Everyone agreed it was over. The Commerce Department greenlighted printing of the 2020 census without a question on citizenship. Justice Department lawyers had told judges that the Trump administration was discontinuing efforts to add the question. And then Donald Trump sent a tweet calling it all "FAKE!" and suddenly everything went haywire.
Justice Department lawyers subsequently told Judge George Hazel Wednesday in a hastily arranged phone call about one citizenship question case that they had given the court their "best understanding of the state of affairs" and that they didn't yet have a "deeper understanding" of what Trump's tweet meant. The lawyers made a plea to table the matter until Monday, since Thursday was a holiday. Judge Hazel rejected the bid, saying he wanted a clarification on how the administration plans to move forward by Friday at 2 PM ET.
So much for the holiday. Officials from the Justice and Commerce Departments spent Independence Day "scrambling" to find a new rationale for Trump's precious citizenship question after the Supreme Court had rejected their original reasoning as "contrived" (i.e., they lied). When Trump wasn't reveling in the flyovers at his vanity parade Thursday, he was complaining about the census mess and demanding of aides, "Fix this," according to The Washington Post.
On Friday morning, Trump told pool reporters that he's thinking of doing an executive order directing the question be added to the census. That idea apparently comes from Trump allies, along with a Post column penned by conservative talker Hugh Hewitt last month titled, "The census belongs to the president. He needs to get it back. Here's how."
A constitutional law scholar from the South Texas College of Law, Josh Blackman, theorized that such an order from Trump, coupled with a new rationale from the Commerce Department, could give the administration a second chance at justifying the question to the Supreme Court. Certainly, it appears that's the direction the administration is heading. No matter what tack the administration takes, it will certainly invite a legal challenge.
Before leaving for his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Friday, Trump told reporters that the administration was "doing well" on the census and that Chief Justice John Roberts' ruling on the citizenship question was an invitation to revisit the issue. "Essentially, he said, come back. That's what he was saying," Trump said. Trump added that they could add an "addendum" to the census that is currently being printed without the question.
The Trump administration had originally asked for an expedited ruling on its quest to add the question, arguing that July 1 was a drop-dead date for printing the 2020 census. Clearly, that was just one more lie from Trump officials, as they now pull out all the stops to add the question well after the date they told the court was make-or-break.