Trump Appointee George Cook Named Acting Census Director in Unprecedented Triple Role

Commerce Department official George Cook was named acting Census Bureau director while simultaneously serving as Commerce Department’s acting undersecretary for economic affairs (which oversees the Census Bureau) and as chief of staff to that role—an unprecedented concentration of power raising alarm about political interference with the nation’s largest statistical agency. Cook, a political loyalist lacking required statistical expertise, replaced a career economist at a time when Trump is calling for a new census excluding undocumented immigrants. Experts warned that ’the appointment of someone serving as chief of staff—who is necessarily and understandably a political loyalist—as the director of the largest statistical agency, without the necessary qualifications the law requires, is extremely worrisome.’ This echoes Trump’s first administration installing unqualified political appointees during the 2020 census to manipulate data that determines congressional seats, Electoral votes, and funding distribution.