-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, as my colleagues know, I get a lot of information about wrongdoing in government from whistleblowers. A significant part of my investigative activity is driven by whistleblower disclosures. To make that very effective, I have directed my investigative staff to cultivate those whistleblower relationships.

Whistleblowers share information with me that the government likes to hide from Congress and, indirectly, then hiding it from the American people.

Today, I am going to discuss a very concerning problem within the U.S. Postal Service. Based on whistleblower disclosures to my office, I have been alerted that the post office hired a registered sex offender as a letter carrier.

The employment was confirmed in writing by that same Postal Service. Based on whistleblower allegations, this employee disclosed his status as a registered sex offender on his job application.

If accurate, did the Postal Service then even bother to read his application before he was hired? After the Postal Service figured out what they had done, my office has been told via whistleblower disclosures that they put the employee on paid leave.

So I began digging deeper to figure out the extent of this problem at the Postal Service. Since then, the Postal Service has obstructed every effort that I have made to get the information that Congress is entitled to.

Wouldn't the American public like to know how many letter carriers are registered sex offenders? Where are they working? Do they travel near schools, homes, and where children are often seen?

Now, the Postal Service apparently disagrees. The Postal Service was asked by my staff for a list of letter carriers who are registered offenders.

Now, as you might expect, the Postal Service refused. So I and my staff asked for a list of letter carriers on the payroll. The Postal Service later said:

Current employees' names, titles, and duty stations are generally considered to be public information and releasable.

But then the Postal Service refused to provide the information because my staff might cross-reference the names on the public registries. Specifically, the Postal Service said this:

They have a personal privacy interest in protecting the fact that their names appear on a sex offender registry.

The Postal Service also said that it is refusing to provide this information because I ``intend to use the provided list to infer what employees appear on the public sex offender registries.''

Now, it is time to get this straight for everybody. The names of Postal Service employees are publicly releasable, as admitted by the Postal Service to me in writing. These offender registries are public, which was also admitted in writing to me by the Postal Service. But the Postal Service says a privacy interest prohibits them from providing the names of all Postal Service letter carriers because my staff might cross-reference them on a public list? What a disgrace.

Further, the Postal Service had the audacity to ask my staff this garbage request, and I am quoting from the Postal Service:

We ask that you agree not to publicly release the names of any employees that you believe appear on a sex offender registry as a condition precedent to the release of a list of letter carriers to you.

Now, that kind of appears to be a shakedown, doesn't it?

In support of its obstruction, the Postal Service cited a 2020 Freedom of Information Act court case, White Coat Waste Project v. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The Postal Service claimed that this case allowed them to withhold the information.

Now, there are two problems with that. First, this isn't a FOIA request that I am making. It is a congressional request under the constitutional power of checks and balances of the government to make sure that the executive branch of government faithfully executes the laws. Congress isn't subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

Second, in the case, the court held that the government had to produce requested names of government employees, in part, because it ``will ensure that the public stays informed about what their government is up to.''

Like you often hear me say, transparency brings accountability in our government.

My staff then later asked the Postal Service the following, related to employee names:

So, what's public is being treated as non-public because there's a chance some letter carriers are sex offenders?

The Postal Service's employee answered:

Yes, because you can't put that together without both lists.

The Postal Service conduct is without any legitimate basis. Postmaster General DeJoy and the Postal Service Board need to fix this mess and fix it immediately. When it comes to this matter, our community deserves much better than what they are getting from the Postal Service.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source