Affiliations:
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Louis DeJoy is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Charles Koch-funded Fund for American Studies.
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Louis DeJoy, -1who assumed office 2020-06-16 as the Trump-appointed U.S. Postmaster General, appear to be part of a longer-term, coordinated strategy by Charles Koch to privatize the U.S. Postal Service through Koch-funded nonprofits such as the State Policy Network and The Fund for American Studies (TFAS).
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Louis DeJoy is mentioned in the 2020-07-24 article / interview with Lisa Graves, 'A Combination of Forces Puts Our Postal Service at Grave Risk'.
Lisa Graves is the author of The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Service. Note the timeline.
Note the timeline, which documents Koch-funded 501(c) nonprofits and their roles in orchestrating the privitization of the United States Postal Service:
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1976. Charles Koch becomes biggest funder of the Libertarian Party. Abolishing the United States Postal Service is added to the Libertarian Party platform. [In 1980, Charles Koch's brother David Koch unsuccessfully ran for Vice President on the Libertarian Party platform. ... In 2012, David Koch spent over $100 million to oppose the re-election of President Barack Obama.]
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1987. Charles Koch's right-hand man Richard Fink is appointed to Reagan's privatization commission, which urges U.S. Postal Service privatization.
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1988. James Miller, then director of the Reagan Office of Management and Budget (OMB), writes pro-privatization paper in the Cato Journal "It's Time to Free the Mails." [The Cato Institute was formerly the Charles Koch Foundation.]
[Captured 2020-07-28] Chris Edwards is the director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute and editor of DownSizingGovernment.org. Edwards is a top expert on federal and state tax and budget issues. Before joining Cato, Edwards was a senior economist on the congressional Joint Economic Committee, a manager with PricewaterhouseCoopers, and an economist with the Tax Foundation. Edwards has testified to Congress on fiscal issues many times, and his articles on tax and budget policies have appeared in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and other major newspapers. He is the author of Downsizing the Federal Government and coauthor of Global Tax Revolution.
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2001. James Miller, then director of Charles Koch's Citizens for a Sound Economy, helps advance book on privatizing the United States Postal Service. [In 2004, Citizens for a Sound Economy split into FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity.]
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2009. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) begins pushing bill to require military service member ballots be carried by for-profit corporations. [According to the Center for Public Integrity, ALEC in received $150,000 from Charles and David Koch. Greenpeace claims that ALEC has received $525,858 from Koch foundations between 2005 and 2011.]
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2020. Charles Koch's Americans for Prosperity singles out Senators for special pressure to vote against the HEROES Act and specifically opposes any funds to prevent U.S. Postal Service bankruptcy
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[2020-07-07], Twitter:
Trump donor Louis DeJoy is now the Postmaster General, which means he has broad control over the USPS. If he follows Trump's agenda to stifle voting by mail, that could be a real problem come November [2020].
[2020-06-16] CREW Requests USPS Records on Mail-in-Voting Plans. CREW: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Last month, the United States Postal ServiceN announced that Louis DeJoy would be serving as the next Postmaster General. DeJoy, a Republican fundraiser and top donor to the Trump campaign, has questionable experience which has raised concerns, especially with the growing importance of mail-in voting. President Trump has repeatedly attacked voting by mail with very little evidence, despite USPS OIG indicating that expanding voting by mail could boost the agency's revenue by $2 million annually. With the members of the Trump administration demonstrating little concern for accountability and routinely misusing government resources for partisan ends, placing a partisan Trump donor in this position could potentially undermine the essential role that USPS plays in ensuring Americans are able to vote by mail, especially amidst the coronavirus pandemic.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has requested documents regarding voting by mail between USPS employees and DeJoy, the USPS Board of Governors, the previous Postmaster General Megan Brennan, along with other various entities. The requested documents also include any communications between USPS employees and members of Congress regarding DeJoy's qualifications for his new appointment.
These documents could help provide insight into USPS's capacity to support voting by mail in advance of DeJoy's arrival. The public deserves to know and understand why DeJoy was hired and if this appointment will interfere with their right to vote and have their vote counted. As Election Day quickly approaches, this matter is more pressing than ever and the American people should know if, once again, Trump is using political pawns to undermine our democratic rights.
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[2020-05-06], Twitter:
[2020-03-31] N.C. scholarship fund hits $25 million capital campaign goal with Triad family's support. The Fund for American Studies has reached its largest goal ever set, $25 million, just in time for its 50th anniversary. The milestone was achieved with a $500,000 gift from longtime contributors Louis DeJoy and [DeJoy's spouse] Dr. Aldona Wos. The couple have supported the scholarship foundation for the last 14 years, which have gone to support more than 100 students’ academic pursuits. This latest gift, funded through the Louis DeJoy and Aldona Wos Family Foundation, will be distributed over the next five years. ...
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Louis DeJoy, 75th Postmaster General.
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"This media file has been nominated for deletion since 21 June 2020."
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Louis DeJoy (born June 20, 1957) is an American businessman and Republican Party fundraiser who was appointed in May 2020 by unanimous selection of the Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service to serve as the 75th United States Postmaster General and Chief Executive Officer of the world's largest postal organization. Since January 2020, DeJoy has donated $360,000 to President Trump's re-election campaign and roughly $70,000 to the Republican National Committee.
Early life and education
DeJoy was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from Stetson University.
Career
DeJoy was CEO of High Point, North Carolina-based New Breed Logistics from 1983 to 2014, and retired after his company was acquired by Connecticut-based freight transporter, XPO Logistics, for a reported $615 million. Following that acquisition he served as CEO of XPO's supply chain business in North America until his retirement in 2015, and was appointed to a strategic role on XPO Logistics' board of directors where he served until 2018.
At the time of his naming as Postmaster General, DeJoy was president of LDJ Global Strategies, a Greensboro, North Carolina-based, boutique firm with interests in real estate, private equity, consulting and project management. DeJoy currently serves on the Elon University board of trustees.
DeJoy's appointment was both praised and criticized by several postal labor unions and lawmakers. In a statement issued by Fredric V. Rolando, the current president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, Rolando said "We applaud Mr. Louis DeJoy's willingness to take on this public service challenge at this most difficult time in the near-250-year history of the United States Postal Service. Perhaps only Benjamin Franklin, the first PMG, has taken this job at a more challenging time."
Mark Dimondstein, the president of the American Postal Workers Union, wrote in a letter that "the APWU is deeply concerned with the appointment process to make Mr. Louis DeJoy, a multi-million-dollar major donor to President Trump, the next Postmaster General." Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) noted that his career as a political operative and close ties to the president and Republican Party would threaten the non-partisan nature of the U.S. Postal Service.
Upon assuming office as Postmaster General, DeJoy began taking measures to reduce costs and slow the mail service.
Personal life
DeJoy is married to Aldona Wos, a Polish-American physician and former Ambassador to Estonia in the George W. Bush Administration. DeJoy and his wife have two children and reside in the Irving Park Historic District in Greensboro, North Carolina.