Washington (CNN) The House Oversight Committee on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to compel them to comply with subpoenas issued as part of their investigation into the Trump administration's push to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

In the 85-page filing, the committee said the suit arises out of the secretaries' "unlawful refusals to comply with duly authorized, issued, and served Committee subpoenas." The committee opened an investigation earlier this year into the proposed census question, and in July, the House voted to hold Barr and Ross in criminal contempt over their noncompliance in the probe.

The filing states that although its investigation has already revealed a trove of information about the "true origins" of the push to include the citizenship question on the census next year, Barr and Ross "have refused to provide ... critical documents and communications."

"The Committee's accommodation efforts included identifying a subset of priority documents for production, but the Defendants produced documents that are redacted, already in the public domain, not responsive, and/or missing attachments," the lawsuit states.

In June, the Supreme Cour t blocked the question from being added to the census.

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