REVEALED: Louis DeJoy had more than a dozen conflicts of interest before finally cutting ties with businesses linked to Postal Service

Postmaster general Louis DeJoy faced more than a dozen conflicts of interest related to his business interests in companies closely tied to the U.S. Postal Service, according to newly revealed documents.

The documents obtained by the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington show DeJoy had conflicts related to the company he ran, XPO Logistics, and 13 other major companies that do business with the Postal Service, reported NBC News.

"DeJoy and two trusts he managed held substantial investments in companies including AT&T, CVS, Verizon, UnitedHealth, Lockheed Martin, Capital One, Discover Financial Services, Dominion Energy, Honeywell International, IBM, Regions Bank, Travelers Insurance and JPMorgan Chase, according to an August 2020 holdings disclosure," the network reported. "The documents contain two letters that appear to show DeJoy began the formal recusal process for the first dozen companies and XPO Logistics in July and JPMorgan Chase in August. It remains unclear whether he was involved in Postal Service decision making regarding those companies before he started that process."

DeJoy, who was appointed in May 2020, initially recused himself from decisions related to those companies before fully divesting himself of them in August 2020, after months of public pressure upon taking the job.

"Everybody knows that he has these interests, and so even then there are going to be potentially incentives, even if he's not in the room, for others to make decisions that could benefit him," said CREW president Noah Bookbinder.

Federal employees are prohibited by law from holding stocks aggregate market value of more than $15,000 in any company without recusing or divesting themselves from it, and the documents show DeJoy and his family's investments in those companies all exceeded that amount, although the Postal Service inspector general testified in February that DeJoy had properly followed guidance from its ethics staff before divesting.

"When and how he divested reflects the process he was instructed to follow by the Postal Service ethics office in compliance with federal ethics regulations," said Postal Service spokesman David Partenheimer. "Additionally, the Postmaster General's divestiture was fully approved by the Office of Government Ethics."