Among the growing list of priorities for the incoming Biden administration is a comprehensive investigation of the efforts to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service.
In August, Aaron Gordon, reporting for Vice’s Motherboard, published a leaked internal document from the U.S. Postal Service showing that management was planning to eliminate hundreds of high-speed sorting machines in the midst of a pandemic. Sources inside the Postal Service that spoke with Gordon told him that they had “personally witnessed the machines, which cost millions of dollars, being destroyed or thrown in the dumpster.”
Documents reviewed by Gordon also “laid out detailed plans to reroute mail to sorting facilities further away in order to centralize mail processing even if it moves the mail across further distances.” Gordon reported that a union official wrote on the document: “This will slow mail processing.”
When this news swept across mainstream media, it was characterized as an effort to interfere with mail-in ballots and boost the chances of a Trump election win. But the slowdown at the U.S. Postal Service continues, making it look more like an all-out effort to sabotage a government mail program in order to destroy its reputation for timely delivery and boost the fortunes of private mail shippers.
Any effort to sabotage a vital government function that impacts the efficiency with which U.S. businesses operate is a matter of national security. The GDP of the United States, already hit hard by the rolling pandemic shutdowns, depends on the timely delivery of mail.
What is currently happening to the reputation of the U.S. Postal Service during this pivotal holiday shipping period could sabotage its reputation for years going forward. No one would like this more than Charles Koch and his network, which has been on a quest to privatize all government functions and shrink the federal government.
Prior to this sabotage effort, the U.S. Postal Service had the approval of 91 percent of Americans, according to a May research report from the Pew Research Center.