Barr slaps Supremes on census

Attorney General William Barr said Monday that the Supreme Court was wrong to rule against President Trump’s push to include a citizenship question on the census — and vowed to find a legal way around the decision.

The nation’s top law-enforcement official said he disagrees with the decision to send the case back to a lower court and said the administration would make its plans clear early this week.

Barr insisted that the top court gave Trump some wiggle room by ruling that it concocted the reason for including the question — not that the question would be illegal in itself.

“It does provide a pathway for getting the question on the census,” Barr said while touring a federal prison in South Carolina.

He added officials plan “to cure the lack of clarity that was the problem. We might as well take a shot at doing that.”

The remarks appeared to be an effort to impose a measure of calm on a tumultuous period since the nation’s highest court effectively shot down the citizenship question.

Hours earlier, several Department of Justice lawyers, including one who admitted being taken aback by Trump’s tweet on the issue, abruptly left the team handling the case in front of a Maryland federal judge.

It was not immediately clear if the lawyers quit in disgust over being undercut by Trump or if they were removed, according to the Washington Post, which first reported the highly unusual shakeup.

The previous lawyers had told U.S. District Judge George Hazel last week that the census would go ahead without the question. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the count, said the same thing.

But then Trump reversed course and ordered officials to seek to move ahead despite the court order. He is reportedly considering issuing an executive order to include the question, although that is unlikely to pass legal muster.