Postal Service braces for potential takeover by Trump's Commerce Department

WASHINGTON — The Board of Governors of the U.S. Postal Service is bracing for an attempted takeover by the Trump administration and has retained outside counsel to fight any executive order to that effect, according to two sources with knowledge of the board’s plans.

The board's nine members, who are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, held an emergency meeting after the Senate confirmed Howard Lutnick for commerce secretary on Wednesday, the sources said. In December, Lutnick first discussed his plans with President Donald Trump to dissolve USPS leadership and fold the agency into the Department of Commerce, according to one of the sources.

No executive orders targeting the Postal Service are in the works, according to two White House officials, though they acknowledged there have been talks about ways to make it more efficient along with the rest of the federal government.

The Washington Post first reported a potential takeover of USPS.

In the Oval Office, during Lutnick’s swearing in ceremony Friday, Trump revealed that his new commerce secretary “will be looking” at USPS.

“He’s going to look at it, he’s got a great business instinct, which is what we need, and he’ll be looking at it. And we think we can turn it around, but it’s — it’s the Postal Service,” Trump said in response to questions from reporters. “We’re losing so much money with the Postal Service, and we don’t want to lose that kind of money. So the Secretary and some others that have talent, that kind of talent, we’ll be looking at it.”

USPS reported a net profit of $144 million for the first quarter of this fiscal year, the first time the agency posted a profit since 2006, according to the Pew Research Center.

The postal board believes any executive order would be unconstitutional, given that the Postal Service is authorized by the Constitution and was created by an act of Congress. It’s also unlikely that Trump would be able to privatize the agency without congressional approval.

Mark Dimondstein, the president of the American Postal Workers Union, said in a statement any takeover attempt would be an “attack on the postal service.”

“The takeover would reduce service, especially to rural America, raise rates, close post offices and profit from what is property owned by the American people,” said Dimondstein. “We ask all our customers to join us in the fight to maintain our vibrant, independent, and public United States Postal Service and to oppose these illegal acts.”

During his first administration, Trump eyed doing away with what's known as the universal service obligation, a federal requirement that directs the Postal Service to provide mail services to all U.S. residents daily, regardless of where they live. If the Trump administration seeks to do away with USPS, it could impact millions of people rely on the Postal Service for critical mail, including medications, particularly in rural areas.

The discussions on USPS come as the recently established Department of Government Efficiency, led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, has slashed dozens of federal programs and cut thousands of government jobs during the first month of Trump’s second term. The cuts are part of an effort by Trump and Musk to overhaul the federal government.

Any efforts to dismantle the Postal Service would not be an anomaly under the Trump administration, which has sought to fold aspects of USAID and the Department of Education into other agencies. At the same time, many of Trump’s moves to implement swift changes have encountered legal roadblocks in the courts.

Republican Louis DeJoy, head of the USPS for the last five years, announced plans to step down as postmaster general this week. During the transition, DeJoy met with members of the incoming Trump administration and it didn’t go well, according to one source with knowledge of the meeting, who said DeJoy and Lutnick have also had a contentious relationship.

After 2020, when millions of Americans, mostly Democrats, voted by mail during the coronavirus pandemic, DeJoy’s relationship with Trump never thawed, according to a source familiar with the president’s thinking on the USPS and mail-in voting. Trump criticized the practice in 2020 and blamed his loss to Joe Biden on it.

“Trump doesn’t view the USPS as a service,” the source said, even though the word is in its name. “He still has issues with mail-in voting.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com