Hearing confrontation

Postal Service chief snaps back at Hawley over hearing confrontation

The postmaster general criticized the senator’s lack of decorum during a committee hearing last week.

Emilio Perez Ibarguen

The head of the U.S. Postal Service fired back at Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) following a tense exchange between the two during a committee hearing on the fiscal health of the agency last week.

Hawley pressed Postmaster General David Steiner for updates on a case regarding a pile of undelivered mail that was found in a vacant lot in St. Louis during the hearing last Wednesday, and grew incensed after Steiner said it was “the first time I’ve heard about it.”

Hawley told Steiner later in the hearing that he should resign from his post because “you’re not doing the job.”

Steiner, in a letter sent to Hawley last week and viewed by POLITICO, said the Postal Service has no record of Hawley’s staff writing to the agency about mail dumping. He went on to call it “unfortunate” that the senator hasn’t attended a meeting with other members of the Missouri delegation regarding efforts to improve service in the state.

Members of Hawley’s local staff did call the Postal Service’s regional team shortly after the incident, Steiner wrote. The postal chief said the regional team promptly replied and said that the case was under investigation but that it couldn’t comment further.

Hawley doubled down on his criticism of Steiner in response to the letter Monday afternoon, writing on social media that the postmaster general “smirks his way through a hearing totally unprepared, leaves thousands of Missourians without mail, but takes THOUSANDS in taxpayer dollars himself as a BONUS for failing.”

“Return the bonus money. Do your job. Or resign,” Hawley continued.

Steiner wrote that the case is still being investigated by the agency inspector general, and any questions about its probe should be directed to them.

Hawley’s berating appeared to stick with Steiner, as evidenced by his concluding line in the letter.

“On a personal note I was raised in the South, and my mother taught me to treat all people with a respectful level of decorum,” he wrote. “I will expect that level from you in any future interactions.”