A federal judge ruled Thursday that the administration misled the court over President Trump’s determination to ask about citizenship on this year’s census, and ordered the government to pay attorney fees as a means of punishment.
Judge Jesse Furman said the administration initially withheld hundreds of documents that it should have turned over as the case was being argued.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other plaintiffs had said those documents would show the government sought to insert the citizenship question for political reasons, rather than for voting rights enforcement, which was the official explanation.
“To be sure, this was not DOJ’s finest hour,” Judge Furman wrote in a scolding of the Justice Department, comparing them unfavorably to novice lawyers and saying their behavior would “make a first year litigation associate wince.”
His punishment was rather limited.
He ordered the government to pay the plaintiffs’ fees incurred while arguing over the documents that weren’t turned over. He could have ordered much more extensive penalties, but said the plaintiffs already won the case at trial.
Judge Furman was one of a series of judges who ruled that the administration skipped too many procedural steps in adding the citizenship question.
Ultimately the Supreme Court backed those judges, in a ruling that effectively ended Mr. trumps quest to include the question.
” The court has reaffirmed that the Trump administration’s ’official story concealed their true reasons’ for attempting to add a citizenship question to the census, said Dale Ho, an ACLU lawyer.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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