Attorney General William Barr Bill BarrHillicon Valley: Subpoenas for Facebook, Google and Twitter on the cards | Wray rebuffs mail-in voting conspiracies | Reps. raise mass surveillance concerns Bipartisan representatives demand answers on expired surveillance programs YouTube to battle mail-in voting misinformation with info panel on videos MORE and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross Wilbur Louis RossTrump admin asks Supreme Court to fast-track excluding people in U.S. illegally from census Trump 'very happy' to allow TikTok to operate in US if security concerns resolved TikTok, WeChat to be banned Sunday from US app stores MORE urged Speaker Nancy Pelosi Nancy PelosiPelosi slams Trump executive order on pre-existing conditions: It 'isn't worth the paper it's signed on' On The Money: Anxious Democrats push for vote on COVID-19 aid | Pelosi, Mnuchin ready to restart talks | Weekly jobless claims increase | Senate treads close to shutdown deadline Trump signs largely symbolic pre-existing conditions order amid lawsuit MORE (D-Calif.) on Wednesday to delay a House vote to hold them in contempt for not turning over congressionally subpoenaed information on the administration’s initial efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

In a letter sent shortly before the vote is set to be held, Barr and Ross called it “unfortunate” that the House “has chosen to go forward with an unjustified contempt vote regarding a citizenship question that, as you know, will not be asked on the 2020 Census questionnaire.”

ADVERTISEMENT

“By taking this action, the House is both unnecessarily undermining inter-branch comity and degrading the constitutional separation of powers and its own institution integrity,” the letter states.

“We urge that the House postpone the contempt vote in order to allow the constitutionally mandated accommodation process to continue,” Barr and Ross wrote. “And we respectfully remind the Committee that the constitutionally required obligation to engage in good-faith accommodation cuts both ways.”

The Hill has reached out to Pelosi's office for comment.

The two Cabinet members argued that their departments are “committed” to working with Congress to provide them with the requested documents relating to the citizenship question, saying that they have “made significant efforts” to accommodate the requests.

Barr and Ross also pointed to President Trump Donald John TrumpSteele Dossier sub-source was subject of FBI counterintelligence probe Pelosi slams Trump executive order on pre-existing conditions: It 'isn't worth the paper it's signed on' Trump 'no longer angry' at Romney because of Supreme Court stance MORE’s assertion of executive privilege over the requested documents in showing that they could not immediately provide them to Congress.

“The Departments have been consistent – as have the courts considering the reinstatement of the citizenship question on the 2020 Decennial Census – that the documents the Committee seeks are protected from disclosure by these time-honored privileges,” the letter reads. “In order to ensure the free-flow of advice and decision making and to avoid compromising the ongoing litigation, we have not waived those privileges.”

The House Oversight and Reform Committee voted last month, largely along party lines, to hold Barr and Ross in contempt for failing to comply with congressional subpoenas over the census citizenship question.

Ross first announced last year that the administration would add the question to the 2020 census, but the move was almost immediately countered with several legal challenges.

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 last month against the question’s addition, finding the reasoning to be “contrived.” And after initially saying he would still seek the question’s inclusion on next year’s census, Trump last week abandoned that effort.

The president instead issued an executive order requiring that federal agencies provide citizenship information to the Commerce Department.

The Oversight committee had subpoenaed both the Justice and Commerce Departments earlier this year for documents relating to the citizenship question.

The federal agencies claimed that they had complied with the requests, handing over thousands of pages of documents to lawmakers, an argument also made by Republicans on the panel, including ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan James (Jim) Daniel JordanHouse panel pulls Powell into partisan battles over pandemic Sunday shows preview: Justice Ginsburg dies, sparking partisan battle over vacancy before election House passes resolution condemning anti-Asian discrimination relating to coronavirus MORE (Ohio).

However, House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings Elijah Eugene CummingsBlack GOP candidate accuses Behar of wearing black face in heated interview Overnight Health Care: US won't join global coronavirus vaccine initiative | Federal panel lays out initial priorities for COVID-19 vaccine distribution | NIH panel: 'Insufficient data' to show treatment touted by Trump works House Oversight Democrats to subpoena AbbVie in drug pricing probe MORE (D-Md.) and other Democrats claimed that many of the documents handed over were heavily redacted, already publicly available or not in line with the subpoenas.

The resolution lawmakers will vote on on Wednesday would refer the matter to the U.S. attorney's office in D.C. for potential prosecution. However, that possibility is certain to be dead on arrival, as it would require federal prosecutors to pursue charges against high-ranking members of their own administration.