Washington – The House Oversight Committee is moving to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with subpoenas for documents related to the Trump administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
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Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the panel’s Democratic chairman, said lawmakers will vote soon on contempt measures for both men.
A contempt vote would be an escalation of Democratic efforts to use their majority to aggressively investigate the inner workings of President Donald Trump’s administration. But while finding the men in contempt would be a political blow, there would be no real punishment since Barr and Ross are unlikely to go to jail or be arrested.
In a statement Monday , Cummings said the failure of Barr and Ross to respond to the Oversight subpoenas was “part of a pattern” by the administration to engage in a “cover-up” and challenge the authority of Congress to conduct constitutionally required oversight.
“This cover-up is being directed from the top,” Cummings said, noting that Trump has vowed to fight all subpoenas issued by Congress and refused to work on legislative priorities, such as infrastructure, until Congress halts investigations of his administration.
While Trump has suggested that congressional subpoenas are partisan and somehow related to the Russia probe, neither claim is true, Cummings said. “The subpoenas in this investigation were adopted on a bipartisan basis, and this investigation has nothing to do with Russia,” he said.
The committee approved the subpoenas on the census issue in April. Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan was the sole Republican to join with Democrats in the 23-14 vote. Amash later said he supports an impeachment inquiry against Trump.
Democrats say they want specific documents to determine why Ross added the citizenship question to the 2020 census. They say the Trump administration has declined to provide the documents despite repeated requests.
Ross said the decision in March 2018 to add the question was based on a Justice Department request to help it enforce the Voting Rights Act.
Cummings disputed that, citing documents unearthed last week suggesting that the real reason the administration sought to add the citizenship question was to help officials gerrymander legislative districts in overtly partisan and racist ways.
Computer files from North Carolina redistricting expert Tom Hofeller include detailed calculations that lay out gains Republicans would see in Texas by basing legislative districts on the number of voting-age citizens rather than the total population.
Hofeller, a Republican operative who died last year, said in the documents that GOP gains would be possible only if the census asked every household about its members’ immigration status for the first time since 1950.
Ross said the department has turned over 11,500 pages of documents and noted that he testified at a hearing this year.
Democrats say Ross considered adding the citizenship question from his first days in the administration in 2017. They fear the question will reduce census participation in immigrant-heavy communities, harming representation and access to federal dollars.
Should President Obama be Investigated for Concocting and Spreading the Fake Trump-Russia Conspiracy Hoax?
Now that the Mueller Report has been released and President Trump has been exonerated of any collusion with Russia it is time to take a look at who should be held responsible for all of the fake news the past two years.
According to Senator Rand Paul, he says the Obama administration should be investigated for “abuse of surveillance powers” and for concocting and spreading the Russian conspiracy hoax.
(Tea Party PAC) – The fact that Trump Derangement Syndrome has so deeply infected the swamp rats (and the lemming citizens who support them) isn’t shocking anymore. Depressing, sure, but not shocking.
Ever since he came on the scene in the 2016 race, these people have had it out for Donald Trump, and they’ll rip to shreds any foundational American institution that stands in their way.
In a Thursday interview with Jan Crawford from CBS This Morning in Alaska, Attorney General Bill Barr made the issue crystal clear: the overwhelming evidence points to no collusion, and this entire witch hunt is an attack on our very republic as much as it is on our president.
“From my perspective the idea of resisting a democratically elected president and basically throwing everything at him and you know really changing the norms on the grounds that we have to stop this president, that is where the shredding of our norms and institutions is occurring,” Barr said, countering the leftist narrative that Trump is destroying our country:
Attorney General Bill Barr continues to be the Left’s worst nightmare as he unravels the Deep State’s attempted coup and cover-up…
…and he just exposed Robert Mueller’s dubious Deep State agenda.
So Democrats and their stooges in the leftist media are ratcheting up their attacks in hopes of taking him out before he brings down the entire Deep State house of cards.
Anyone old enough to remember Holder??
Well, he is not complying with a subpoena. That is contempt.
No hoax.
Mueller ultimately indicted, convicted or got guilty pleas from 34 people and three companies.
Mueller documented at least 251 contacts that Team TRump and the Russians had before the election. All of which Team TRump lied about.
There were 2 campaigns for TRump for President. One was run by TRump, Bannon, Manafort and Con-man-way. The other was run by Putin, Kislyak, Wikileaks and the KGB.
This is great! Let dems continue to spend all their time with more and more investigations into Trump, acts against Trump and his administration, and when election time rolls around and they have nothing else to show for what they’ve done to benefit the American people since taking control of the house, smart Americans will kick their tuchesses straight where they belong!