The Justice Department said Wednesday it will not prosecute Attorney General William P. Barr for contempt of Congress, rejecting House Democrats’ attempt last week to punish Mr. Barr in a spat over the 2020 census.

The move is in keeping with longstanding department policy, and follows the lead of the Obama administration, which likewise refused to prosecute then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. after he was held in criminal contempt.

Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen said they looked at the argument House Democrats made for charging Mr. Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross with criminal contempt, and found the case lacking.

“Accordingly the department will not bring the congressional contempt citations before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute the attorney general or the secretary,” Mr. Rosen wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The contempt citation grew out of a dispute over the House Oversight Committee’s efforts to learn more about the administration’s now-defunct push to add a citizenship question into next year’s census.

Democrats felt that Mr. Barr and Mr. Ross, who oversees the census, were stonewalling requests for information.

The Justice and Commerce Departments insisted they were trying to work through issues to get the committee what information it was entitled to.

Eventually, President Trump exerted executive privilege to shield documents from the committee’s subpoena, and Congress responded by voting to hold the two Cabinet officials in contempt.

Mrs. Pelosi earlier this week asked the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia to prosecute the case.

Though Mr. Barr and Mr. Ross won’t be prosecuted, the fight over documents and subpoenas is likely to continue in the courts, where Democrats expect judges to order information to be released.

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