While still under the leadership of Elon Musk, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) consulted with the leader of a little known arm of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), a memo obtained by Raw Story revealed — prompting legal and academic experts to warn of potential trouble ahead.
On March 19, Chief Postal Inspector Gary Barksdale issued a “situational update” to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), USPS’s law enforcement arm, about a meeting with DOGE, according to the memo, which Raw Story received through a Freedom of Information Act request.
In the memo, Barksdale reiterated former Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s requests for assistance from DOGE as outlined in a March 17 letter to Congress, including help with “efforts to combat counterfeit postage.”
But Barksdale also provided a new recommendation “when [DOGE representatives] asked for specifics on how they could assist us,” asking for “administrative subpoena authority.”
The request “essentially allows for government agencies to issue requests, subpoenas, without any type of specific judicial intervention or judicial approval,” said Felix Shipkevich, a professor of law at Hofstra University.
The request surprised more than half a dozen experts who reviewed the memo.
