The Department of Justice declined to prosecute former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross over allegations he misled Congress in an unsuccessful push by the Trump administration to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
An internal watchdog opened an investigation after 13 senators penned a letter in May 2019 to the agency’s Office of Inspector General accusing Ross of concealing the “contribution of a political redistricting strategist” in the bid to add a citizenship question, which the then-secretary indicated would solely bolster enforcement of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION DROPS CITIZENSHIP QUESTION FROM 2020 CENSUS
A July 15 letter from Inspector General Peggy Gustafson, sent to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Oversight Committee Carolyn Maloney, said Ross was found to have misrepresented his reasoning. However, the watchdog noted the case was presented to the Public Integrity Section of the DOJ’s Criminal Division, but it was declined for prosecution.
A spokesperson for the inspector general said the decision not to prosecute was made in January 2020 during the Trump administration, according to Reuters.
“Our investigation established that the then-Secretary misrepresented the full rationale for the reinstatement of the citizenship question during his March 20, 2018, testimony before the House Committee on Appropriations and again in his March 22, 2018, testimony before the 2 House Committee on Ways and Means,” the letter read.
“During Congressional testimony, the then-Secretary stated his decision to reinstate the citizenship question was based solely on a DOJ request,” Gustafson continued. “That request memorandum was signed by the DOJ on December 12, 2017. However, evidence shows there were significant communications related to the citizenship question among the then-Secretary, his staff, and other government officials between March 2017 and September 2017, which was well before the DOJ request memorandum.”
The inspector general said the investigation was “unable to establish that the Political Strategist had a substantive public policy role in the addition of the citizenship question to the 2020 Census.”
“Our investigation did substantiate that correspondence from the Department to the DOJ contained verbiage similar to that used in portions of the Political Strategist’s unpublished study focusing on the use of Citizenship Voting Age Population for the purposes of redistricting; however, those similar portions related to historical and factual references to the Census and did not include the Political Strategist’s opinions,” the letter continued.
In June of 2019, the Supreme Court blocked Trump’s bid to add a citizenship question in a 5-4 ruling after the majority insisted the administration’s reasoning was “contrived.” The former president later abandoned his bid to add the question.
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“We are presented, in other words, with an explanation for agency action that is incongruent with what the record reveals about the agency’s priorities and decision-making process,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote at the time.
“Accepting contrived reasons would defeat the purpose of the enterprise,” Roberts added.
