Washington, D.C. -Today, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, issued the following statement after the Department of Homeland Security-within 48 hours of a letter signed by every Democrat on the Oversight Committee-finally released its unprecedented, months-long hold on a report issued by the Inspector General on President Donald Trump’s first executive order banning Muslim immigrants and visitors from the United States, which was originally requested by Cummings and 37 other Members of Congress:
“I commend the Inspector General’s office for this comprehensive report concluding that the Trump Administration violated multiple court orders in the chaos surrounding the implementation of President Trump’s first Muslim ban. As my Democratic colleagues and I wrote in our letter two days ago, it is unacceptable that the Trump Administration blocked the Inspector General from providing this report to Congress for more than three months using expansive and flawed privilege assertions that even the Inspector General warned us were unprecedented. Important portions of this report remain redacted, including several passages that appear to detail critical steps in the development and implementation of this ban, and I call on Chairman Gowdy to finally allow the Committee to vote on the subpoena we called for earlier this week so we can see what else the Administration is still concealing from Congress."
On Wednesday, all Democratic Members of the Committee sent a letter to Chairman Trey Gowdy requesting he issue a subpoena to compel the production of a full, unredacted copy of this report, as well as the full corresponding case file, including all associated exhibits, attachments, interview summaries, and other work papers.
On October 6, 2017, Inspector General Roth completed an 87-page report and delivered it to Department leadership. However, on Nov. 20, 2017, Inspector General Roth took the highly unusual step of sending a letter to Congress warning that the Department was seeking to censor many portions of the report by using unprecedented and expansive claims of “attorney-client privilege" and “deliberative process privilege."
