Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross had a significant interest in adding a question asking about citizenship to the 2020 census months before the Department of Justice asked him to do so, newly disclosed documents show.

The documents further undermine the Trump administrations claim that it is adding the question to the 2020 census so the Department of Justice can better enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act. While the census currently asks about citizenship on the American Community Survey, which goes out to over 3.5 million households each year , it has not asked about citizenship on the decennial census, which goes to every American household, since 1950.

In testimony before Congress and in an official memo announcing the decision in March, Ross said the Department of Commerce began to consider adding the question after it received a formal request from the Department of Justice in December 2017. In its request, the Department of Justice said it needed more citizenship data to better enforce the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discriminatory voting regulations.

But in a memo disclosed in June , Ross said he began considering the possibility months earlier and that he had approached the Justice Department about making the request.

Documents disclosed Monday evening as part of a lawsuit challenging Ross decision to add the question suggest the commerce secretary wasnt just considering adding the citizenship question, but actively wanted to do so before the DOJ request. Plaintiffs in the suit are likely to seize on the documents as more evidence that the Trump administration wanted to add the citizenship question to the 2020 census and merely used the DOJ request as a pretext for doing so.

You can download the documents here .

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), who has strongly lobbied against adding a citizenship question, said Ross lied to Congress.

These just released emails between Secretary Ross and his staff make it clear that voting rights enforcement was nothing more than a manufactured ruse to justify adding a citizenship question and that the Secretary lied to Congress when he said it was DOJ that initiated the request, she said in a statement.

Democratic Sens Cory Booker (N.J.) and Brian Schatz (Hawaii) called on Ross to appear before Congress to clarify his previous testimony.

DOJ declined to comment on the documents.

In May of 2017, Ross discussed adding a citizenship question with Earl Comstock, the director of the office of policy and strategic planning at the Commerce Department.

Worst of all they emphasize that they have settled with congress on the questions to be asked. I am mystified why nothing have been done in response to my months old request that we include the citizenship question. Why not? Ross wrote. The message is heavily redacted and it is not clear whom Ross is referring to in it.

Comstock wrote back a few hours later, assuring Ross the department would find a way to get the citizenship question on the 2020 census.

On the citizenship question we will get that in place, he wrote. We need to work with Justice to get them to request that citizenship be added back as a census question, and we have the court cases to illustrate that DoJ has a legitimate need for the question to be included. I will arrange a meeting with DoJ staff this week to discuss.

Comstock then discussed adding a citizenship question with Mary Blanche Hankey, an adviser to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and James McHenry, the head of DOJs Executive Office for Immigration Review. At McHenrys suggestion, he also contacted the Department of Homeland Security to discuss adding the question, but DHS told him it was a matter better suited for DOJ.

In September of 2017, three months before the Justice Department made its request, John Gore, the acting head of DOJs civil rights division, contacted Wendy Teramoto, Ross chief of staff. He helped set up a call between Ross and Sessions.

From what John told me, it sounds like we can do whatever you all need us to do and the delay was due to a miscommunication. The AG is eager to assist, Danielle Cutrona, a Sessions aide, wrote to Teramoto .

The documents are part of a lawsuit brought by New York and several other states and cities, which argue adding the citizenship question is unconstitutional and that Ross abused his discretion in deciding to add the question. Showing that Ross wanted to add the question prior to the DOJ request is key to making the latter part of that case because it suggests that he was intent on adding the question regardless of what the Commerce Departments review of the necessity and impact of the question determined.

Civil rights groups have strongly opposed adding the question, saying it is unnecessary and will decrease the response rate among minority communities wary of disclosing their immigration status to the federal government. (Federal law strictly protects personal responses gathered through the census from being shared with other people or agencies.) An inaccurate count of minority communities could lead to less political representation and federal funds, since census data is used to determine the allocation of congressional seats and hundreds of billions of federal dollars.