In a Senate hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday, the United States Postal Service felt the heat of bipartisan scorn for decades of violations of federal election laws. “A new report tonight states that Postal Service employees were allowed to take leave from their jobs and still get paid as they campaigned for Hillary Clinton last year,” announced Fox News Channel Anchor Bret Baier during Special Report. Even in light of the report by the Postal Service’s oversight office, ABC, CBS, and NBC failed to inform their viewers.The principal national evening newscasts of Spanish-language Univision and Telemundo also ignored the story.
The systemic disregard for federal election law wasn’t just the concern of Fox News. Even the liberal Washington Post found the need to report it to their readers. “The Postal Service’s Office of Special Counsel and inspector general found that the agency violated the Hatch Act, which restricts federal employees from working for or against a political candidate or party during election season,” wrote Lisa Rein.
“These allegations came to light because of one person, a postal worker named Timm Kopp. Investigators say he did something no one else did: spoke up,” reported Fox News Correspondent Ellison Barber.
At the Senate hearing, Timm Kopp explained to the panel why he was committed to his noble deed. “The union is always involved highly in political activities. And I did not want this to be a partisan thing by no regards,” he said. “I wanted it to be a thing where the general public does not lose trust with the integrity of the Post Office.”
“Federal employees, including postal workers, are allowed to use their time off to campaign or donate to political candidates,” The Post said. “But by directing that time off be granted even over the objections of local post office managers who said they would be understaffed, the Postal Service showed a workplace bias toward Clinton and other Democrats endorsed by the union.”
“The local post office manager pushed back and tried to deny the time-off requests, the letter carrier, Timm Kopp, testified Wednesday, but was rebuffed by upper management,” The Post’s Rein added.
And the objections to the Postal Service’s actions came from both sides of the political aisle, which was evident by the comments of both Democrat Claire McCaskill and Republican Ron Johnson, as shown on Fox News:
SEN. CLAIRE MCCASKILL: A period spanning at least three administrations, several different parties, and five postmasters general.
SEN. RON JOHNSON: How can you have such long-standing systemic violation of the Hatch Act and yet no body’s really held accountable?
Barber also noted that “according to the report, 97 members took leave to be part of an AFL-CIO program that sought to help elect Hillary Clinton and other pro-worker candidates.” There was also a National Association of Letter Carriers newsletter that directed their members on who to support, which was not illegal but the report said it was an example of the bias allowed to take place.
According to the Office of Special Counsel’s report, the unbridled violations by the Postal Service go back almost three decades. But the disturbing nature of these federal violations by a federal entity were not enough to stir the Big Three Networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) and Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo to action. But CBS did find the time to run a two minute and eight-second report on how Jurassic Park got the speed of the T-Rex completely wrong.
A mailman can out run the T-Rex apparently, but they can’t out run congressional oversight.
Transcript below:
FNC
Special Report
July 19, 2017
6:08:03 PM EasternBRET BAIER: A new report tonight states that Postal Service employees were allowed to take leave from their jobs and still get paid as they campaigned for Hillary Clinton last year. The postmaster general said today any violations of the law were unintentional. Correspondent Ellison Barber tonight on going postal for Hillary. Good evening, Ellison.
ALLISON BARBER: Good evening, Bret. These allegations came to light because of one person, a postal worker named Timm Kopp. Investigators say he did something no one else did: spoke up. Today he told the Homeland Security and Government Affairs committee why.
[Cuts to video]
TIMM KOPP: The union is always involved highly in political activities. And I did not want this to be a partisan thing by no regards. I wanted it to be a thing where the general public does not lose trust with the integrity of the Post Office.
[Cuts back to live]
BARBER: According to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, the Postal Service did violate federal law by showing an institutional bias towards union backed candidates when they allowed union workers to take unpaid leave and participate in campaign activities.
Investigators say workers did receive compensation through the union's political action committee. The legal violations centered around ‘get out the vote efforts’ led by one of the nation’s largest federations of unions: the AFL-CIO.
According to the report, 97 members took leave to be part of an AFL-CIO program that sought to help elect Hillary Clinton and other pro-worker candidates. The report points to a union newsletter in the fall of 2016 to show some of that alleged bias. Writing quote: "The article titled ‘Trump vs. Clinton,’ praised Clinton's record and announced the National Association of Letter Carriers support for the following candidates for U.S. Senate in six priority battleground states."
All of those were Democrats. The report says the violations are systemic and likely started in the '90s.
[Cuts back to video]
SEN. CLAIRE MCCASKILL: A period spanning at least three administrations, several different parties, and five postmasters general.
RON JOHNSON: How can you have such long-standing systemic violation of the Hatch Act and yet no body’s really held accountable?
[Cuts back to live]
BARBER: The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from engaging in certain types of political activities but not all of them. It's an administrative restriction and not a criminal statute. National Association of Letter Carriers tells Fox News they reject these findings and do not see a violation of the Hatch Act. But the Postal Service says they are already correcting the issues outlined by the Office of Special Counsel. OSC says they are not taking disciplinary action because problems were not exclusively attributable to any particular employee. Bret.
