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Top Democrat Says Barr, Ross ‘Would Rather Be Held in Contempt’

Top Democrat Says Barr, Ross ‘Would Rather Be Held in Contempt’

(Bloomberg) -- Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross "would rather be held in contempt of Congress" than turn over documents to Congress about efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, a House committee chairman said Friday.

Oversight and Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland, announced both men failed to meet a Thursday deadline to hand over the sought-after material.

The panel announced later on Friday that it is scheduling a vote next week to hold Barr and Ross in contempt of Congress. The contempt vote would initiate the process of bringing a civil enforcement action to obtain compliance with the subpoena, the committee said.

Top Democrat Says Barr, Ross ‘Would Rather Be Held in Contempt’

“They produced none of the documents we asked for, they made no counteroffers regarding these documents, and they seem determined to continue the Trump Administration’s cover-up,” Cummings said in a statement.

At issue is the Oversight Committee’s investigation of the administration’s efforts to include the citizenship question on the census. Ross has told the committee the Justice Department in March 2018 requested the question be added to help it enforce the Voting Rights Act.

Political Reasons

But Democrats and other critics say the Commerce Department decision was politically motivated to undermine the Census Bureau’s count of the U.S. population. They argue it would decrease Census participation in areas with large immigrant populations, which could reduce their proportional representation and access to federal dollars.

Committee Republicans led by Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio slammed Cummings’ contempt threats, noting both departments have produced tens of thousands of documents and made witnesses available to the panel.

“The committee is in the early stages of its fact-finding — Democrats are prematurely jumping to contempt, when it should be the last resort," Charli Huddleston, a spokesman for Republicans on the panel, said Friday.

Cummings on Monday escalated his committee’s probe by issuing letters of warning to Ross and Barr. He gave them until Thursday to comply with already-issued subpoenas for the material on the topic -- or face contempt actions by his committee.

In those letters, Cummings explained: “In this investigation, the committee is seeking information on a host of questions, including the administration’s actual reasons for trying to add the citizenship question.”

Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd, in responding for Barr and the department, wrote Cummings Thursday that the department has been producing documents, but it will not turn over some specific Commerce Department communications because they are protected by attorney-client privilege and also carry executive-branch confidentiality interests.

Request Blocked

Boyd also said a Justice Department official, John Gore, will not be made available for committee questioning for a third time, as requested, unless accompanied by a department lawyer. He argued that excluding department lawyers would “unconstitutionally infringe on the prerogatives of the executive branch.”

In a separate letter Thursday to the committee, a Commerce Department legal representative, Charles Kolo Rathburn, said, “The committee’s assertion the department has obstructed this investigation is, quite simply, contrary to the facts."

He said the department has agreed to make available for transcribed interviews the department’s general counsel and former senior counsel and a senior adviser to the secretary. He also wrote that the Commerce Department has worked in good faith to comply with the panel’s probe by providing nearly 14,000 pages of documents.

Cummings said he isn’t satisfied. “We gave Attorney General Barr and Secretary Ross every opportunity to produce the documents the Committee needs for our investigation, but rather than cooperate, they have decided that they would rather be held in contempt of Congress," he said.

The citizenship question is now being considered in a legal case before the Supreme Court.

House Democrats have already scheduled a floor vote for Tuesday on a contempt of Congress action against Barr in a separate matter -- related to a stand-off with the Judiciary Committee over turning over Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s full, unredacted report.

To contact the reporter on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Wasserman, Steve Geimann

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