction noted that 72% of the ripped out machines were in counties Hillary Clinton won in the 2016 presidential election.
.@USPS GR Patterson location has pieces of the mail sorting machines out in the parking lot. @WOODTVpic.twitter.com/OuugjhTbfE
— Heather Walker (@_HeatherWalker) August 19, 2020
Each of the machines can sort 36,000 pieces of mail an hour, vastly speeding mail processing and delivery.
DeJoy has been accused of outright vandalism and sabotage of the postal system to snarl mail-in ballots that vast numbers of voters are expected to use to avoid the risk of COVID-19 at polling stations.
Trump has repeatedly, without any evidence, claimed the mail-in system is corrupt (even though he and his wife vote by mail). The president’s attacks apparently are a strategy to sway the vote in his favor — or to use as a reason to challenge the results if he loses.
Judge Bastian last week blasted DeJoy’s actions as a “politically motivated attack on the efficiency of the Postal Service” ahead of the election. It’s an “intentional effort by the current...
