Signed, sealed, demented

From “Investigation of the Office of the Postmaster,” a report issued in July by the Committee on House Administration of the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1991, Capitol police discovered that employees of the House Post Office were embezzling public funds; the former House postmaster, Robert Rota, and Representative Dan Rostenkowski (D., Ill.) were implicated in the ensuing investigation. In the testimony excerpted below, Mary Catherine Braithwait, an employee of the House Post Office, was questioned by Mark Hathaway, a committee counsel.

Discussing his new book Gag Rule: On the Suppression of Dissent and the Stifling of Democracy.



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HATHAWAY: In your experience at the post office, was any member ever angry? Did you think that was a real possibility?

BRAITHWAIT: I do know that some years ago there was a man working in the mailroom by the name of Phillip Miller, who is the stepson of Congressman Bob Haze. Phillip was known to have very erratic behavior and a very bad temper. He did not work on the early-morning shift, but one morning he came in anyway. He seemed to be very agitated. He took off his shoes and socks and walked around the mailroom. Nobody knew why he was there. He asked someone for a cigarette; they gave it to him. He asked somebody else for a cigarette; they gave it to him. He asked a couple more people for cigarettes; everybody just gave him a cigarette.

He walked toward the back where the offices are. A little while later he came out, and he had a cigarette sticking out of each ear and one out of each nostril. He was pacing back and forth and had a radio on his shoulder. Nobody seemed to know what he was doing. He went to the back again and came out with binder clips attached to his face. I said to Paul Tomasek [Braithwait's supervisor], “You have got to get him out of here.” And he said, “I can't do anything about it.” I said, “What do you mean you can't do anything about it?” And he said, “Cathy, he has got a House I.D. He can come in here.” I said, “I don't think so. I think you should call the police.” He said, “No, I can't.”

The next night he came in again, and it was the same sort of scenario. It wasn't until late in the morning, when he started taking his clothes off, that people finally decided they had to do something about it. I wasn't there, but I was told that it took six officers to get him into a squad car.

Now, there was some kind of a report written up, and the people who wrote the report were really chastised by Mrs. Haze [Congressman Haze's wife], who told them that Phillip was a diabetic and that his insulin was not working properly and that that was why he had acted that way, and for them to infer that he was on drugs or drinking was wrong, because they were not doctors.

HATHAWAY: What did you do with respect to recording the incident for other people?

BRAITHWAIT: I didn't do anything at all.

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SEE ALSO: Career as postal service employee; Governmental investigations; Nepotism; Miller, Phillip; Postal service

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