President Donald Trump asserted executive privilege on Wednesday to keep under wraps documents on adding a citizenship question to the 2020 U.S. census, defying a House panel's subpoena in another move to stonewall Democratic lawmakers' investigations. The fight over adding a citizenship question to the census presents high stakes for both Trump's fellow Republicans and the Democrats, with the 2020 U.S. elections looming. The census population count is used to allot seats in the House and to guide distribution of billions of dollars of federal funds. The Oversight Committee is looking into how the Trump administration devised its plan to add a citizenship question. On the importance of the census, Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said at the meeting, "This determines who is here (in Congress).

Source: dna June 12, 2019 17:03 UTC