A federal judge on Friday rejected the Department of Justice’s request to delay a lawsuit against Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross for defying subpoenas from Congress as part of a House investigation into the Trump administration’s handling of the U.S. 2020 Census.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee in July held the two officials in criminal contempt for defying the panel’s subpoenas as lawmakers probe the administration’s attempt to add a citizenship question to the government’s population count.
Barr and Ross, in the meantime, “have doubled down on their open defiance of the rule of law and refused to produce even a single additional document in response to our Committee’s bipartisan subpoenas,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), the House Oversight chairwoman, said in a statement last month.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington claimed that with the census approaching the House Oversight and Reform Committee has an urgent case, reported The Hill. As a result, he set an expedited schedule to hear the lawsuit as the Census is slated to start next spring.
“I think it’s important to get going with the process,” said Moss, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, according to The Hill.
The Supreme Court rejected a Trump administration move to add a citizenship question to the upcoming census. Ross said he disagreed with the ruling at the time.
Following the ruling, President Donald Trump wrote that he would consider delaying the Census so the question could be added.
The upcoming Census begins in January 2020 in Alaska and later across the country in April 2020.
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