HANSI LO WANG:

The Commerce Department says they're responding to the Justice Department's request. And the Justice Department is saying, we need this for the Voting Rights Act, and we need it to better enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which has provisions against racial discrimination. And they need better data on voting age citizens. Ever since the Voting Rights Act has been enacted since 1965 they've used estimates of U.S. citizens based on smaller Census Bureau surveys, which only go out to a sample of households. And so they need better data. That's what the Justice Department says. But looking at these e-mails, Kris Kobach does not mention the Voting Rights Act. And certainly he's referencing a phone call that he had with Secretary Wilbur Ross, it appears in the early days of the Trump administration. It's unclear exactly the extent of their phone call. I reached out to the Commerce Department to get more details. They wouldn't provide any details, and this e-mail really should be considered, they said, as part of what Wilbur Ross looked at.