The House Oversight Committee has sued Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross for refusing to turn over documents to the committee.
House Oversight Democrats tweeted:
#BREAKING Chair @RepMaloney filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the Committee against #AGBarr and #SecretaryRoss for refusing to produce docs regarding the Administration’s effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. pic.twitter.com/WWQPFqcAQ8
— Oversight Committee (@OversightDems) November 26, 2019
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The documents that the House Oversight Committee has been trying to get for nearly a year are related to the Trump administration’s efforts to add a citizenship question to the Census.
The House voted in July 2019 to hold Barr and Ross in contempt of Congress for stonewalling the congressional investigation.
After the contempt vote, the White House threw a fit, “The Departments of Justice and Commerce have produced more than 31,000 pages of documents to the House regarding the census issue, and senior officials from both agencies, including Secretary Ross, have spoken on the record about the matter. Instead of accepting the numerous good-faith efforts of accommodation the Departments have made, Democrats continue to demand documents that are subject to executive privilege. House Democrats know they have no legal right to these documents, but their shameful and cynical politics know no bounds.â€
Cynical politics is trying to run out the clock on the Oversight Committee’s investigation in the hope that a new Republican House majority will be elected in 2020 and make the investigation vanish.
Democrats aren’t going to allow Trump to run out the clock. As with the McGahn ruling, they are closing the walls in on Trump, and one by one, stripping away the claims that are the basis for his obstruction.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association