House Oversight Committee issues subpoenas in security clearances and census investigations

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published April 3, 2019

The House Oversight Committee on Tuesday served four subpoenas as part of its investigations into the White House's security clearance process and the Trump administration's attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

A whistleblower from the White House Personnel Security Office told Congress that career officials in her department rejected dozens of White House security clearances, but they were overruled in 25 cases. One of the subpoenas was served to former White House Personnel Security Director Carl Kline, and the committee's chairman, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), said he hopes "this is the last subpoena we need to issue on this topic and that the White House agrees to cooperate, to schedule interviews for the next four officials we want to interview, and to turn over the documents we have been seeking for months."

The other three subpoenas stem from the White House wanting to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, and were served to Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Gore for his testimony and Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross for documents. "The committee is trying to determine the real reason Secretary Ross added the citizenship question, and the documents and testimony covered by these subpoenas are critical to answering that question," Cummings said.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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