President Donald Trump plans to declare the dissolution of the board of the U.S. Postal Service and order its incorporation into the Department of the Treasury, a move widely considered illegal and would set up a court showdown, as well as thrust trillions of dollars of economic activity into uncertainty, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.
"Trump is expected to issue an executive order as soon as this week to fire the members of the Postal Service’s governing board and place the agency under the control of the Commerce Department and Secretary Howard Lutnick, according to six people familiar with the plans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals," said the report. "The board is planning to fight Trump’s order, three of those people told The Washington Post."
In response to the plans, the report continued, the USPS board held an emergency meeting, where they "retained outside counsel and gave instructions to sue the White House if the president were to remove members of the board or attempt to alter the agency’s independent status."
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"Trump’s order to place the Commerce Department in charge of the Postal Service would probably violate federal law, according to postal experts," noted the report.
The current Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, is a Trump appointee and former logistics executive who contributed generously to the GOP. He plans to resign.
USPS was once directly controlled by the government, but in 1970 an act of Congress spun it off into an independent organization, with the president's only direct involvement being the Senate-confirmed appointment of the board of governors.
“This is a somewhat regal approach that says the king knows better than his subjects and he will do his best for them. But it also removes any sense that there’s oversight, impartiality and fairness and that some states wouldn’t be treated better than other states or cities better than other cities,” said Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business USPS expert James O’Rourke to the Post. “The anxiety over the Postal Service is not only three-quarters of a million workers. It’s that this is something that does not belong to the president or the White House. It belongs to the American people.”
Trump has openly mused about privatizing the USPS in the past.