The Trump administration is threatening to invoke presidential powers to withhold documents on its efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 U.S. Census, unless House Democrats drop threats to hold two top Trump advisers in contempt of Congress. The letter described as "premature" Cummings' decision to schedule a committee vote for Wednesday on holding Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over the materials. Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd, who signed the letter, said that given the threatened contempt vote, Barr "is now compelled" to ask that Trump "invoke executive privilege with respect to the materials" the committee has subpoenaed. Boyd said the Justice Department had already given the committee 17,000 pages of documents on the census issue and allowed two Justice Department officials to appear for committee interviews. Later on Tuesday, however, Cummings sent Barr a letter saying he would postpone the scheduled contempt vote if the Justice and Commerce Departments turned over specific documents the committee requested by Wednesday.

Source: dna June 12, 2019 01:07 UTC