The Democrat-led House voted to hold Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Attorney General William Barr in contempt last week. | Alex Brandon/AP Photo legal DOJ won't charge William Barr, Wilbur Ross after contempt vote

The Justice Department will not bring criminal charges against Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross after the Democrat-led House voted last week to hold them in contempt.

In a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said the Cabinet officials’ defiance of congressional subpoenas seeking information about the 2020 census “did not constitute a crime.”


“[A]ccordingly 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,” Rosen wrote, citing legal precedents from administration of both parties.

Lawmakers never expected the Justice Department to prosecute its own leader and another cabinet official, but Rosen’s letter represented the department’s formal response to a House vote that, in effect, referred Barr and Ross for criminal prosecution.

The House Oversight and Reform Committee subpoenaed both departments earlier this year as part of its investigation into the origins of efforts to add a citizenship question to the census. The Justice and Commerce departments refused to provide the documents requested, and President Donald Trump asserted executive privilege to block the release of those materials.

“The Department of Justice’s long-standing position is that we will not prosecute an official for contempt of Congress for declining to provide information subject to a presidential assertion of executive privilege,” Rosen wrote in his two-page letter to Pelosi.

It remains unclear if the House will go to court to enforce the Oversight Committee’s subpoenas.

The Supreme Court last month blocked the Trump administration from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census, and Trump ultimately backed down from the effort after flirting with an executive order.

