ATTORNEY GENERAL/CENSUS/CITIZENSHIP/JUSTICE DEPARTMENT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr began working to find a way to place a citizenship question on the 2020 census just after the Supreme Court blocked its inclusion last month, Mr. Barr said on Monday, adding that he believes that the administration can find a legal path to incorporating the question…But he also acknowledged that the career Justice Department lawyers who had worked on the census question had little appetite to continue on the case after Mr. Trump inserted himself into the process. ‘We’re going to reach a new decision, and I can understand if they’re interested in not participating in this phase,’ Mr. Barr said. The Justice Department announced a day earlier that it was replacing them, a nearly unheard-of move. In a court filing on Monday in New York, though, plaintiffs in the case asked a judge to block the lawyers’ withdrawal because they did not demonstrate ‘satisfactory reasons’ for the change.”
–Katie Benner, “Barr Says Legal Path to Census Citizenship Question Exists, but He Gives No Details,” The New York Times online, July 8, 2019