THREAD: More emails show Census Bureau officials tried to push back against Trump admin pressure to shorten #2020Census - "any thinking person who would believe we can deliver apportionment by 12/31 has either a mental deficiency or a political motivation"
documentcloud.org/documents/7215…
2. Days before Trump admin announced it was cutting #2020Census schedule short, Christa Jones, chief of staff in Census Bureau's office of the director, urged including language in a slide deck to make clear that this was not career bureau officials' idea.
documentcloud.org/documents/7215…
3. According to draft Census Bureau talking points for a House Oversight briefing in April, DOJ had supposedly concluded there's "not a constitutional issue" with delaying delivery of the #2020Census appointment count until after 12/31 statutory deadline.
documentcloud.org/documents/7215…
4. Delaying delivering #2020Census apportionment count until after 12/31 statutory deadline "complies" w Constitution & will help Census Bureau "in fulfilling its constitutional requirement to conduct an enumeration," according to 4/23 draft talking points
documentcloud.org/documents/7215…
5. April 27 draft Census Bureau memo for call w @RepRaskin says proposal to delay delivering #2020Census apportionment count until after 12/31 "underwent a constitutional review," would help meet "constitutional requirement of a complete & accurate census"
documentcloud.org/documents/7215…
@RepRaskin 6. According to a draft document sent to Commerce @SecretaryRoss (aka "SWLR" in internal emails), as of May 8, the Census Bureau could "no longer meet its statutory deadlines for delivering apportionment and redistricting data" given delays from COVID-19
documentcloud.org/documents/7215…
@RepRaskin @SecretaryRoss 7. These internal emails & memos were originally redacted or withheld from the public when Trump admin first filed documents for the Nat'l Urban League-led lawsuit over the shortened #2020Census schedule, but plaintiffs' attorneys pushed back & judges agreed they should be public
@RepRaskin @SecretaryRoss 8. I wrote about the previously released internal documents here:
npr.org/2020/09/20/914…
9. UPDATE: Asked by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh respond to this email during a hearing for the Nat'l Urban League-led lawsuit over the shortened #2020Census schedule, DOJ attorney says Aleks Sverdlov "the record speaks for itself."
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