Census Fight Grows as House Panel Backs Contempt and Trump Asserts Privilege
WASHINGTON — A House committee voted on Wednesday to recommend that the House hold two cabinet secretaries in contempt of Congress, hours after President Trump invoked executive privilege to block disclosure of crucial documents on the decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee’s contempt recommendation for Attorney General William P. Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross sets up a possible vote on the House floor in the coming weeks. It was the culmination of a monthslong dispute with the administration over the panel’s efforts to compel testimony from top officials and documents related to the census question. The vote was mostly along party lines, with only one Republican, Representative Justin Amash of Michigan, the sole member of his party to call for Mr. Trump’s impeachment, supporting it.
It was the latest front in an escalating conflict between Mr. Trump and the Democratic House, as lawmakers step up their attempts to perform oversight of the government and the executive branch moves to keep its internal deliberations confidential. The fight could ultimately result in a lengthy court battle over the ill-defined line between those rival constitutional powers.
At issue on Wednesday was a politically fraught battle over the committee’s attempts to investigate the Trump administration’s decision to ask 2020 census respondents whether they are citizens, an issue that has gone all the way to the Supreme Court. The court is expected to decide the legality of the question within weeks.
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