The Trump Census Officer contacted the government operations manager on a citizenship issue.



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President Donald Trump talks about health care coverage at the White House on June 14, 2019 in Washington, D.C.

President Donald Trump talks about health care coverage at the White House on June 14, 2019 in Washington, D.C.

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

On May 30, the plaintiffs challenging the Trump administration's census citizenship question threw a bombshell: a central part of the Justice Department's rationale was apparently written by Thomas Hofeller, the GOP's long-time brain. In a 2015 study, Hofeller wrote that adding a question on citizenship to the 2020 census would be "advantageous for Republicans and non-Hispanic Whites" and "disadvantageous for Democrats". He also explained how Republicans could justify the insertion of a citizenship issue by falsely claiming that it would contribute to the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. Several passages from Hofeller's study appeared verbatim in the Justice Department's letter of 2017 which provided a legal justification for adding the question. The complainants argued that this new evidence demonstrated that real The reason the citizenship issue was added was to strengthen the voting power of white Republicans.

The Ministry of Justice responded with indignant denial. He insisted that the complainants could not link Hofeller to the Commerce Department (who oversees the Census Bureau), to Trade Secretary Wilbur Ross or to the Census Bureau itself. Thus, the plaintiffs did not have evidence that Hofeller's study played a role in the evolution of the citizenship issue.

Friday night, however, the defenders released new evidence linking Hofeller directly at the Census Bureau. The evidence comes from Hofeller's hard drives, which his daughter gave to a voting rights group after his death. It reveals that Christa Jones, currently chief of staff to the director of the office, personally contacted Hofeller to email him about the citizenship issue in 2015, several months before drafting the study. explaining how this issue would benefit white and disadvantaged voters. Jones played a key role in creating the citizenship issue. These e-mails seem to refute the administration's claims that Hofeller has nothing to do with the manipulation of the census.

Jones and Hofeller's relationship dates back to at least 2010. That year, Jones – then a Census Bureau official – sent Hofeller an email from his private Hotmail account regarding a segment of Sean Hannity. The Fox News host had condemned the office that ran an advertisement at the Super Bowl encouraging everyone to participate in the 2010 census. Jones sent Hofeller a transcript of the segment via email: "They could really hurt at the census. What do you think? The two men wondered if the advertisement was a waste of money. At that time Jones was a public servant at the Census Bureau. it is unclear why she was contacting Hofeller about his office from his private account.

Five years later, Jones again sent an email to Hofeller from his Hotmail account, warning that the office was collecting public comments on the 2020 census. "Public comments are very useful in this context. Jones wrote. The next day she sent a follow-up e-mail to Hofeller: "It can also be an opportunity to mention citizenship." Jones seems to have advised Hofeller to file a public comment encouraging the office to adopt a citizenship issue.

Other e-mails show that Jones has communicated with Hofeller and other Republican strategists throughout this period about redistricting issues. For example, in 2010, Jones sent Hofeller and Mark Neuman an email from Burton Reist, Director of the 2010 Census Communication Campaign, which highlighted a website refuting "misleading information" about the census. (Neuman, a friend of Hofeller, provided the 2017 letter that appeared to flow from the 2015 Hofeller memo to legally substantiate the citizenship issue.) Jones and Hofeller appear to have met for dinner in 2015 with an unknown third party. And Jones was on a 2010 discussion thread with Hofeller and several Republican agents, including David Avella of GOPAC, a Republican-based training group, and Charles Black, former partner of Paul Manafort and Roger Stone, discussing redistricting.

It is increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to believe that Hofeller has played no role in the insertion of citizenship. question.

After the election of Donald Trump, Jones was elevated to the rank of chief of staff of the director of the office. As such, she helped to review and approve the citizenship issue. She also sought out activists who favored the inclusion of the issue, suggesting Mark Kirkorian and Steven Camarotta of the Center of Immigration Studies, a notorious racist anti-immigrant organization.

In their filing on Friday, plaintiffs allege that Jones' direct private contact with Hofeller over the citizenship issue refutes [the government’s] claim that there is no link between Hofeller and [Ross] can be demonstrated. That proves rather than the promoter of the citizenship issue near the top of the Census Bureau communicated with Hofeller about the addition of the question.

The plaintiffs filed the evidence before the US District Court of Maryland, one of three courts that had blocked the issue before the Supreme Court heard their arguments. Judge George Hazel concluded that the issue was contrary to the Administrative Procedure Act and the enumeration clause of the Constitution, but do not find evidence of discriminatory acts that contravene the Equal Protection and Civil Rights Acts. The plaintiffs asked Hazel on Friday to reopen the case in light of the emails linking Hofeller to the Census Bureau.

On June 12, the Republicans of the House oversight committee tweeted this "[o]the cases involved in the decision "add the question of citizenship" have never heard of Hofeller. "But Hofeller's records show that on the contrary, a senior official who had endorsed the question of citizenship had a close relationship with Hofeller and had even discussed the question of citizenship with him. after the revelation that Hofeller's own words appear textually in a DOJ critical paper that attempted to justify the issue with a transparent pre-textual argument.

It is increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to believe that Hofeller has played no role in inserting the issue of citizenship. The Supreme Court is ready to rule on the legality of the matter by the end of the month; he can not ignore this growing evidence of bad faith and deception without undermining his own legitimacy.

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