A member of Congress has accused U.S. Postal Service employees or contractors of repeatedly stealing mailed campaign contributions and said the agency owes her a better explanation.
The June thefts totaled nearly $20,000 and left supporters vulnerable to identity theft and financial fraud, campaign representatives for Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., said. Attorneys for the campaign wrote a letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy suggesting the agency has dropped the ball in investigating the crimes and demanding more information on postal management’s response. The lawyers also cited the USPS inspector general and the Postal Inspection Service for inadequate probes, saying the inspection service has not even returned its phone calls.
The IG “immediately commenced” an investigation upon receiving the allegations, said Tara Linne, a spokesperson for the office, but was subsequently told by the Postal Service the campaign eventually received the checks that had been taken out of their original envelopes. Stefanik’s attorneys said in their letter that “the evidence indicates that Elise for Congress’s packages were plundered by a USPS employee or contractor while the packages were in transit.” Linne, however, said the IG’s investigation had, as of October, “not identified evidence of employee involvement.”