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The justice also refuses to allow John Gore, a senior official in the civil rights division, to appear before the committee without the department's lawyer in the room – which the committee has so far refused.
The committee said earlier this week that it was considering suing Attorney General William Barr and Trade Secretary Wilbur Ross in the Congressional court for refusing to follow through on his request for a court order. information on a survey on the issue of US citizenship. census. But committee chairman Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland, said on Monday that he would postpone the contempt vote if the Commerce and Justice departments produced the documents the committee had previously requested.
"The committee's action is premature and we are disappointed with the committee's erroneous description of the department's ongoing efforts to reconcile the committee's control interests," Deputy Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote Thursday in a letter to Cummings .
The census battle represents only one of the many ongoing fights between the Trump administration and House Democrats over oversight demands, a separate committee of the House, the Judiciary Committee, having already voted to condemn Barr in contempt of Congress for failing to provide the committee with the report and the evidence not taken from the investigation of the special advocate Robert Mueller in Russia.
On Thursday, Mr. Boyd stated that the department had already produced more than 17,000 pages of documents and intended to "continue the substantial production of documents", but that some documents, including a note from one Gore's commercial lawyer would continue to be concealed.
Boyd also noted that last week another senior justice official had spent "several hours answering all of the Committee's questions regarding the reinstatement of the citizenship issue", but the essence of the fight was focused on Gore's testimony and other documents requested by Cummings.
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