I’ve been wondering why the Postal Service board would name Louis DeJoy as our toxically controversial postmaster general. It seems we have Sen. Mitch McConnell to thank.

Since 1970, members of the board of governors have served staggered seven-year terms. The idea was to have a board that owed allegiance to no particular White House. So half those currently on the board should be left over from Barack Obama’s term in office, with others appointed by Donald Trump. But that’s not what happened. In 2015, Obama renominated existing board members for a second term, including three Democrats and two Republicans first named under President George W. Bush. Those members should still be on the board. But none are.

That’s because McConnell blocked their Senate confirmations. By the time Trump stepped in, the number of remaining Bush- and Obama-appointed board members was zero. Then McConnell abruptly got out of the way. Now, every member of the Postal Service board is a Trump appointee – just what the 1970 law was meant to keep from happening. The new board quickly elected Robert Duncan chair. Duncan is a longtime associate of McConnell’s and, as we just found out, a director of McConnell’s super PAC. Duncan’s Trump-appointed board then replaced Postmaster General and lifelong Postal Service employee Megan Brennan with Republican fundraiser Louis DeJoy, despite his multiple conflicts of interest. DeJoy, of course, has since taken a wrecking ball to the Postal Service.

Now if your prescriptions or bills or payments or Social Security checks are late or missing altogether, as mine have sometimes been – or your mailed-in vote goes astray – you know who’s behind it.

Drain the swamp, indeed!

Joe Glaser

Bowling Green