August 16, 2020

House Just Called for the Postmaster General to Testify at an “Urgent Hearing” Later This Month

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On Sunday, the House Oversight Committee urged Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to move up his scheduled testimony before the committee to August 24, nearly a month before planned, citing the “starling new revelations” about the “scope and gravity of operational changes you are implementing at hundreds of postal facilities.”

“Your testimony is particularly urgent,” writes the committee’s chair, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), “given the troubling influx of reports of widespread delays at postal facilities across the country—as well as President Trump’s explicit admission last week that he has been blocking critical coronavirus funding for the Postal Service in order to impair mail-in voting efforts for the upcoming elections in November.”

The committee’s request comes less than 24 hours after President Trump praised DeJoy, saying he is a “very smart man” and that DeJoy “wants to make the Post Office great again.” On Saturday in Bedminster, New Jersey, the president also blamed Democrats for the lack of secured funding for the Postal Service, contrasting with his admission Thursday that if he refuses to make a deal with Democrats for funding, ballots would fail to be counted in November.

“If you’re going to do these millions of ballots out of nowhere,” he said Saturday, “[DeJoy is] going to obviously need funding but the Democrats are not willing to provide funding for other things and therefore they are not going to get the funding for that.”

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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