Thread by @SenatorLeahy

THREAD: Yesterday Commerce Sec. Wilbur Ross refused to testify before House Appropriators. On Tuesday he was a no-show before me & other Senate Appropriators. That’s too bad, because I have a few Qs about how he misled me the last time he testified before Congress.

One year ago I asked Ross why he had a sudden interest in adding the controversial citizenship question to the 2020 Census. He claimed that “the Justice Department is the one who made the request.”

But thanks to a FOIA lawsuit we now know that, almost one year before he testified before me, Ross emailed his staff claiming he was “mystified why nothing had been done in response to my months old request that we include the citizenship question.”

And here is Ross receiving an email, again almost a year before his testimony, from Kris Kobach—an architect of VOTER SUPPRESSION efforts—detailing a call they had had “months earlier” on the importance of including the question for determining representation in Congress.

Here’s another email from Kris Kobach detailing that his discussion with Ross about adding a citizenship question was at the direction of none other than Steve Bannon.

Here is Ross ready to call AG Sessions to pressure DOJ to support including the citizenship question.

Here’s an email to Ross from his staff detailing how DOJ “DID NOT WANT TO RAISE THE QUESTION” of citizenship given the controversies DOJ was already handling. That certainly doesn’t sound like Commerce “was responding solely to [DOJ’s] request” as Ross testified.

Thanks to these emails, we now know Ross’s testimony was false. As I said on the Senate Floor this week, Ross is not an investment banker anymore. He must answer to Congress & the American people. Hiding will not solve his problems. The truth has a way of catching up.