Trump officials tried to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census despite initial doubts among some in the administration that it was legal.
The smoking gun: The report offers a smoking gun of sorts — a secret memo the committee obtained after a two-year legal battle — showing that a top Trump appointee in the Commerce Department explored apportionment as a reason to include the question. It has long been speculated that the Trump administration wanted the citizenship question to exclude people in the country illegally from apportionment numbers. The report was released by a congressional oversight committee.
Against the law: The citizenship question was blocked by the Supreme Court in 2019. In the high court’s decision, Chief Justice John Roberts said the reason the Commerce Department had given for the citizenship question — it was needed for the Justice Department’s enforcement of the Voting Rights Act — appeared to be contrived.
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