President Trump's efforts to rig the census are a growing scandal

If nothing else, you must recognize that the Trump administration and the Republican party have been rigorous in their quest to overthrow basic democratic institutions and ideals. If there is a cornerstone of our system on which they have not at least tried to undermine, give them some time.

That's why we need to talk about the census, which at a different time may not be manipulated for partisan purposes. But that's exactly what the administration is trying to do. Not only that, he lied about what's going on – not just for the public, but under oath.

New information has emerged that deepens what we can only call scandal. But first, a little context.

As you may have heard, the administration decided shortly after taking office to add to the 2020 census a question to determine whether the person completing the form or the members of their household were American citizens – an issue that has not been around for ten years. census for 70 years. As all those who conducted census interviews will say, one of the great challenges of this monumental effort is to ensure that everyone responds in order to obtain a complete enumeration. This is particularly difficult in immigrant communities because, even legally present, they naturally suspect government officials knocking on their doors.

Add to the open hostility of the Trump administration towards immigrants and increasingly aggressive tactics of repression, and this suspicion will inevitably increase. If, in addition to this, you interview people about their citizenship status, you are virtually guaranteed to underestimate the number of immigrants. When this happens, it means that regions, cities, congressional districts and states with large numbers of immigrants will appear smaller than they are, resulting in diversion of resources, representation and political power.

What is precisely the point. But if you are the Trump administration, you can not just say that you want to add a citizenship question to underestimate the number of immigrants in order to give Republicans a political advantage. So what did he do?

The administration said that the citizenship issue was necessary to properly enforce the Voting Rights Act. Which has always been a bit odd, given that Republicans have virtually no interest in enforcing the right to vote, not to mention the fact that adding a citizenship question is not going to help them do that. . But without less ridiculous justification, that's what they agreed on.

How can I say with confidence that it was wrong from the beginning? Because we have documentary evidence showing the administration that builds the lie.

The census is hosted by the Department of Commerce under Secretary Wilbur Ross. As part of the spread of the lie about the voting rights law, Ross told Congress that adding the citizenship issue was not even his department's idea; this is supposed to happen because the Ministry of Justice asked for it. When questioned under oath in March, Ross said, "The Department of Justice, as you know, has launched the request for inclusion of the citizenship issue."

It was a lie, one of which he said under oath that might well constitute perjury. In fact, the Department of Justice did not initiate the application of the citizenship issue. In fact, the Department of Commerce asked the Department of Justice to ask him to ask the question of citizenship, to create what was in reality a false paper trail to conceal his actions.

In e-mails obtained as part of a lawsuit challenging the addition of a question on citizenship, Ross wrote to one of his associates: "I do not understand why nothing [has] been made in response to my request several months ago that we include the issue of citizenship. Why not? The assistant replied, "We have to work with the Department of Justice to convince it to ask for citizenship to be reconstituted as a census issue. "

There is a lot of back and forth in the documents that show some reluctance from the Department of Justice to participate in this scheme until a Trump nominee writes a letter in December 2017 " asking "the insertion of an issue relating to citizenship. . But there is no doubt that it is the Department of Commerce that set things in motion. Ross lied under oath that the judge "initiated the application".

Now this cycle is repeating itself with another lie, Ross told Congress:

US Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, has recalled being interviewed with Stephen K. Bannon, a former White House advisor, and Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, of the addition of A question on citizenship at the 2020 census, according to a document tabled Thursday by the Justice Department, although he has testified before the Congress. fact.

The document, which is part of a lawsuit in several lawsuits against the Trump administration on this issue, said Ross recalls that Bannon had called him in the spring of 2017 to ask him if he was going to talk to Kris Kobach, Secretary of State of Kansas, about a possible citizenship question about the census. .

The document appears to contradict Ross's testimony before Congress this year. At a March 20 hearing of Representative Grace Meng (DN.Y) on the fact that the President or someone at the White House had discussed the issue of citizenship with him, Ross responded : "I am not aware of any of these things."

Now he remembers! He spoke with Bannon, then the president's chief political strategist, who asked Ross to speak to the extraordinary opposition to the vote, Kris Kobach, on the issue of citizenship. I suppose they were all concerned about the proper application of the voting right law.

Let's take a moment to speak frankly. The idea that the Trump administration wants to add a citizenship question to the census only to facilitate the enforcement of the voting rights law is a particular kind of republican lie – the kind everyone knows is a lie every time that it is pronounced, but in one way or another convince oneself to take seriously. For example, "we only imposed these suppression measures because we are deeply concerned about electoral fraud" or "we only imposed these binding regulations on abortion clinics because we were deeply concerned about women's health ". laughing is a testament to their cold-blooded steel, but we are all supposed to claim to be sincere.

Lying to the public is one thing, however, lying in Congress is a criminal act. And in the case of Wilbur Ross, he did not just lie about the intentions of the administration, he lied about specific facts.

We all know what's really going on. Republicans want the census to undercount immigrants; Bannon and Kobach, two of the most anti-immigrant personalities in Trump's orbit, did not collaborate with Ross on this issue because they wanted the census to be as accurate as possible. Their involvement clearly shows what the real agenda was: depriving immigrant communities of their representation and strengthening the system in favor of Republicans. The question now is whether they will get away with it.