Blumenthal Demands Answers After Postal Service Loses Veteran's Cremains & Calls for Investment in USPS Ahead of November Election

[HARTFORD, CT] – With U.S. Postal Service (USPS) service degraded, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), joined by the family of Scott Egan, demanded answers from the U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy after USPS lost the veteran’s cremains for 12 days.

“The Postmaster General owes an apology to this family and owes an apology to all Americans because everyone across the country has been a victim of the delays, the cutbacks, downsizing, degrading of the Postal Service,” said Blumenthal at a press conference outside the post office in Suffield, Connecticut. “The removal of sorting machines, the closing of collection boxes, the elimination of overtime, the reduction in hours, and the cuts to on-time delivery. No coincidence, no accident - purposeful and tireless.”

Blumenthal emphasized the threat DeJoy’s USPS cuts pose to the November election, saying: “The Postmaster General has committed cuts will be postponed until after the election, but I don’t trust him. I have no faith in his word, he lost all credibility. He has refused to restore the cuts that already have been made, and that is the threat to mail-in voting that still is real and urgent.”

Blumenthal reiterated his call for U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to call the Senate back into session to pass the next COVID-19 relief package, which includes critical USPS funding, to “eliminate all doubt and uncertainty” ahead of the election and for all Americans to be able to rely on the Postal Service: “It is solely a matter of investment. There is nothing magic about it. That sorting machine that was decommissioned was the reason why in Springfield – just across the border – Scott Egan’s remains sat for five days, without anybody knowing in the family where they were. The cuts in equipment, in investment, have real-life consequences.”

Egan served in the U.S. Army Medical Corp from 1973 to 1988. He passed away July 11, 2020. Following his cremation, his sister mailed his remains to Maryland for internment. After the remains did not arrive on time, his family contacted Blumenthal and U.S. Senator Chris Murphy’s (D-CT) offices for assistance locating his remains. After several calls to the USPS, Egan’s remains were located and hand delivered to his family by a postal worker who drove for two hours each way without overtime pay.

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