White House asserts executive privilege in census fight
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has asserted executive privilege over documents that were subpoenaed by Congress related to the Trump administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, the Justice Department said Wednesday.
The claim comes as the House oversight committee is considering whether to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt for failing to turn over the subpoenaed documents.
In a letter to the committee’s chairman, Rep. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the Justice Department asserted that the Trump administration has “engaged in good-faith efforts” to satisfy the committee’s oversight needs and said the contempt vote was premature.
The administration has turned over more than 17,000 of pages of documents and Ross testified for nearly seven hours. The Justice Department has said two senior officials also sat for interviews with committee staff members and it was working to produce tens of thousands of additional pages of relevant documents. But that process will now be halted, Boyd said.
“Unfortunately, rather than allowing the Department to complete its document production, you have chosen to go forward with an unnecessary and premature contempt vote,” Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote in Wednesday’s letter.
Some of the documents are protected by attorney-client privileges and other confidential processes and the president has made a “protective assertion” of executive privilege so the administration can fully review all of the documents, Boyd said.
“The president, the Department of Justice, has every right to do that,” White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said on MSNBC. “They’re asking for documents that are privileged and I would hope that they can continue to negotiate and speak about what is appropriate and what is not, but the world is watching. This country sees that they’d rather continue to investigate than legislate.”
Democrats have accused the Trump administration of failing to comply with subpoenas in an effort to stonewall Congress’ oversight power.
The House Judiciary Committee voted last month to hold Barr in contempt of Congress after the department didn’t immediately comply with a subpoena to turn over an unredacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia probe and underlying investigative documents.
Republicans have criticized such hearings as a waste of time and have called for Democrats to move on.
By MICHAEL BALSAMO
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Democrats are doing everything in their power to prevent a valid question from being included in the 2020 Census
And here Trump claims he's the most transparent president ever - yet here's another example of why he's the least transparent ever.
WTF were Bush and Obama thinking when they started setting this type of precedent for the use of executive privilege? Each President seems to push it farther and farther.
It's politics
They are asking for the documents showing the development of the question by Republicans. If Republicans have nothing to hide and it was all above board and for the right reasons, what's the problem?
Kellyanne said “They’re asking for documents that are privileged" but what she really meant was "they're asking for documents that show how Republicans developed this question with the specific intent to disenfranchise Hispanic voters."
" The New York Times reported on Thursday that the estranged daughter of Thomas Hofeller, the GOP operative who had “achieved near-mythic status in the Republican Party as the Michelangelo of gerrymandering,” had discovered some hard drives. Those hard drives—left in storage when Thomas died last year—revealed that Hofeller played a central role in the Trump administration’s decision to push for the citizenship question on the census . Why? No need to guess—Hofeller recorded it for posterity (or some other reason he took to the grave): Doing so “would be advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.”
The Republican party fears being exposed. They've been caught by the courts carefully crafting voter ID laws that "target African-Americans with almost surgical precision,". They have used insane gerrymandering to cling to power, ever fearful that their white Christian hegemony will be undermined by our growing diversity. America is stronger the more diverse we are, but many religious conservative Republicans reject such reality and imagine we can only be strong if we're a white male Christian dominated society so they will do anything to protect that status quo. The ends justify the means to many of them so there is no low they won't sink to, no lie they wouldn't tell, no back they wouldn't stab. This is just more evidence of their scheming scum ridden agenda and complete lack of any honor, honesty and morality.
They aren't randomly asking are they? They already have the answer they want, right?
I see you enclosed the Times article which exposes the sordid detail that suits the left's propaganda machine perfectly. No need to debate whether the story is true or not...It's irrelevant to the SCOTUS. The SCOTUS has agreed to decide the case in time for the question to be included on the Census, should they so agree. The argument about "motive" via the daughter of Hofeller will not be considered!!!
So, the Times story and the request for documents is all about politics. The kind you seem to like.
To much "Common Sense" in your comment.
I'm not a masochist ya know !
Geeeeez !
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That's what most Republicans are hoping for. Having their motives exposed would let the world see what vindictive, small minded, bigoted pricks that those conservative Republicans who designed these intentionally discriminatory questions and voter ID laws really are.
I know …... RIGHT ?
Why the Fork do we need to know who is legally here or Legally Voting in this country.
It's such a drag on society to actually …… Know Something !
Suzy made a great carrot cake though. Tell the neighbors....won't ya ?
If Republicans were anything like that, they wouldn't have passed the Civil Rights Act nor granted amnesty to a load of illegal aliens in 1986.
Know thy history!
Well, in reference to many religious conservatives opinions I see and hear daily, the definition of common would be:
Common: adjective - falling below ordinary standards; second rate; lacking refinement; coarse
That sums up the supposed "sense" of this bigoted census question.
And the "Minority" Speaks.
Common sense
Book by Thomas Paine
Common sense is sound practical judgment concerning everyday matters, or a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge that is shared by nearly all people. The first type of common sense, good sense, can be described as "the knack for seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done." The second type is sometimes described as folk wisdom, "signifying unreflective knowledge not reliant on specialized training or deliberative thought." The two types are intertwined, as the person who has common sense is in touch with common-sense ideas, which emerge from the lived experiences of those commonsensical enough to perceive them."
But Thomas Paine was a second rate unrefined religious dope after all !
I'm sure you were able to "Perceive" what was just written......I hope !
May I say that you are on top of your game today!
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You mean the 1964 Civil Rights act that was crafted by a Democrat and then passed by a majority of Democrats and signed into law by a Democrat President? We know the Dixiecrats (who have almost all flipped Republican now as their old deep Southern Democrat party grip has now turned bright red) voted against it, but it certainly wasn't the minority party who passed the civil rights act.
"The legislation had been proposed by (Democrat) President John F. Kennedy in June 1963".
"Kennedy sought legislation "giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public—hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments"—as well as "greater protection for the right to vote". Kennedy delivered this speech in the aftermath of the Birmingham campaign and the growing number of demonstrations and protests throughout the southern United States. Kennedy was moved to action following the elevated racial tensions and wave of black riots in the spring 1963."
"Emulating the Civil Rights Act of 1875, Kennedy's civil rights bill included provisions to ban discrimination in public accommodations, and to enable the U.S. Attorney General to join in lawsuits against state governments which operated segregated school systems, among other provisions."
1964 Civil Rights Act Vote By party and region :
Note: "Southern", as used in this section, refers to members of Congress from the eleven states that had made up the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. "Northern" refers to members from the other 39 states, regardless of the geographic location of those states.
The original House version:
The Senate version:
I'm rather amazed that more people can't see how much the Republican party has changed over the last half century. They are no longer the party of equality, diversity and freedom for all regardless of race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, faith or lack thereof. They appealed to the disaffected white supremacists and now count the vast majority of white nationalists, KKK members and Neo-Nazi's among their numbers. They continue to hold the south as they always have, they simply changed their party color from blue to red. You'd have to be a complete moron to believe the power structure of bigots actually changed over the last few decades and that all those bitter bigoted hearts and minds have moved or died since the 1950's when they openly opposed integration and loudly proclaimed their imagined superiority. Those same folk now salute Trump and his anti-immigrant policies, his racist birther lies, his ignorant rhetoric of "Making America Great Again" which is just code word for going back to the 1950's pre-Brown v Board of education. It's why he has instructed his judicial nominees to refuse to accept Brown v Board as a correct decision which has made all his bigoted supporters dance with glee.
That is what truly lowers the bar of any debate and yes, it's sad to see how proficient some are at the "Troll Game" here on NT. I guess when a person has nothing better to do with their lives than attempt to get under the skin of anonymous people online and never have any valuable insights to offer so retreat to non-sequitur attacks and never ending pointless emoji's then "the game" is always better than looking in the mirror and doing any sort of self reflection.
Wev'e been through this many times haven't we?
JFK couldn't pass any Civil Rights legislation because of southern democrat opposition.
LBJ took it up after Kennedy's assassination. He faced the same opposition from southern democrats and had to turn to the REPUBLICANS.
The GOP ended slavery
The GOP passed the 14th Amendment
The GOP passed the Civil Rights Act
The GOP granted amnesty to millions of illegal aliens in 1986
The democrats were the party of slavery
The democrats were the party of the KKK
The democrats were the party of political correctness
The democrats were the party of affirmative action and social justice programs
The democrats are the party of hate for whites
The democrats are the party of reparations
The democrats are the party of hate for Christians
The democrats are the party of hate for Jews
As Obama used to say "It's a teachable moment"......Please learn from it
Yes, but you keep listing either complete bullshit or wrongly associating what was a completely separate party, the "Southern Democrats" with their own Presidential nominee with the "Northern Democrats" simply because they share the root word "Democracy" in their name.
Any actual professor of American history would laugh you out of class if you tried to claim all that mountain of bullshit.
Oh, to the contrary an actual professor of American History, in an institution that still teaches US History, would agree!
He/she would be first to say that the democratic party defended slavery, started the Civil War and Founded the KKK.
Liberals have changed the party. Changed it only via who they hate!!!
Conservatives did not end slavery and liberals didn't join the KKK.
Correct, but nobody said either did. We were talking about political parties, not ideology
The democratic party contained both southern segregationists and liberals at the same time throughout the 40's 50's and 60's. The liberals eventually took control of the democratic party but to my point of view they were no better that the southern segregationists.
In the 19th century, Southern Democrats were whites in the South who believed in Jeffersonian democracy. In the 1850s they defended slavery in the United States, and promoted its expansion into the West against northern Free Soil opposition.
"At various times, registered Democrats from the South broke with the national party to nominate their own presidential and vice presidential candidates, generally in opposition to civil rights measures supported by the national nominees. There was at least one Southern Democratic effort in every presidential election from 1944 until 1968, besides 1952. On some occasions, such as in 1948 with Strom Thurmond, these candidates have been listed on the ballot in some states as the nominee of the Democratic Party."
Southern Democrat Presidential Nominees:
1860: John C. Breckinridge
1948: Strom Thurman
1956: T. Coleman Andrews
1960: Orval Faubus
1968: George Wallace
To try and claim there's no difference between the Democrat party and Southern Democrats is beyond ignorant. It's intentionally being obtuse and the only reason I can imagine for intentionally trying to deceive everyone is to hide ones own deep seated bigotry.
You guys can keep trying, but history is already very clear on how extremely different the two parties that share the root word "Democracy" are. There have been many parties with the name "Democrat" in them, even the original Republican party was the "Democrat-Republican Party". Here is a list of the others.
1792 - there was the Democratic-Republican Party
1828 - there was the Democrat party
1860 - there was the Southern Democrat Party
1860 - there was the Northern Democrat Party
1896 - there was the National Democratic Party
1898 - there was the Social Democratic Party
1944 - there was the Progressive Democratic Party
1948 - there was the States' Rights Democratic Party (Dixiecrats)
1964 - there was the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
I know these facts won't make a dent in dense conservative brains who don't care about truth or reality, but it's all there for anyone who actually wants to educate themselves. The amount of shear rhetorical bullshit loaded into several of the above comments is truly stunning, and no, no history professor would ever back up that bullshit unless perhaps they're a brainwashed Liberty University professor with CTE.
Common sense means you don't allow partisan politics to dick around with the census. I posted a link to the gop plan to make sure democrats are hurt by putting this question on the census. Shall I post another few?
It isn't 'nonsense' or a 'barrel of crap' Tex. The ACLU documented it to the District court Judge AND the SCOTUS.
These Neuman and Gore guys LIED to the Judge and in depositions.
Then the STATES make districts that look like octopuses. They have the party affiliation, age, race and now they want the citizenship of residents. They can and will dump all of the young people, Democrats and non-citizens into one district and Republicans and non-Hispanic whites in others.
They will gerrymander their ass off.
Then the multiple Republicans who are elected will happily be representing a 'purged' district.
The young people, Democrats and non-citizens will have been disenfranchised because they will all be under one or two Representative with only one or two votes in the Congress.
Or they can do the opposite. Go look at what they did to Austin TX. They cut it up like a pie with Austin in the middle. Tiny slices of Austin Democrats diluted by big chunks of GOP suburbs. Again, the Democrats are disenfranchised because they are such a minority their candidates never get elected.
Can you possibly be that clueless Tex?
Tell you what, PROVE it's a lie and that it's illegal.
Here are a couple of visual aids for you.
You have to give them credit for consistency. The Democrats have stood for racial discrimination by the government since their founding. Attacking free speech (the gag rule in the 1830s) and racial discrimination have defined the party since its existence.
They do it all the time Tex. They just connect the dots. Sure, they'll be a couple of wayward 'undesirables' in those GOP districts but since they're 'safe districts' they can just ignore them and they DO. As a former constituent of a GOP Congressman, I can attest to that fact from personal experience.
But hey, in 2010 the Gerrymandered me into a solid blue district. They had to project tiny lines into my old district to purge the excess Democrats so they could make it permanently red.
Now, I'm waiting for you PROOF that it's a lie and illegal.
Well you would be wrong. Again. Read the articles, here are some pictures, but article is about Michigan and the courts didn't do shit.
Good article on gerrymandering.
Common Sense says there is nothing wrong with asking people in this country if they are an actual "Citizen" !
Only the "Illegals", or the ones that need "Illegals", would take issue with it.
And I find it rather sad to watch the Republican party today try to distance themselves from the Southern bigots they were only too happy to include in their fold when it won them the white house in 2016. It's hilarious to watch them dodge and slide trying to avoid what they KNOW to be true which is every single one of those fucking piece of shit bigots and confederate wannabes, KKK members, white supremacists and Neo-Nazi's are now die hard Republicans throwing their support behind this bigoted anti-immigrant President. You can make loaded accusations all day about a political parties past, both have much to be ashamed of from the last 240+ years, but the ones to really be ashamed of are the ones currently embracing such white nationalist fascism and hate, the ones defending the Charlottesville tiki torch crowd saying "there were fine people on both sides", the ones claiming the Nazi's did nothing wrong because they "had a permit".
Trump is a piece of shit bigot and all the white fascist piece of shit bigots in our country today LOVE him and totally support his abuse of power and his asserting executive privilege to hide their racist agenda. None of the religious conservatives here may be piece of shit bigots, but many appear to support the same things those piece of shit bigots do and if they're not asking themselves why they share an agenda with Nazi's, then frankly they're just as guilty of those who are open about it.
They know without that crowd they'd never even get close to winning another election. They have to embrace the white nationalists and Nazi's because there are far more of them than they will ever admit.
Trump and, Ross will have to answer this question in court and, my guess is, Ross will be forced to bring his information before the House and, explain it to them. This is not an executive privilege question, it is Trump trying to hide his real agenda.
The Supreme Court has already said that information will not be considered in their decision
Oh, you think this is going through the SCOTUS FIRST? Maybe you can show me where I said it was, I seem to have missed that part of what I said. It will be decided in the COURTS, there are courts that come before the SCOTUS does and, you usually have to go through them first.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday announced it would hear arguments in a dispute over the Trump administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
The court announced in an order that it would hear the case in April.
They are expediting the matter so that it will be settled in time for the question to be added
Link?
Read it and weep:
"The justices initially agreed to stay a district court order that required Ross to sit for questioning under oath in the discovery phase of the litigation and review whether the district court could order discovery outside the administrative record.
But after Furman moved forward with the trial and ultimately barred Ross from adding the question, the justices removed the case from the court’s calendar. Francisco then asked the court to review Furman’s ruling blocking the question from the census instead."
"Solicitor General Noel Francisco asked the Supreme Court last month to look at whether Judge Jesse Furman, an Obama appointee on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, erred in prohibiting Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross from including the question in the census.
The Census Bureau is part of the Commerce Department.
Francisco said the court’s immediate intervention is needed because the government must finalize the 2020 census questionnaire by the end of June for printing purposes. He argued it is exceedingly unlikely that the parties could obtain full review in both the appeals court and the Supreme Court before July."
Nowhere in your link does it say that:
In FACT, it doesn't say that the SCOTUS said ANYTHING.
Stop wasting my time...
Mentioning Elijah Cummings and justice in the same sentance represents a total oxymoron.
Simple question , whats to stop a non citizen from claiming to be a citizen when asked ?
I doubt whether an illegal alien is afraid of anything involving the US government
I don't recall there ever being a question whether the Commerce Dept and the Administration had a corrupt reason for asking the question. Do you?
The question is legitimate, reasonable and required by the Constitution.
If you want to question motivations you can start by looking at the democrats in Congress who refuse to do anything to fix the crisis on the southern border.
Prove that it's Constitutional.
Squirrel!
You would have flagged me for being off topic if I had posted that crap.
Where did you go Vic? You said the question is required by the Constitution, PROVE IT.
Real life calls, when it does I respond.
You said the question is required by the Constitution, PROVE IT.
I already have but here it is again:
The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.
ARTICLE I, SECTION 2, CLAUSE 3
You see that's what makes American citizens American - that we all follow the same rule book - the Constitution.
Even liberals.
Before I close it down, I'll give you my prediction. The SCOTUS finds in favor of the administration and the vote will be 5-4 with the liberals sticking together, as usual.
So perhaps then you should stifle that 'times up' bullshit.
ARTICLE I, SECTION 2, CLAUSE 3 doesn't require a citizenship question on the census. Stop claiming that it does ad nauseam.