June 06, 2019

Warren, Blumenthal, Senate Colleagues Call For Review of Conduct by DOJ Attorneys

Attorneys May Have Deliberately Misled the Public & the Courts About Trump Administration Efforts to Politicize the Census

Washington, DC – United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) joined Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and five other senators in writing to the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Professional Responsibility seeking a review of DOJ attorneys’ “alleged attempts to hide or obscure the contribution of a deeply partisan political operative to the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.” Recent reporting has revealed that DOJ attorneys may have given false testimony to mislead the court and the public about efforts by the Trump administration to add the citizenship question so that immigrants and people of color living in the United States would be undercounted.

“If attorneys involved in these lawsuits engaged in misconduct to defend the administration rather than to uphold the law, it is incumbent upon your office to investigate and administer appropriate disciplinary actions,” the senators wrote.

The letter was also signed by U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.).

Senator Warren believes the census must count every person and continues to be an outspoken critic of the citizenship question. She has been part of several other efforts to protect the integrity of the Census. Last month, she joined Senator Schatz and colleagues in calling for the inspectors general at the Departments of Justice and Commerce to investigate those departments’ efforts to hide partisan, undemocratic motives for adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. In October 2018, Senator Warren joined colleagues in requesting that the Department of Commerce Inspector General look into Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s decision to add the question.

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