Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has opened a congressional investigation into the U.S. Postal Service, demanding internal records on thousands of pieces of dumped mail, potential criminal wrongdoing, and millions of dollars in executive compensation paid while delivery failures mounted.
Hawley sent a letter Tuesday on behalf of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, formally demanding documents from Postmaster General David Steiner.
The probe stems from an April discovery of thousands of pieces of mail dumped at a St. Louis distribution center. An Office of Inspector General audit described the situation as the “worst case of failed on-time delivery” ever documented in field operations reviews. A separate Kansas City audit found 100,000 delayed pieces of mail over just three days.
Steiner declined to answer questions about the mail dumping at a recent committee hearing. He then sent Hawley a letter deflecting responsibility to an ongoing OIG investigation, while criticizing the senator for lacking Southern “decorum.”
Hawley demanded to know the exact date Steiner was first informed of the St. Louis dumping, and requested all internal USPS communications regarding the incident.
“You seem to operate under the misapprehension that you are entitled to some kind of special deference,” Hawley wrote. “In fact, it’s the people of Missouri that are entitled to something: you doing your job.”
The senator also asked whether any postal employees had been referred to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution under federal statutes governing the theft, delay, or destruction of mail. He further demanded clarification on whether postal workers falsified scanning data to artificially inflate delivery metrics.
In a separate demand, Hawley requested a complete, itemized statement of all compensation paid to Steiner since his appointment, along with the performance scorecards used to justify those payments. He had previously called on Steiner to resign on June 24 unless he returned his bonus money.
