CENSUS/CITIZENSHIP/JUSTICE DEPARTMENT/SUPREME COURT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “In the wake of the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling last month rejecting the Trump administration’s reason for adding a citizenship question to the census as merely a pretext and ‘contrived,”’ President Trump is contemplating the unthinkable: issuing an executive order instructing the Census Bureau to move forward with printing the forms including the citizenship question that the Supreme Court rejected. Earlier this week, US Attorney General William Barr insisted that ‘the president is right on the legal grounds’ and ‘the Supreme Court decision was wrong.’ But two weeks after the Court’s ruling, neither Barr nor anyone else has come up with a valid reason for adding the citizenship question to the 2020 Census, as the Supreme Court’s ruling requires. Quite plainly, no such reason exists. Ominous signs point to an upcoming decision that pushes the envelope. In a dramatic departure from Justice Department protocol, the Trump administration wants to replace the legal team that has defended the citizenship question with a new set of lawyers apparently chosen to go along with whatever the President has in mind. “
–David H. Gans, “Will Trump administration defy the Supreme Court?,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, July 10, 2019 11:02 am