Do post office cutbacks warrant a criminal investigation? Former AG Eric Holder says yes

Yahoo News Video
Updated

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder joins Yahoo News Editor in Chief Daniel Klaidman and Chief Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff to discuss potential legal repercussions to the alleged political motives behind Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s actions that slowed mail service.

Video Transcript

DANIEL KLAIDMAN: You believe that this action by the postmaster general and others warrants a criminal investigation right now?

ERIC HOLDER: Oh, absolutely. There is no question about that. You tell me why would you be taking offline right now machines that do mail sorting at high speeds? Why would you be taking mail boxes off the street? Why would you be restricting the amount of overtime that postal employees can spend as we are about to enter a period where the mails are going to be really important for this nation to handle a huge number of vote-by-mail ballots?

There is clearly an indication that this is something that's political in nature. And so at a minimum, at a minimum, I think there needs to be an investigation of exactly who ordered this, why was it ordered, and what's the impact been on the Postal Service? So is there a predicate to open a criminal investigation? That's not even close. There is clearly a predicate to start a criminal investigation.

Now will the Barr Justice Department do so? My guess is not. But this is something that is so serious that I think that the next attorney general, the next iteration of the Justice Department, has to look into what happened here. Whether or not it has an impact on the election or not, the attempt to subvert the election is something that has to be looked at post-January 20.

MICHAEL ISIKOFF: Now, the postmaster general has rescinded these cutbacks in the--

ERIC HOLDER: No, he hasn't.

MICHAEL ISIKOFF: --aftermath of the criticism. No?

ERIC HOLDER: No. He has said-- he said I'm not going to do anything going forward. And he's now clarified that to indicate that with regard to the machines that have been taken offline, he's not going to put them back online. He's not going to increase the amount of overtime that people can spend. And he's not going to put back on the streets the post office boxes.

So he's done really, essentially, nothing to make up for what at best could be an error, and what I suspect really was a political attempt to support the Trump re-election effort.