BENJAMIN OVERHOLT

Deputy Director for Data, Census Bureau
2020-2021

CRITICIZED OVER RECENT APPOINTEES, CENSUS ADDS ANOTHER HIRE

“There is no good reason to add so many high-level positions and fill them with political appointees, outside of a broader agency reorganization that doesn’t appear to be in the works,” said Lowenthal, a former congressional staffer who specialized in census issues. “Coupled with clear political interference from the White House in the implementation of the census, public confidence in the integrity of the Census Bureau’s work and, just as damaging, the data it publishes, could suffer.”

August 17, 2020

CENSUS DECISION DEALS BLOW TO TRUMP EFFORTS ON HOUSE SEATS

January 14, 2021

Dillingham's memo came after the Office of Inspector General reported Tuesday that bureau workers were under significant pressure from two Trump political appointees, Nathaniel Cogley and Benjamin Overholt, to figure out who is in the U.S illegally, using federal and state administrative records. Bureau statisticians worried that any citizenship figures they were forced to produce would be incomplete, misinterpreted and tarnish the statistical agency's reputation, the inspector general said in a memo.

The appointments of Cogley and Overholt last year were highly criticized by statisticians, academics and Democratic lawmakers, who worried they would politicize the once-a-decade census.

CENSUS BUREAU SAYS IT WILL STOP TRYING TO DELIVER TALLY OF UNDOCUMENTED TO TRUMP

The statement came a day after the Commerce Department’s Office of Inspector General sent a letter outlining reports from whistleblowers who said Trump appointees in the bureau have been making a last-ditch push to produce the tallies before the president leaves office next week.

The letter said the two political appointees who employees said were pressuring them, Nathaniel Cogley and Benjamin Overholt, would be leaving the bureau in coming days.

January 14, 2021