Thread by @KlasfeldReports

Trump's citizenship question press conference has just started. whitehouse.gov/live/

TRUMP: "There used to be a time that you could declare you are a citizen of the United States."

As to declaring that on the decennial census, the last time you could do that was 1950.

Trump claims that the citizenship question helps provide a reliable count in the United States.

The Census Bureau disagrees, saying that it's cheaper and more effective to get that information from administrative records.

This speech defies fact-checking. It's pure disinformation.

Trump's executive actions, requesting administrative records, is what the Census Bureau's experts recommended and what Wilbur Ross overruled. This is why the plaintiffs sued.

It represents a total victory for the challengers of the citizenship question.

Barr claims that the reports, quoting senior Trump officials, that Trump planned to insert the citizenship question by executive order was "hysterical" and "rank speculation."

I see no reason why those sources should not be burned immediately.

Senior government officials can't feed reporters lies and use those lies to subsequently trash the media.

As @EricColumbus notes, the ethical consideration here would be did those sources believe those lies were lies when they told them. Were they in on the disinformation used to bash the press.

All other considerations are immaterial.