BREAKING: Trump Asserts Executive Privilege On Census Docs Sought By House Dems
President Trump asserted executive privilege over key documents related to the administration’s effort to add a citizenship question to the census, the Department of Justice said Wednesday morning.
The documents had been subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee in April. The announcement of the invocation of executive privilege came just as the committee was beginning a meeting to vote on recommending that Attorney General Bill Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross be held in contempt for defying the subpoena.
The Justice Department had
warned Tuesday afternoon it would seek an executive privilege assertion unless Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings held off on the contempt vote. Cummings
responded in a letter Tuesday evening that offered to let the Justice Department turn over some of the subpoenaed docs Tuesday night in exchange for postponing the contempt vote.
