Kris Kobach Discussed Census Citizenship Question With 2016 Trump Campaign

More than a year before the Trump administration formally asked the Census Bureau to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, Kris Kobach discussed including the question with officials during President Trump's 2016 election campaign.

Kobach disclosed the latest insight into the behind-the-scenes discussions about the hotly contested census question during an interview earlier this week as part of a House Oversight and Reform Committee investigation into the question. Staffers for the committee's Democrats released transcript excerpts on Friday.

The revelation pushes the origins of the question within the administration back to as early as the last presidential race. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the Census Bureau and approved adding the question, previously testified to" the request for the question in December 2017. Ross later , saying he began considering the question "soon after" he was appointed in February 2017, while noting that "other senior Administration officials had previously raised" the issue.