Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Thursday refused to say he lied to Congress last year about his decision-making in adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census, even though several public documents show he may have done just that. Two federal courts have already ruled Ross broke the law when he added the citizenship question, and they blocked the Trump administration from adding it to the survey. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear the case in April. Ross testified on multiple occasions last year that he began considering whether to add a citizenship question after the Justice Department requested he do so in December 2017 so it could get better data to enforce the Voting Rights Act. But documents made public as part of federal lawsuits show Ross was interested in adding the question long before the Justice Department’s request and had expressed frustration that the process to add the question was not moving faster. The documents also showed that the request from the Justice Department did not come on its own. Ross has asked the department to make it. Ross denied multiple times on Thursday that he had denied or intentionally misled Congress about his decision-making in adding the question. “I testified truthfully to the best of my ability in response to what my understanding of the questions were,” Ross said on Thursday.

Bloomberg via Getty Images Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said he had not lied to Congress when he testified that he began considering adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census after the Justice Department requested that he do so.

In one hearing last year, Ross told Rep. José Serrano (D-N.Y.) he was responding “solely to the Department of Justice’s request.” During another hearing, he told Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) the Justice Department had “initiated the request for inclusion of the citizenship question.” During another hearing, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) asked Ross why the DOJ had requested the question, and Ross said, “the Justice Department is the one who made the request of us.” Civil rights groups have loudly opposed adding the question, saying it will cause fewer minorities and immigrant groups to respond to the decennial survey. An inaccurate census would have severe consequences because data from the survey are used to draw electoral districts and determine how over $675 billion in federal funds are allocated. The plaintiffs in the case pointed to the documents made public in litigation as evidence that Ross and the Trump administration were determined to get a citizenship question on the 2020 census. They say Ross sought out the Justice Department’s request to justify adding the question but that the rationale was “pretextual.” In May of 2017, months before the Justice Department made its request, Ross wrote to senior Commerce Department official Earl Comstock saying that he was “mystified why nothing have [sic] been done in response to my months old request that we include the citizenship question Why not?” Comstock wrote back, “On the citizenship question we will get that in place.” Ross dodged several questions about his reasoning for adding the citizenship question. He would only say repeatedly that his justification was laid out in a March 2018 memo announcing the decision. He also refused to answer several questions about his conversations with then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions about the matter, saying they were confidential.

Bloomberg via Getty Images Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and other Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform accused Wilbur Ross of improperly withholding information from the committee.