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Straw Donors Or Activist Workplace? DeJoy Accused Of Compensating Former Workers' Donations

A semi-truck bearing the logo of XPO Logistics
Raymond Clarke

Campaign finance records show suspicious donation patterns from former employees at New Breed Logistics. Several former employees at the High Point-based company described an illegal donation scheme — workers’ political donations to specific candidates would be compensated with bonuses from Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, the chief executive of New Breed at the time. 

While it is legal for superiors to encourage employees to make donations, it is a felony to reimburse or financially-incentivize campaign contributions. DeJoy denies that he broke campaign finance law, however he routinely pressured employees to contribute to Republican candidates. He and his employees donated over $200,000 towards Sen. Thom Tillis’ successful campaign to unseat Sen. Kay Hagan in 2014. In 2012, Gov. Pat McCrory received $96,500 from DeJoy and New Breed employees. McCrory won the race for governor that year, and DeJoy's wife, Aldona Wos, was appointed as his state secretary of Health and Human Services. Host Frank Stasio talks with WUNC’s Rusty Jacobs and Jason deBruyn about their deep dive into the numbers and the legality of New Breed’s politically-active workplace. Jacobs is a politics reporter and deBruyn is a data reporter for North Carolina Public Radio.

Grant Holub-Moorman coordinates events and North Carolina outreach for WUNC, including a monthly trivia night. He is a founding member of Embodied and a former producer for The State of Things.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
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