WASHINGTON — The legal fight over the Trump administration's effort to put a citizenship question on the 2020 Census took another surprising turn Monday, as the Justice Department revealed the new team of lawyers suddenly being subbed in.



The staffing change represents the latest twist since the administration revealed on July 3 that it was still looking for ways to include the citizenship question — notwithstanding statements just a day earlier by the Justice Department and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross that the administration was dropping the question.

The Justice Department filed notices on Monday in citizenship question cases in federal courts across the country that lawyers from the Federal Programs Branch — the section that specializes in lawsuits against government agencies — would be stepping aside, and attorneys from the Consumer Protection Branch would be coming in. The change stretched up the chain of command — James Burnham, a political appointee and head of the Federal Programs Branch, was replaced as well.

The new legal team did not give a reason for the switch. In a separate motion asking the judge to let the previous legal team withdraw, the new lawyers wrote that they did "not expect that withdrawal of current counsel will cause any disruption in this matter."

According to the court filings, David Morrell, head of the Consumer Protection Branch, will oversee the litigation going forward. Morrell, a political appointee, served in the White House counsel's office until he moved over to the Justice Department in May, according to his LinkedIn profile.

The notices filed in cases in Maryland, New York, and California were signed by Glenn Girdharry, a career attorney who has worked at the Justice Department since the summer of 2010, according to his LinkedIn profile. He currently serves as assistant director of the Office of Immigration Litigation, according to Monday's filing.



The new team also includes Colin Kisor, who as of a court filing in an unrelated case on Monday was the deputy director of the Office of Immigration Litigation; Christopher Reimer, who as of a May court filing was an attorney in the Civil Fraud Section; Daniel Schiffer, who according to LinkedIn is a trial attorney in the Civil Fraud Section; and Christopher Bates, who joined the Civil Division as senior counsel to the head of the division in April, according to his LinkedIn profile, and was serving in that role as of a June court filing.

DOJ spokesperson Kerri Kupec announced the change on Sunday night; she did not give a reason at the time.

"Since these cases began, the lawyers representing the United States in these cases have given countless hours to defending the Commerce Department and have consistently demonstrated the highest professionalism, integrity, and skill inside and outside the courtroom," Kupec said. "The Attorney General appreciates that service, thanks them for their work on these important matters, and is confident that the new team will carry on in the same exemplary fashion as the cases progress."

It's unusual to see a dramatic change in the government's legal team this far along in litigation, and even more so to see lawyers brought in from a section that doesn't typically handle these types of cases.

The Federal Programs Branch managed the census-related litigation against the Commerce Department, which includes the Census Bureau, from the start; the lawsuits in Maryland and New York were filed in April 2018. Other Justice Department lawyers were added to the team over time — the most recent lead counsel for the government, Joshua Gardner, joined late in 2018 — but original members stayed on.

Speaking with reporters on Monday during a visit to South Carolina to tour a federal prison, Attorney General Bill Barr said to expect more information soon on the administration's plans.

"I think over the next day or two you'll see the approach we're taking and I think it does provide a pathway for getting the question on the census," Barr said, according to the Charleston Post and Courier.



Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, one of the groups that sued in Maryland, told BuzzFeed News in a phone call Monday that he didn't know why the government had made the switch, but that it didn't matter to the legal arguments going forward.

"It doesn't make a difference who the lawyers are if the law is against you, and we believe strongly that the law is against them," Saenz said.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is involved in census litigation in New York, filed papers late Monday contesting the withdrawal of the DOJ lawyers who had been working on the case until now. The ACLU argued the government failed to comply with local court rules that require a party to give "satisfactory reasons" for withdrawing counsel, and expressed concern that it could affect upcoming legal proceedings over whether the government gave accurate information to courts in the past about the census.

"It's one thing for a single lawyer to be moved off a case for staffing reasons or something like that," Dale Ho, director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, told BuzzFeed news. "That's not unusual. It is unusual particularly to see the government replace an entire legal team. When there are questions about the truthfulness of some of the representations that the government has made, it frankly looks fishy."

Former Justice Department officials and other lawyers watching the litigation expressed confusion about the change.

Neal Katyal, who served as the former acting US solicitor general in the Obama administration, tweeted, "Never heard of anything like this."