Postmaster General DeJoy ‘may have violated a federal conflict-of-interest law’ with COVID tests: watchdog

An ethics watchdog says U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy “may have violated a federal conflict-of-interest law” after not divesting ownership of stock in a company that is part of the Biden administration’s free COVID test kit distribution program, and may have traded stock related to the program during the time the program was being finalized and announced.

The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) Thursday issued a report revealing DeJoy, “who has logistics and supply-chain expertise as the longtime owner of a trucking company, was reportedly ‘intensely involved’ in the logistics of the project and has been among its most vocal advocates.”

According to his federal disclosure statements DeJoy owns Abbott Laboratories stock, POGO states. The testing kit program is an “initiative that could add to the personal wealth” of the Postmaster General.

“A federal conflict-of-interest law bars officials like the postmaster general from participating personally and substantially in certain government matters affecting their own financial interests,” POGO’s Walter Shaub, a well-known former government ethics official, and Neil Gordon report.

“DeJoy not only owned Abbott Laboratories stock, he appears to have traded the stock after the White House announced on January 7 that the COVID-19 test kits the administration had purchased would be ‘sent out through the mail.’ On January 11, two days before the federal government formally announced that it had awarded Abbott Laboratories a $306 million contract for the test kits, DeJoy engaged in two transactions involving Abbott,” POGO reveals.

The full report can be read here.