A resolution considered by the House Oversight and Reform Committee would have called on the president to turn over information about abuses of the Postal Service in surveillance of political protesters.
Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., who introduced the resolution, said recent press reports on the Internet Covert Operations Program indicate the agency “exceeded the Postal Service’s law enforcement authority.”
Much of the suspicious information was found in a U.S. Postal Service inspector general’s report requested in April by the Oversight and Reform Committee. Lawmakers were responding to news stories saying postal inspectors went far beyond making sure the mail was secure.
The inspector general’s report revealed that postal inspectors monitored gun rights activists at a rally in Richmond, Virginia; demonstrators in Louisville, Kentucky, after the 2020 police shooting of Breonna Taylor; and right-wing groups that protested in Washington, D.C., after Joe Biden was elected president.