Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the House Oversight and Reform Committee ranking Republican, left, and Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., right, during a committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2019. The committee voted to subpoena Trump administration officials over family separations at the southern border, the first issued in the new Congress as Democrats have promised to hold the administration aggressively to count. The decision by the Oversight Committee will compel the heads of Justice, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services to deliver documents. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the House Oversight and Reform Committee ranking Republican, left, and Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., right, during a committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2019. The committee voted to subpoena Trump administration officials over family separations at the southern border, the first issued in the new Congress as Democrats have promised to hold the administration aggressively to count. The decision by the Oversight Committee will compel the heads of Justice, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services to deliver documents. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A House committee voted Tuesday to subpoena Trump administration officials over family separations at the southern border, the first issued in the new Congress as Democrats have promised to hold the administration aggressively to count.

The decision by the Oversight Committee will compel the heads of Justice, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services to deliver documents to lawmakers.

The committee’s chairman, Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, has pledged to press the administration for documents and testimony on a wide swath of issues, but family separation was among his first priorities.

“I believe this is a true national emergency,” Cummings said. “When our own government rips children from the arms of their mothers and fathers with no plans to reunite them - that is government-sponsored child abuse.”

Cummings said committee members have been seeking the documents for seven months.

The Oversight Committee is seeking details on the children separated, location and facilities where they were held, details on their parents, information on efforts to restore children to their parents and whether parents were deported.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the committee’s ranking Republican, sent Cummings a letter arguing that the subpoenas would not be necessary, and that the administration had produced hundreds of pages of documents in response to earlier requests for information.

“We should not rush to compel documents from the departments, especially when they have sought to comply with your request voluntarily,” Jordan wrote.

Other Republicans said the committee should go through the paperwork they have on hand before deciding whether the agencies haven’t complied with the request, and ask for data related to separations under the Obama administration. But two voted to issue the subpoenas.

Cummings said the documents already submitted to the committee were vastly incomplete.

“The information we got was not one name, not one number,” Cummings said. “Zilch.”

A spokeswoman for Health and Human Services said the department appreciates the role of oversight and communicates regularly with the committee.

“Additionally, we have transparently provided 792 pages of documents related to the committee’s request,” and offered a review of an information portal, spokeswoman Caitlin Oakley said.

If any officials don’t comply with new subpoenas, the committee and eventually the full House could vote to hold the department in contempt, setting up a potentially lengthy court battle

More than 2,700 children were separated from their parents at the border last year under a zero-tolerance immigration policy by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions that criminally prosecuted anyone caught crossing the border illegally.

Because children can’t be placed with their parents in jail, they were separated. Watchdog reports have found the administration was not prepared to manage the aftermath of the separations, and had no way to track the families and did not have a way to reunite them until a federal judge stepped in.

An internal watchdog report recently found that thousands more children than previously thought may have been separated before the zero-tolerance policy officially began. Immigration officials are allowed to separate children if there is a concern for the child’s well-being, if a parent has a criminal charge or if there are serious health risks.

The House Judiciary Committee authorized a subpoena to compel then-acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker to testify if necessary, but it was never served. </s> (WASHINGTON) — A House committee voted Tuesday to subpoena Trump administration officials over family separations at the southern border, the first issued in the new Congress as Democrats have promised to hold the administration aggressively to count.

The decision by the Oversight Committee will compel the heads of Justice, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services to deliver documents to lawmakers.

The committee’s chairman, Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, has pledged to press the administration for documents and testimony on a wide swath of issues, but family separation was among his first priorities.

“I believe this is a true national emergency,” Cummings said. “When our own government rips children from the arms of their mothers and fathers with no plans to reunite them – that is government-sponsored child abuse.”

Cummings said committee members have been seeking the documents for seven months.

The Oversight Committee is seeking details on the children separated, location and facilities where they were held, details on their parents, information on efforts to restore children to their parents and whether parents were deported.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the committee’s ranking Republican, sent Cummings a letter arguing that the subpoenas would not be necessary, and that the administration had produced hundreds of pages of documents in response to earlier requests for information.

“We should not rush to compel documents from the departments, especially when they have sought to comply with your request voluntarily,” Jordan wrote.

Other Republicans said the committee should go through the paperwork they have on hand before deciding whether the agencies haven’t complied with the request, and ask for data related to separations under the Obama administration. But two voted to issue the subpoenas.

Cummings said the documents already submitted to the committee were vastly incomplete.

“The information we got was not one name, not one number,” Cummings said. “Zilch.”

The House Judiciary Committee authorized a subpoena to compel then-acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker to testify if necessary, but it was never served.

If any officials don’t comply with new subpoenas, the committee and eventually the full House could vote to hold the department in contempt, setting up a potentially lengthy court battle

More than 2,700 children were separated from their parents at the border last year under a zero-tolerance immigration policy by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions that criminally prosecuted anyone caught crossing the border illegally.

Because children can’t be placed with their parents in jail, they were separated. Watchdog reports have found the administration was not prepared to manage the aftermath of the separations, and had no way to track the families and did not have a way to reunite them until a federal judge stepped in.

An internal watchdog report recently found that thousands more children than previously thought may have been separated before the zero-tolerance policy officially began. Immigration officials are allowed to separate children if there is a concern for the child’s well-being, if a parent has a criminal charge or if there are serious health risks. </s> A House committee voted Tuesday to subpoena Trump administration officials over family separations at the southern border, the first issued in the new Congress as Democrats have promised to hold the administration aggressively to count.

The decision by the Oversight Committee will compel the heads of Justice, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services to deliver documents to lawmakers.

The committee’s chairman, Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, has pledged to press the administration for documents and testimony on a wide swath of issues, but family separation was among his first priorities.

“I believe this is a true national emergency,” Cummings said. “When our own government rips children from the arms of their mothers and fathers with no plans to reunite them – that is government-sponsored child abuse.”

Cummings said committee members have been seeking the documents for seven months.

The Oversight Committee is seeking details on the children separated, location and facilities where they were held, details on their parents, information on efforts to restore children to their parents and whether parents were deported.

A Homeland Security spokesman said the department had already sent over 2,600 pages in response to the request.

“Today’s unnecessary subpoena vote was a political stunt and contrary to the constitutionally mandated accommodation process,” said spokesman Tyler Houlton. “We have worked with congressional committees in good faith and will continue to do so. We hope they will return the favor and respect the process and the men and women of DHS.”

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the committee’s ranking Republican, sent Cummings a letter arguing that the subpoenas would not be necessary, and that the administration had produced hundreds of pages of documents in response to earlier requests for information.

“We should not rush to compel documents from the departments, especially when they have sought to comply with your request voluntarily,” Jordan wrote.

Other Republicans said the committee should go through the paperwork they have on hand before deciding whether the agencies haven’t complied with the request, and ask for data related to separations under the Obama administration. But two voted to issue the subpoenas.

Cummings said the documents already submitted to the committee were vastly incomplete.

“The information we got was not one name, not one number,” Cummings said. “Zilch.”

A spokeswoman for Health and Human Services said the department appreciates the role of oversight and communicates regularly with the committee.

“Additionally, we have transparently provided 792 pages of documents related to the committee’s request,” and offered a review of an information portal, spokeswoman Caitlin Oakley said.

If any officials don’t comply with new subpoenas, the committee and eventually the full House could vote to hold the department in contempt, setting up a potentially lengthy court battle

More than 2,700 children were separated from their parents at the border last year under a zero-tolerance immigration policy by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions that criminally prosecuted anyone caught crossing the border illegally.

Because children can’t be placed with their parents in jail, they were separated. Watchdog reports have found the administration was not prepared to manage the aftermath of the separations, and had no way to track the families and did not have a way to reunite them until a federal judge stepped in.

An internal watchdog report recently found that thousands more children than previously thought may have been separated before the zero-tolerance policy officially began. Immigration officials are allowed to separate children if there is a concern for the child’s well-being, if a parent has a criminal charge or if there are serious health risks.

The House Judiciary Committee authorized a subpoena to compel then-acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker to testify if necessary, but it was never served. </s> WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats voted to subpoena Trump administration officials over family separations at the southern border.

The subpoenas will be the first issued in the new Congress as House Democrats have promised to hold the administration aggressively to account.

The Oversight Committee voted Tuesday to compel the heads of Justice, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services to issue documents on family separations, including the age and gender of each child separated. Chairman Elijah Cummings says he’s been trying to get information for seven months and has received nothing.

More than 2,700 children were separated from their parents at the border last year. An internal watchdog report recently found that thousands more children than previously thought could have been separated.

Cummings said the separations were a “national emergency.” </s> WASHINGTON — Democratic-led House committee votes to subpoena Trump administration over family separations at border.

Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. </s> WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic-led House committee votes to subpoena Trump administration over family separations at border. </s> Democratic-led House committee votes to subpoena Trump administration over family separations at border

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic-led House committee votes to subpoena Trump administration over family separations at border. </s> A House committee voted Wednesday to hold two top Trump administration officials in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with subpoenas for documents related to a decision adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

The Democratic-controlled House Oversight Committee voted 24-15 to advance contempt measures against Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. The vote sends the measures to the full House.

The committee's action marks an escalation of Democratic efforts to use their House majority to aggressively investigate the inner workings of the Trump administration.

The White House asserted executive privilege on the matter earlier Wednesday. The Justice Department said officials had "engaged in good-faith efforts" to satisfy the committee's oversight needs and labeled the planned contempt vote "unnecessary and premature."

Democrats fear the citizenship question will reduce census participation in immigrant-heavy communities and result in a severe undercount of minority voters. They say they want specific documents to determine why Ross added the question to the 2020 census and contend the administration has declined to provide the documents despite repeated requests.

The administration has turned over more than 17,000 of pages of documents and Ross testified for nearly seven hours in March. The Justice Department said two senior officials were interviewed by committee staff and said officials were working to produce tens of thousands of additional pages of relevant documents.

The oversight panel's chairman, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, disputed the Justice Department's account and said most of the documents turned over to the committee had already been made public.

"We must protect the integrity of the census and we must stand up for Congress' authority under the Constitution to conduct meaningful oversight," Cummings said Wednesday.

The administration's refusal to turn over requested documents "does not appear to be an effort to engage in good-faith negotiations or accommodations," he said. "Instead, it appears to be another example of the administration's blanket defiance of Congress' constitutionally mandated responsibilities."

Trump has pledged to "fight all the subpoenas" issued by Congress and says he won't work on legislative priorities, such as infrastructure, until Congress halts investigations of his administration.

Ross told the committee the March 2018 decision to add the question was based on a Justice Department request to help it enforce the Voting Rights Act.

Cummings disputed that, citing documents unearthed last week suggesting that the real reason the administration sought to add the citizenship question was to help officials gerrymander legislative districts in overtly partisan and racist ways.

Computer files from North Carolina redistricting expert Tom Hofeller include detailed calculations that lay out gains Republicans would see in Texas by basing legislative districts on the number of voting-age citizens rather than the total population.

Hofeller, a Republican operative who died last year, said in the documents that GOP gains would be possible only if the census asked every household about its members' immigration status for the first time since 1950.

The Supreme Court is considering the citizenship question . A ruling is expected by the end of the month.

"I think it's totally ridiculous that we would have a census without asking" about citizenship, Trump said Wednesday, "but the Supreme Court is going to be ruling on it soon. I think when the census goes out ... you have the right to ask whether or not somebody is a citizen of the United States."

Some of the documents the committee is seeking are protected by attorney-client privilege and other confidential processes, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd said. The president has made a "protective assertion" of executive privilege so the administration can fully review all of the documents, he added.

"The president, the Department of Justice, has every right to do that," White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said on MSNBC. Democrats are "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."

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said the administration has thwarted congressional efforts to obtain key documents and exercise legitimate oversight. "All we get from the administration is a middle finger" of defiance, Raskin said. "And that's not appropriate for the power of Congress."

A vote by the full House to hold Barr and Ross in contempt on the census issue would be a political blow but would not result in real punishment since the men are unlikely to go to jail or be arrested. </s> WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump on Wednesday asserted executive privilege to shield documents about the administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, a move meant to try to undercut an expected vote by a House panel to hold his attorney general and commerce secretary in contempt for failing to turn over the materials to lawmakers.

Attorney General William Barr had a day earlier warned the House Oversight Committee that if it moved toward holding him in contempt, he would ask Trump to assert privilege to protect the materials. The committee, though, rejected his offer, and was preparing to vote Wednesday on a contempt finding when Trump followed through on Barr’s threat.

The department revealed the assertion in a letter to the committee, which called the contempt vote “unnecessary and premature.”

In the Justice Department’s view, the privilege assertion undercuts the contempt finding, because it prevents the attorney general from turning over materials lawmakers had subpoenaed.

But the Oversight Committee is expected to hold Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt anyway. Unless they later work out a deal with the Justice Department, the court system will ultimately decide which documents lawmakers are entitled to see.

The Justice Department and the Oversight Committee are essentially on the same trajectory as the Department and the House Judiciary Committee were last month, when the Judiciary Committee voted to hold Barr in contempt for failing to turn over materials related to now-former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.

In that case, though, the Judiciary Committee and the Justice Department later worked out a deal. That contempt process is in “abeyance,” though Democrats have taken steps to make sure they have the ability to sue the department in court.

The expected contempt vote Wednesday would mark a further escalation in the fight between House Democrats and the Republican administration over the investigatory powers of Congress that is playing out in multiple committees and the courts.

Democrats say the larger issue is that the White House is almost completely rejecting congressional oversight – stonewalling requests for documents and blocking witnesses from testifying on various subjects. The administration, meanwhile, argues that Democrats are requesting far more materials than they should legally have access to in an attempt to embarrass the president, and they have been unwilling to negotiate.

If the Oversight Committee contempt resolution is approved by the full House, Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., would be empowered to ask a federal court to order Barr and Ross to comply with subpoenas that sought documents related to the 2020 Census decision and testimony from a senior Justice Department official.

Democrats have already gone to federal judges in Washington and New York to seek enforcement of subpoenas targeting Trump’s financial records in the possession of private companies. They have scored initial wins in trial courts, but appeals are likely to play out over the coming months.

The Oversight Committee authorized Cummings in April to issue subpoenas to Barr and Ross for documents related to the Census decision and for a deposition of John Gore, principal deputy assistant attorney general.

But the Justice Department said it would not comply with the subpoena for Gore to testify. In a letter last week to Barr, Cummings cited the attorney general’s “unprecedented order” to Gore to defy the subpoena as part of the reason for the contempt votes.

Democratic lawmakers have accused the Trump administration of stonewalling their efforts to investigate Ross’s March 2018 decision to add the citizenship question, which the government says it needs to better enforce the Voting Rights Act.

In a statement last week, the Commerce Department noted that Ross has previously testified before the committee and that the department has turned over nearly 14,000 pages of documents to the panel.

Opponents of the citizenship question have argued that it will suppress responses to the survey among immigrant communities, resulting in an undercount in the areas where they live.

The population count from the Decennial Census is used to allocate $800 billion a year in federal funding and determine congressional representation and redistricting.

A key issue in the challenges to the citizenship question is how it came to be added. Ross originally told Congress that his decision to add it came solely in response to a December 2017 request from the Justice Department, but lawsuits later produced emails showing that Ross, who oversees the Census Bureau, had been pushing for the question for months before that.

In March of this year, Democrats on the Oversight Committee grilled him about it extensively, with several asking whether he had lied under oath, and one demanding his resignation.

The committee also met with Gore that month on the matter, but Cummings said he refused to answer more than 150 questions, citing ongoing litigation.

Three federal judges have struck down the Census question, saying Ross’ actions in adding it were in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.

The Supreme Court heard the case April 23. Evidence in the case concluded with oral arguments that day, and it appeared that the conservative majority seemed inclined to agree with the government that the decision to add the question was within the authority of the commerce secretary.

Last month, new evidence emerged suggesting that the citizenship question was crafted specifically to give an electoral advantage to Republicans and whites.

The evidence was found in the files of the prominent Republican redistricting strategist Thomas Hofeller after his death in August. According to lawyers challenging the question, it reveals that Hofeller “played a significant role in orchestrating the addition of the citizenship question to the 2020 Decennial Census to create a structural electoral advantage for, in his own words, ‘Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites.’ ”

The lawyers also argued that Trump administration officials purposely obscured Hofeller’s role in court proceedings.
An oversight committee is expected to vote on whether to subpoena Trump administration officials over family separations at the southern border.