Thread by @hansilowang

THREAD: After digging through Trump admin's document dump for a lawsuit over shortened #2020Census schedule, I found this email showing Census Bureau CFO Ben Page unsure of what to tell leaders in Congress re: if the bureau still needed reporting deadlines extended as of July 20

2. By July 21, the Census Bureau apparently had "developed a plan in response to Secretarial direction to provide an apportionment count by the statutory deadline of December 31, 2020," according to this slide dated 7/21 (DOC_0007297) for a 8/10 census steering committee briefing

3. There's a heavily redacted 21-page memo with the file name "20200327-Memo on UndocumentedFINAL.pdf" (DOC 0007092) that Victoria Velkoff, the Census Bureau's associate director for demographic programs, and Chief Scientist John Abowd prepared for Deputy Director Ron Jarmin.

4. John Abowd sent this redacted March 27 memo to other top officials at the Census Bureau on July 21, hours after President Trump issued the now-blocked presidential memo calling for unauthorized immigrants to be excluded from the apportionment count.
npr.org/2020/07/21/892…

5. On July 17, Christa Jones, chief of staff in the Census Bureau's office of the director, sent an attachment called "Potential Cost Associated with Adjustments 7.17.20.docx" to Robin Wyvill apparently for "the record." Trump admin says it's a privileged document & withheld it.

6. On 7/27, 2 days before Census Bureau director testified before House oversight committee, bureau had "hearing prep" slide saying "current methodology" for processing #2020Census data won't allow it to meet "statutory deadlines based on projected current field completion dates"

7. "We're being asked again," Census Bureau Deputy Director Ron Jarmin says in a July 16 email to top #2020Census officials with the subject line "2020 processing acceleration." There are a lot of redactions in the replies so it's not clear who's asking for what again.

8. It looks like Trump admin attorneys took the time to redact the subject lines of these emails about July 30 meetings (L) but also identified them in an index (R) with a file name that looks a lot like a subject line:

"Fw_ EMERGENCY MEETING on 12_31 Delivery of Appo___.pdf"

9. On 7/30, the day senior career managers at Census Bureau were instructed to start formalizing a plan to shorten #2020Census, Ali Ahmad, a Trump appointee who's associate director of communications, notes "good news" that the bureau isn't getting "inside the beltway questions."

10. These emails make me wonder what it was like on July 30 for the career managers at the Census Bureau after they learned they were under orders to quickly figure out how to shorten the #2020Census schedule.

11. I wonder what career Census Bureau officials had to say about data quality (this email chain's subject line) and the last-minute changes to #2020Census schedule. Trump admin attorneys redacted this bc they consider it "pre-decisional deliberations regarding proposed updates."

12. It looks like Trump admin attorneys didn't want it to get out that there were "Impacts and Risks" involved in the process of shortening the #2020Census schedule.

Here's the same email message in different files -- DOC_0008686 (left) and the redacted DOC_0008939 (right).

13. It looks like there's an internal Census Bureau email distribution list about #2020Census data quality ("2020 Data Quality EGG List"), but Trump admin attys say they've don't have to disclose messages from Asst. Division Chief Jennifer Ortman bc "pre-decisional deliberations"