When Donald Trump's Justice Department suddenly replaced the entire team of attorneys arguing the case to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, the immediate question regarding the unprecedented move was, Why? Why move the case from the department's federal programs division, normally tasked with defending administration policies, to an entirely new team from the civil division?
Most court analysts theorized that the lawyers who had originally argued the case considered the new marching orders from Trump and, presumably, Attorney General William Barr untenable for multiple reasons, including an already fluid rationale and the passing of their original drop-dead date of July 1 for printing.
But guessing whether the original legal team up and quit won't be necessary for federal judges, as former acting U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal points out. “When I headed U.S. Solicitor General's Office, federal judges asked me why we were appearing in the case & if the prior lawyers refused to appear (no),” Katyal tweeted Sunday evening. “I expect these Qs to be asked by judges hearing census cases.” Katyal also noted that if the administration declines to answer for any reason, the inquiry should be taken up by the House Judiciary Committee.
The entire episode is so fishy, it stinks to high heaven. The Trump administration originally provided a rationale for adding the citizenship question that was so improbable, the Supreme Court called it likely "contrived." Justice Department lawyers also said the administration must start printing the census forms by July 1, or it would never be able to complete the process in time. After the Supreme Court rejected the administration’s arguments, the printing began without the question, until Trump sent a rogue tweet saying it was all fake news and his administration hadn't ended its efforts to add the question. The Justice Department lawyers were clearly blindsided and failed to come up with a new rationale for adding the question by the deadline a federal judge had given them. That was on Friday. By Monday, a whole new crew had taken over the case. Nothing weird about that whole chain of events. Yeesh.