President Trump
has asserted executive privilege over congressionally subpoenaed
documents on the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census,
the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
The announcement comes as the House Oversight and Reform Committee is set to vote on whether to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt for failing to comply with congressional subpoenas for the documents.
“By
proceeding with today’s vote, you have abandoned the accommodation
process with respect to your requests and subpoenas for documents
concerning the secretary’s decision to include a citizenship question on
the 2020 census,” Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote in a
letter to House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.).
“The
executive branch has engaged in good-faith efforts to satisfy the
legislative needs of the committee. Moreover, until the committee’s
abrupt decision to seek a contempt resolution, the department was
prepared to provide a significant number of additional documents
responsive to the committee’s April 2, 2019 subpoena.”
“Unfortunately,
rather than allowing the department to complete its document
production, you have chosen to go forward with an unnecessary and
premature contempt vote.”
Boyd wrote that Trump has asserted
executive privilege over some of the subpoenaed documents, including
drafts of a letter sent from the Justice Department to Commerce
Department officials requesting that the citizenship question be added
to the 2020 census.
Cummings blasted the administration over the
assertion, saying that he has been asking for the documents at hand
for more than a year and questioning why the departments didn’t send
their letters until moments before the vote was scheduled to be held.
“This does not appear to be an effort to engage in good faith negotiations or accommodations,” he said.
The
chairman said that he would delay the contempt vote until this
afternoon to allow members to review the letters on executive privilege.
The
announcement came one day after Boyd sent a separate letter to
Cummings, warning that executive privilege would be invoked if the House
panel moved forward with the contempt votes for Barr and Ross.
The Justice Department official also asked Cummings to delay the vote as
Trump weighs whether the documents fall under the scope of executive
privilege.
“As I indicated in my letter to you yesterday, this
protective assertion ensures the president’s ability to make a final
decision whether to assert privilege following a full review of these
materials,” Boyd wrote Wednesday.
The Commerce Department on
Wednesday also sent Cummings a letter notifying him that Trump has
asserted executive privilege over some of the documents subpoenaed from
that agency.
“The department regrets that you have made this
assertion necessary by your insistence upon scheduling a premature
contempt vote,” wrote Charles Rathburn, the acting assistant secretary
for legislative and intergovernmental affairs at the Commerce
Department.
In a letter sent Tuesday night, Cummings offered to
delay the contempt vote if the two agencies handed over unredacted
copies of certain documents requested by the lawmakers.
Boyd wrote
in the letter Wednesday that the “department has explained to the
committee on several occasions that these identified documents consist
of attorney-client communications, attorney work product, and
deliberative communications, and a federal court has already held many
of these documents to be privileged in litigation.”
Wednesday’s move is the latest effort by the White House to assert executive privilege over documents sought by Democrats investigating Trump and his administration.
[The Hill]
