Appeals Court OKs Wilbur Ross Deposition, With Delay For SCOTUS Review
Source: Talking Points Memo
By Tierney Sneed
October 9, 2018 5:09 pm
An appeals court Tuesday said that it agreed with a federal judge’s order that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross sit for a deposition in the Census citizenship question case, but that it was putting the order on hold for 48 hours so it could be appealed to the Supreme Court. Ross had been slated to sit for the deposition on Thursday.
“As the District Court noted, deposition testimony by three of Secretary Ross’s aides indicated that only the Secretary himself would be able to answer the Plaintiffs’ questions,” the appeals court said.
The Trump administration has already turned to the Supreme Court once to try to halt the deposition. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — who handled that request, because she oversees the appellate circuit from where it came up — denied that initial request, but also left the door open for the Trump administration to come back to the Supreme Court once the appeals court weighed in, as it did on Tuesday.
The Justice Department has also been unsuccessful, so far, in blocking the deposition of John Gore, a top political appointee at the Justice Department who’s slated for deposition Wednesday. Gore appears to have been involved in drafting a December 2017 Justice Department letter requesting that Ross add the question for voting rights law enforcement — a request Ross granted this year. Internal records released as part of the litigation, however, show Ross was eager to add the question early on in the Trump presidency, contradicting his claims in congressional testimony that the DOJ had initiated the request.
Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/wilbur-ross-deposition-appeals-court-approves
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