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The Department of Justice has opened an investigation into Trump-appointed USPS Postmaster General for campaign contributions.
Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for political donations made while he was CEO of a private logistics company.
“Mr. DeJoy has learned that the Department of Justice is investigating campaign contributions made by employees who worked for him when he was in the private sector,” Mark Corallo, a spokesperson for DeJoy, told Fox News.
“He has always been scrupulous in his adherence to the campaign contribution laws and has never knowingly violated them,” Corallo said. “Mr. DeJoy fully cooperated with and answered the questions posed by Congress regarding these matters. The same is true of the Postal Service Inspector General’s inquiry which after a thorough investigation, gave DeJoy a clean bill of health on his disclosure and divestment issues. He expects nothing less in this latest matter and he intends to work with DOJ toward swiftly resolving it.”
Former President Donald Trump appointed DeJoy to Postmaster General in 2020.
According to The Washington Post, between 2000 and 2014, while DeJoy was CEO of New Breed Logistics, he pressured employees to write checks and attend Republican fundraisers at his home. He would reimburse them back through bonuses. 124 employees that worked for the private company gave more than $1 million to federal and state Republican candidates.
Last year, DeJoy was questioned about donations during a congressional hearing.
“Did you pay back several of your top executives for contributing to Trump’s campaign by bonusing [sic] or rewarding them,” Representative Jim Cooper asked DeJoy during the hearing.
“That’s an outrageous claim, sir, and I resent it,” DeJoy said. “The answer is no.”
In September 2020, the House Oversight Committee began investigating DeJoy after former New Breed employees complained that DeJoy and other top executives pushed donations to Republican candidates.
It is illegal to make straw donations or pass-through donations because of legal limits on individual campaign contributions.
“Louis was a national fundraiser for the Republican Party. He asked employees for money. We gave him the money, and then he reciprocated by giving us big bonuses,” David Young, former director of resources for DeJoy, said. “When we got our bonuses, let’s just say they were bigger, they exceeded expectations — and that covered the tax and everything else.”
The Washington Post found a pattern of New Breed employees donating the same amounts to the same candidates at the same time. While investigating, The Washington Post found that employees collectively gave over $1 million to Republican candidates and $700 to Democrats.
“Louis DeJoy’s reimbursement scheme disguised the true source of potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions, which denied voters the right to know who is giving money to influence their vote and our government,” Brendan Fischer, director to the federal reform program at the Campaign Legal Center, said. “These are serious violations, and we are pleased that CLC’s research and complaint triggered the Department of Justice to investigate.”
