Katie Porter decimates Louis DeJoy’s leadership of USPS with a sharpie

Democrat hailed for ‘whiteboarding’ Donald Trump’s appointment to postmaster amid decline in ‘on time’ deliveries

Democrat congresswoman Katie Porter has decimated Louis DeJoy for his leadership of the United States Postal Service (USPS) amid concerning figures for “on time” deliveries.

Ms Porter, with the aid of a whiteboard and marker pen on Friday, pointed to a damning audit of USPS deliveries after Mr DeJoy was appointed by Donald Trump last year.

Appearing via video link during a House oversight committee hearing in Chicago, the Democrat ran through the results from the audit that found “that by the spring of 2020 [on time] mail delivery was right around 92 per cent,” before collapsing by January.

She held-up a whiteboard with a chart showing how “on time” USPS deliveries went from about 92 per cent in the spring of 2020 to around 61 per cent by January of 2021.

“I realise this has gone up somewhat since then,” the Democrat told Melina Perez, the USPS’s deputy inspector general for auditing, “but I wanted to ask you, when did Mr DeJoy take over as postmaster, do you know?”

Ms Perez told the congresswoman that it was “the summer of 2020”.

Ms Porter, drawing a red dotted line through the whiteboard chart, asked: “And what happened after he took over? Did the rate of on time mail delivery go up or down?”

“It went down,” Ms Perez told the committee.

Ms Porter answered by saying: “I’m a professor and I used to do a lot of grading, and 92 per cent is considered widely like an A minus, 80 per cent is considered hanging on to the lowest possible B, [and] 60 per cent is at best a D minus.”

“The [United States] Postal Service delivers 48 per cent of the world’s mail. It’s an institution., It’s a civic treasure, and we let it get all the way to that D minus level”.

She also tweeted: “On-time mail delivery has plummeted under Postmaster Louis DeJoy—forcing veterans to wait longer for prescriptions, seniors to scramble to pay bills without their Social Security checks, and communities to feel less connected. Postmaster DeJoy needs to go.”

The appointment of the former Republican donor and businessman in itself caused consternation among Democrats before 2020’s election and a mass of postal voting across the US.

Ms Porter is a member of the Committee on Oversight and Reform which has been investigating declining delivery standards at USPS since Mr DeJoy’s appointment.

On Twitter, she was widely championed for “whiteboarding” Mr Dejoy, with fellow Democrat Bill Pascrell, Jr writing: “As usual Rep Katie Porter hits the nail on the head. The Post Office delays are disgraceful and louis dejoy and his enablers on the postal board all need to be fired.”

“I’m going to rename Rep Porter, Rep F*** Around And Find Out,” argued The Atlantic’s Jemele Hill, “because that’s what happens to folks every time she grabs her whiteboard.”

USPS did not return comment on Ms Porter’s criticisms and referred The Independent to recent improvements in the delivery of on time packages, which it said was at 91.2 per cent for first class nationally between October and November.