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The surprising mission of the Postal Service police who arrested Stephen Bannon
National Security
The surprising mission of the Postal Service police who arrested Stephen Bannon
By Alex Horton
August 20, 2020 at 5:11 p.m. EDT
When a Coast Guard vessel sped toward a yacht that had Stephen K. Bannon aboard Thursday morning, it carried the gun-toting members of the Postal Service’s investigator unit.
The arrest of the president’s former chief strategist on fraud allegations was news enough. But many learned from news reports that their friendly neighborhood mail carrier is backed by a centuries-old investigative arm that handles cases of child exploitation, cybercrime, drug trafficking and financial crimes.
Where are the agency’s roots?
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service traces its roots further back than the United States itself. William Goddard was named the nation’s first surveyor in 1775, a role created under Postmaster General Benjamin Franklin to audit postal accounts and investigate theft of mail or postal funds, according to the agency’s history site.
That would make the USPIS the country’s first and oldest federal law enforcement agency. As the United States expanded westward, so did the mail crisscrossing the country on trains, stagecoaches and horseback. That activity enticed criminals such as Billy the Kid, who was interviewed by postal agents in 1881 about mail robberies in Santa Fe, according to the USPIS.
Postal inspectors interviewed Lee Harvey Oswald about a mail-order rifle he allegedly used to kill President John F. Kennedy and played a role in hunting down Ted Kaczynski, the notorious mail bomber arrested in 1996. The handcuffs used in his arrest are displayed at the National Postal Museum.
In the 1950s and 60s, postal inspectors investigated the delivery of gay publications under laws meant to restrict mailing of obscene material, David Johnson, an author of a book on the federal government’s persecution of gay men and women, told Vox.
“They would go to people’s houses and search their houses,” Johnson said of postal officials. “They would sometimes make educational visits to employers, letting them know that their employee was receiving this material.”
{snip}
Matt Zapotosky, Josh Dawsey and Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report.
Alex Horton
Alex Horton is a general assignment reporter for The Washington Post. He previously covered the military and national security for Stars and Stripes, and served in Iraq as an Army infantryman. Follow https://twitter.com/AlexHortonTX
The surprising mission of the Postal Service police who arrested Stephen Bannon
By Alex Horton
August 20, 2020 at 5:11 p.m. EDT
When a Coast Guard vessel sped toward a yacht that had Stephen K. Bannon aboard Thursday morning, it carried the gun-toting members of the Postal Service’s investigator unit.
The arrest of the president’s former chief strategist on fraud allegations was news enough. But many learned from news reports that their friendly neighborhood mail carrier is backed by a centuries-old investigative arm that handles cases of child exploitation, cybercrime, drug trafficking and financial crimes.
Where are the agency’s roots?
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service traces its roots further back than the United States itself. William Goddard was named the nation’s first surveyor in 1775, a role created under Postmaster General Benjamin Franklin to audit postal accounts and investigate theft of mail or postal funds, according to the agency’s history site.
That would make the USPIS the country’s first and oldest federal law enforcement agency. As the United States expanded westward, so did the mail crisscrossing the country on trains, stagecoaches and horseback. That activity enticed criminals such as Billy the Kid, who was interviewed by postal agents in 1881 about mail robberies in Santa Fe, according to the USPIS.
Postal inspectors interviewed Lee Harvey Oswald about a mail-order rifle he allegedly used to kill President John F. Kennedy and played a role in hunting down Ted Kaczynski, the notorious mail bomber arrested in 1996. The handcuffs used in his arrest are displayed at the National Postal Museum.
In the 1950s and 60s, postal inspectors investigated the delivery of gay publications under laws meant to restrict mailing of obscene material, David Johnson, an author of a book on the federal government’s persecution of gay men and women, told Vox.
“They would go to people’s houses and search their houses,” Johnson said of postal officials. “They would sometimes make educational visits to employers, letting them know that their employee was receiving this material.”
{snip}
Matt Zapotosky, Josh Dawsey and Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report.
Alex Horton
Alex Horton is a general assignment reporter for The Washington Post. He previously covered the military and national security for Stars and Stripes, and served in Iraq as an Army infantryman. Follow https://twitter.com/AlexHortonTX
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