The United States Postal Service has awarded a $120 million contract to a transportation company Postmaster General Louis DeJoy once worked for and still has a financial relationship with, the Washington Post reported.
The new federal contract cements the mail delivery service's connection with XPO Logistics, where DeJoy served as a chief executive and board member after the company bought his 30-year-old trucking business. Since becoming postmaster general, the DeJoy family has divested an estimated $150 million in XPO shares, the Post said.
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According to financial disclosures, the USPS head also leases several commercial buildings to the XPO, which could earn him more than $23 million over the next 10 years, the news outlet predicted.
A spokesperson for the Postal Service claimed DeJoy was not involved in procuring the bid for the XPO contract and that federal government watchdogs cleared him ethically before he took office.
"There's no question he's continuing to profit from a Postal Service contractor," chief ethics counsel Virginia Canter told the Washington Post. "It does create an appearance issue about whether it’s in his financial interest to continue to make policy that would benefit contractors like XPO."
DeJoy has testified before Congress that he would follow the rules. The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a watchdog organization, and others repeatedly called for his dismissal.
The $120 million contract -- awarded in April but not announced until June -- gives XPO Logistics authority over two new mail-sorting facilities. In addition, the company will add four additional locations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.
The plans, however, concern those who fear the country’s mail service morphing into a corporation. The Trump administration wanted to make the postal service a private company.
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