“The House has the legal right to investigate and issue subpoenas to all those involved, including and especially Postmaster General DeJoy himself.
“The Trump administration would almost certainly refuse to honor the subpoena, at which point House Democrats would be well within their legal right to send Capitol Police to arrest the Postmaster General and force him to testify.
“But even stopping short of that potential constitutional crisis, conducting the investigation and issuing the subpoena would shine a bright spotlight–one that would in turn encourage Postal Service employees to tell all they know about what is happening internally.
“Even if nothing could be proven directly, it would minimize the potential for mischief through direct application of sunlight.
“Given the current polling, it is unlikely that Donald Trump will escape electoral accountability for his disastrous presidency if Americans are allowed to vote freely and fairly.
“Democratic leaders therefore need to do everything legally within their power to ensure the integrity of the election itself. All too often, longtime Democratic officials act like the patient custodians of a normative democracy in exile during the Trump Aberration, …
“rather than the only empowered opposition to a totalitarian insurrection engaged in a one-sided cold civil war.
“Having set its ground rules for COVID negotiations, the House should be engaged in nonstop investigations and subpoenas from now through election day and beyond–not as a political gimmick, …
“but as a way of blockading to the maximum extent possible the various attempts of Trump and his cronies to subvert the electoral comeuppance that awaits them. Those investigations and subpoenas should start with Postmaster General DeJoy.”
