In the immediate run-up to a House of Representatives vote Wednesday in which Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross were held in criminal contempt, the pair of senior Trump administration officials implored Democrat leaders to cancel what they called an “unjustified contempt vote.”
A final request
“We write to strongly oppose the pending resolution of the Committee on Oversight and Reform concerning the decision to reinstate a citizenship question on the 2020 Census,” they wrote in a letter addressed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
JUST IN: BARR and ROSS write to Speaker Pelosi urging her to cancel the imminent vote to hold them in contempt of Congress >>> pic.twitter.com/UYDpcLts8v
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) July 17, 2019
This was not an unreasonable request. Although Barr and Ross defied a congressional subpoena asking them to hand over internal documents related to the White House’s attempts to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census, the issue became null avoid after President Trump abandoned these efforts.
In addition, the two insisted that their respective agencies have already been cooperative with House investigators. They wrote:
It is unfortunate that in spite of our Departments’ substantial efforts to accommodate the Committee’s interests, the Committee — and now the House of Representatives — has chosen to go forward with an unsubstantiated contempt vote regarding a citizenship questions that, as you know, will not be asked on the 2020 Census questionnaire.
Serious charges
The attorney general and commerce secretary have also received support from Republican members of Congress. Prior to Thursday’s vote on the House floor, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) attacked Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings for holding a committee vote to hold the pair in contempt, making him eat his own words.
“Holding someone in contempt of Congress is one of the most serious and formal actions our committee can take,” Meadows began. “It should not be used as a political tool to generate press as part of an election-year witch hunt.”
“Now, who is responsible for that quote?” he asked. “It’s not Jordan, it’s not Cheney, It’s Chairman Elijah Cummings!”
Without a doubt, Barr and Ross were legally and ethically justified in denying 15 pages of documents to the Oversight Committee. In their letter to Pelosi, they cited the “privileged status” of the records, in addition to “active legislation that remain pending in this matter.”
The easy way
House Democrats chose not to file civil contempt charges against the administration officials, because doing so would have allowed them to defend themselves by asserting executive privilege over the documents.
Democrats much preferred to file impotent charges against the pair that stand no chance of culminating in a court battle over the documents.
They would lose such a fight, and they know it. These contempt charges were merely designed to produce a political result, without pressing the issue in a court of law.
“[W]e urge that the House postpone the contempt vote in order to allow the constitutionally mandated accommodation process to continue,” Barr and Ross explained in what ultimately proved to be a futile effort. They further reminded the committee “that the constitutionally required obligation to engage in good faith accommodation cuts both ways.”
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