Congressman Blake Farenthold (R, Texas) says he wants answers about what he saw in a News4 I-Team investigation into reported sexual assaults inside the US Postal Service.
“Absolutely unacceptable. It’s not right,” Rep. Farenthold told the I-Team in his Capitol Hill office.
He said he was appalled at the revelation one out of every five sex assaults inside USPS was committed by postal employees against other postal employees.
He said it was the first time he heard of the problem and the retaliation employees the I-Team interviewed said they encountered when they made complaints about their supervisors.
The I-Team spent more than six months trying to get an interview with US Postmaster Patrick Donahoe until approaching him at a recent stamp event. That’s when Donahoe said, "Our employees are safe. We provide a safe environment. We provide an environment where if there is a problem, we respond to it."
But Rep. Farenthold said, “What concerns me most was how difficult it was for you to get the information.”
Farenthold is the chairman of Postal Service’s oversight committee in the U.S. House of Representatives and said he wrote a letter to the Postmaster General after he watched the I-Team report.
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In the letter, he asks a series of questions about how the Postal Service plans to prevent sexual assault and sexual harassment.
“We’re going to see what the Postmaster has to say and look at the responses to the letter. I think this is something that’s probably worth having a hearing on here on Capitol Hill, so we can listen to both sides of the issue and see what needs to be done.”
