The Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a new court filing Thursday that 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 talked with Stephen Bannon, then President Trump Donald John TrumpBiden on Trump's refusal to commit to peaceful transfer of power: 'What country are we in?' Romney: 'Unthinkable and unacceptable' to not commit to peaceful transition of power Two Louisville police officers shot amid Breonna Taylor grand jury protests MORE’s chief White House strategist, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsGOP set to release controversial Biden report Trump's policies on refugees are as simple as ABCs Ocasio-Cortez, Velázquez call for convention to decide Puerto Rico status MORE about adding the citizenship question to the 2020 census.

In the filing obtained by The Hill, DOJ said Ross recalls Bannon calling him in the spring of 2017 to ask if he would be willing to speak to then-Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach about Kobach’s idea of adding the potential question to the upcoming census.

The document is a response to written questions from the New York Attorney General in the discovery phase of a lawsuit New York and 16 other blue-leaning states have brought challenging the administration’s decision to ask about citizenship.

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The lawsuit has been consolidated with another challenge from a coalition of immigration groups.

In August Judge Jesse Furman, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, ordered Ross and John Gore, the acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, to sit for depositions in the case so the challengers could learn more about how the administration made its decision and who was involved.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Tuesday granted a request from Solicitor General Noel Francisco to put the depositions on hold after the Second Circuit Court of Appeals refused to do so. Ginsburg last week had denied a similar request from the administration to block the depositions befe the Second Circuit had ruled on the request.

In the document Thursday, DOJ said Ross additionally discussed the possible reinstatement of a citizenship question on the 2020 census with Attorney General Jeff Sessions in the spring of 2017.

The Commerce Department announced in March it would be adding the citizenship question to help DOJ better enforce the Voting Rights Act. ProPublica reported in December that DOJ had asked for it to be included.

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In a statement a Commerce Department spokesperson said “today’s response supplements the record but does not change the secretary’s story, it only adds to it.”

In the lawsuits, states and outside groups, argue the citizenship question will scare people in immigrant communities away from responding to the census given Sessions' crackdown on illegal immigration.

They fear the question will lead to skewed census results. Resident figures from the census are used to determine the number of seats in the House each state receives, which in part determine the number of electoral votes states have in a presidential election.

-- Updated: 6:42 p.m.