The House voted to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt of Congress for failing to provide information and testimony related to a citizenship question on the 2020 Census.
The vote was 230 to 198. No Republicans voted for the contempt citation, and four Democrats voted against it.
Wednesday’s contempt citation will be referred to the Justice Department, where it is highly unlikely a criminal case against the two men will be pursued.
The contempt vote serves as a serious rebuke of two top Trump administration officials and further escalates the discord between House Democrats and the Republican-controlled White House.
House Democrats have issued dozens of subpoenas to current and former Trump administration officials as part of a sweeping investigation into his presidency, and personal business and lawmakers are pursuing the information in court.
Later Wednesday, the House is expected to vote on articles of impeachment against President Trump that were introduced by Rep. Al Green, D-Texas.
House Republicans voted against the Ross and Barr contempt resolutions.
They accused Democrats of wasting valuable floor time on attacking the president for partisan reasons at the expense of addressing more important legislative matters.
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham also said in a statement to the Washington Examiner that “today’s vote by Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats to hold Attorney General Barr and Secretary Ross in contempt is ridiculous and yet another lawless attempt to harass the President and his Administration.”
“The Departments of Justice and Commerce have produced more than 31,000 pages of documents to the House regarding the census issue, and senior officials from both agencies, including Secretary Ross, have spoken on the record about the matter,” the White House continued. “Instead of accepting the numerous good-faith efforts of accommodation the Departments have made, Democrats continue to demand documents that are subject to executive privilege. House Democrats know they have no legal right to these documents, but their shameful and cynical politics know no bounds.”
The House has already voted on a civil contempt charge against Barr earlier this year, and lawmakers spent hours Tuesday debating a resolution condemning recent Trump tweets.
The House, meanwhile, has yet to reach a deal on lifting spending caps in order to pass legislation to fund the budget in October, Republicans said.
“No one ever went to the polls and said, we want you to spend a whole week attacking this administration,” Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California, said. “Let’s start focusing on the issues the American people are talking about at their kitchen tables.”
But Democrats argued they had no choice but to cite Barr and Ross for contempt of Congress.
The two men, lawmakers said, have refused to turn over information Democrats want related to how the administration decided to attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.
Democrats said while the administration turned over thousands of documents, much of it was redacted or not related to the information they were seeking.
Ross also refused to meet privately with House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, Cummings said Wednesday.
“What we are doing today is trying to protect the integrity of this House and the integrity of this census and to make sure we get the records we need to do our job,” he said.
Democrats held the vote despite a decision last week by the Trump administration to give up on efforts to add the citizenship question to the census.
The Supreme Court ruled the administration didn’t provide the correct rationale for adding the question. Trump said he will instead seek data on an illegal immigrant count by using existing federal data.
