revealed that Ross shorted stock after he knew of an upcoming report with information that would adversely affect the company but before the story was published. Ross later closed out the position at a substantial profit after the story was published. Ethics experts said that the shorting was alarming given that federal office-holders are prohibited from profiting on nonpublic information. Ross denied that he had engaged in insider trading. Ross had shorted two additional stocks in June 2018 and two additional stocks in July 2018. 2020 Census citizenship question As Secretary of Commerce, Ross oversaw the Census Bureau and the 2020 Census. In December 2017, he approved sending, in the form of a letter (which was originally drafted by Thomas Hofeller, a noted anti-immigrant political figure) that was later copied by James Uthmeier into a memo, a request to the Department of Justice to add a question to the Census for the first time since the 1940s asking about the U.S. citizenship status of the members of the responding household. Specifically, Ross sought to amend the decennial Census to add the controversial question: "Is this person a citizen of the United States?" New York solicitor general Barbara Underwood led a lawsuit filed by 18 states and many cities to attempt to stop the Trump administration from adding a citizenship question on the 2020 Census. The Department of Justice supported the Department of Commerce. U.S. federal judge Jesse M. Furman ruled against the Department of Justice and Wilbur Ross, stating that if the trial is delayed the appeals process may not be done by summer 2019, the printing deadline of the census. Furman blocked the census question proposal on January 15, 2019, saying Ross had violated a "veritable smorgasbord" of federal rules, asserting Ross and his aides made false or misleading statements under oath and that he sought to add the question to the Census based on a pretext. The House of Representatives held Ross in contempt of Congress and accused Ross of lying about the citizenship question's origins. Specifically, Ross had testified under oath that the addition of the question was prompted by DOJ when in fact he had made the request via the Hofeller letter he had transmitted. It became known in July 2021 that the Justice Department inspector general had determined Ross had misled Congress, but the Trump Justice Department declined to prosecute him. Contempt of Congress Ross