6 ms·

I don't understand your point. Trump has dismissed the acting AG for refusing to execute the laws. As far as I know, Ms. Yates's job as acting AG is to preside

I don't understand your point. Trump has dismissed the acting AG for refusing to execute the laws. As far as I know, Ms. Yates's job as acting AG is to preside over the enforcement of the law, not to decide whether it is constitutional (there is a process for that, and Ms. Yates is not in a position to make that determination) nor to decide whether it is good policy (as she is neither a legislator nor the chief executive). Would Democrats be pleased to see the same latitude offered to Senator Sessions once he's installed? Note this is not an instance of prosecutorial discretion. Ms. Yates is not refusing to prosecute people under the law; rather, she is instructing her subordinates to refrain from doing the necessary work that would allow the government fair representation during hearings on the law. If she is unwilling to fulfill her job duties for personal reasons (and likewise instructs her subordinates to stop fulfilling theirs), the appropriate course of action is to resign, is it not? If she's unwilling to do that and wishes to make a spectacle of herself, wouldn't a dismissal be the expected resolution? How is dismissing an acting AG who refuses to enforce the law "purely political" and not an expected, appropriate response to someone who has refused to execute the laws of the country they're supposed to represent? Does it make sense to allow an acting AG to remain in place after she intentionally and explicitly declines to recognize the president's authority to direct the executive branch?

davesque 10y ago
According to her announcement, she seemed to believe that the order was unlawful. As she was the most important litigator in the land, I don't think it's as cut and dry as you say.
- TenOhms 10y ago
  But there was no case given, it smelled of politics from the beginning and her lack of presenting a compelling legal case doomed her, in my opinion.
  - pm90 10y ago
    She did give a case. You can read it here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/30/us/document-Letter-From-Sally-Yates.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/30/us/document-L...
    - cookiecaper 10y ago
      Thanks for linking to that! I wish news outlets would make these primary sources more directly accessible. It's great to read her words directly and in context. That doesn't sound like a case at all. She cites no law nor any Constitutional provision that may be violated. She provides no citation to case law. She states that the order "has been challenged in a number of jurisdictions" and that DoJ has a "solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right", which apparently is depriving the duly-elected chief executive of a fair legal defense to present in those challenges based on the acting AG's personal opinions. She implies that "statements made by an administration or it [sic] surrogates close in time to the issuance of an Executive Order" may play some role in some type of illegality, though this clearly violates accepted standards of judicial interpretation, which consider the law as written, not the extralegal public statements of people involved in its development. Let's call a spade a spade here. No one can seriously believe there is a strong legal argument for her conduct or that it, in any way, represents typical or expected behavior for the head of DoJ, which is a division of the executive branch under the President's authority and jurisdiction. Ms. Yates is simply grandstanding and taking advantage of an opportunity for positive personal publicity and negative publicity on a political opponent. In her search for exposure, she adds fuel to the nefarious fire that seeks to threaten the integrity of American democracy, promoted by mainstream media outlets who absolutely cannot stand that people are using the internet to escape their chokehold and would rather see the whole country burn than lose their ability to control the propaganda diet of the average American.
      - sangnoir 10y ago
        Here's a prescient clip from Sally Yates' nomination (March 2014). Reality certainly loves irony because the Senator asking the question was Jeff Sessions. I made a quick and dirty transcription of the interesting bits, but I encourage you to view the whole thing[1]. Sen. Jeff Sessions: Do you think the Attorney General has a duty to say no to the president when asked to do something that is improper? ... Sally Yates: I believe the AG and the deputy AG have an obligation to follow the law and the constitution, and to give their independent legal advice to the president 1. https://youtu.be/sXDt3WA07zc https://youtu.be/sXDt3WA07zc
  - cmurf 10y ago
    This is spelled out in her letter: she's not convinced the EO is lawful and she invited being convinced. Instead of sending Stephen Miller over to provide a compelling argument in favor of the EO, or assign a special defender for the EO, she was fired. That's legal, but comes with political consequences, as both law and history indicate. And I just saw a clip from March 2015 of Jeff Sessions asking Sally Yates during her confirmation hearing as deputy AG whether she would stand up to the president if what he's asking her to do is not lawful, and she stated she would. And now she's doing exactly what she promised she'd do. What smells, sounds, and looks like politics, is having a political operative placed on the NSC as a regular attendee. And having an executive order providing no credible improvement to national security by the estimation of numerous national security experts and over 100 career diplomats at the State Department. Distilled, it's an EO that appears throws meat to an anti-Muslim nationalist base at the expense of refugees, global opinion of the U.S., and visa holders in the U.S. needing renewal inside the temporary ban who now are at risk of deportation primarily because they're Muslim. But it also puts the president's own agenda at risk by putting a spotlight on his impulsiveness, and leaves him open to political distractions and even reprisal. At best this EO is clumsy. At worst it's intentional. Either way it's totally self inflicted distracting nonsense of the administration's own choosing. Yes he promised to do something like this, but he promised to be a bigot and break the law, and I think that's a campaign promise he could just not keep. So it appears to be rather intentional and clumsy.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  Lawyers do not decide whether a law is lawful. (Specific types of) judges do. There is a long, well-established process to this. Lawyers obviously already know that. This is a publicity stunt intended to raise her profile and nothing more. She is claiming that there are potential legal conflicts without being specific because she knows that her only defense is to claim that she is bound to disregard the order by a higher law. Like a lot of things lawyers say, it's just enough to give her a shade of grey sufficient for plausible deniability. Without such a claim, there'd be no question that she had failed to fill her obligations as an officer of the law, because as we've already established, it's not the AG's position to determine the validity of the laws. We elect legislators and install judges to perform those functions. The AG's duty is to fairly enforce the laws without allowing their personal inclinations to supersede the will of the people expressed through the republican-democratic processes under which we are governed. Executive orders, including executive orders that address immigration, have long since been established as lawful. If Ms. Yates sees a blatant constitutional violation in President Trump's order, the correct thing to do would be to resign and immediately work to assist challenges to the law via the long-established processes that permit that. As a high-ranking official in the DoJ, she would surely have the knowledge and connections to do this expeditiously. Would Democrats have been pleased with Loretta Lynch if she refused to do her part to uphold Obama's EO's regarding immigration enforcement? Something tells me they wouldn't.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> Trump has dismissed the acting AG for refusing to execute the laws. An E.O. that conflicts with statute or the Constitution is not law, in fact, it a violation of the law. > As far as I know, Ms. Yates's job as acting AG is to preside over the enforcement of the law, not to decide whether it is constitutional Deciding whether the is a reasonable legal argument for an action before defending it and not defending it otherwise is absolutely her obligation, both as a officer of the court and a public officer with an oath to the Constitution. > Would Democrats be pleased to see the same latitude offered to Senator Sessions once he's installed? Democrats prime objection to Sessions involves recognizing that this job responsibility and being concerned that Sessions' past record indicates he would exercise it poorly, from their perspective.
- mordant 10y ago
  >An E.O. that conflicts with statute or the Constitution is not law, in fact, it a violation of the law. And that is not the case, here. The Executive Order in question is firmly grounded in section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Get your facts straight.
  - soundwave106 10y ago
    The two objections I have seen most often in commentary are that Trump's order fell afoul of the 1965 Hart-Celler Act (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/opinion/trumps-immigration-ban-is-illegal.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/opinion/trumps-immigratio...), or Trump's EO fell afoul of 8 U.S. Code § 1152 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1152 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1152). I have seen a lot of commentary arguing one way or another regarding this issue. My personal conclusion at this time is "firmly grounded" would be too strong of a statement, in my opinion.
  - PeterisP 10y ago
    "An EO conflicts/doesn't conflict the statute" is a decision that only the judiciary branch is qualified to make, not you or the president. If judiciary and president disagrees about whether something is a valid law or a violation of the law, the judiciary branch is right by definition.
rayiner 10y ago
Executive officers have an independent duty to consider the constitutionality of orders they enforce. Indeed, they can be held personally liable for violating "clearly established law."

davesque 10y ago

According to her announcement, she seemed to believe that the order was unlawful. As she was the most important litigator in the land, I don't think it's as cut and dry as you say.

TenOhms 10y ago
But there was no case given, it smelled of politics from the beginning and her lack of presenting a compelling legal case doomed her, in my opinion.
- pm90 10y ago
  She did give a case. You can read it here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/30/us/document-Letter-From-Sally-Yates.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/30/us/document-L...
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    Thanks for linking to that! I wish news outlets would make these primary sources more directly accessible. It's great to read her words directly and in context. That doesn't sound like a case at all. She cites no law nor any Constitutional provision that may be violated. She provides no citation to case law. She states that the order "has been challenged in a number of jurisdictions" and that DoJ has a "solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right", which apparently is depriving the duly-elected chief executive of a fair legal defense to present in those challenges based on the acting AG's personal opinions. She implies that "statements made by an administration or it [sic] surrogates close in time to the issuance of an Executive Order" may play some role in some type of illegality, though this clearly violates accepted standards of judicial interpretation, which consider the law as written, not the extralegal public statements of people involved in its development. Let's call a spade a spade here. No one can seriously believe there is a strong legal argument for her conduct or that it, in any way, represents typical or expected behavior for the head of DoJ, which is a division of the executive branch under the President's authority and jurisdiction. Ms. Yates is simply grandstanding and taking advantage of an opportunity for positive personal publicity and negative publicity on a political opponent. In her search for exposure, she adds fuel to the nefarious fire that seeks to threaten the integrity of American democracy, promoted by mainstream media outlets who absolutely cannot stand that people are using the internet to escape their chokehold and would rather see the whole country burn than lose their ability to control the propaganda diet of the average American.
    - sangnoir 10y ago
      Here's a prescient clip from Sally Yates' nomination (March 2014). Reality certainly loves irony because the Senator asking the question was Jeff Sessions. I made a quick and dirty transcription of the interesting bits, but I encourage you to view the whole thing[1]. Sen. Jeff Sessions: Do you think the Attorney General has a duty to say no to the president when asked to do something that is improper? ... Sally Yates: I believe the AG and the deputy AG have an obligation to follow the law and the constitution, and to give their independent legal advice to the president 1. https://youtu.be/sXDt3WA07zc https://youtu.be/sXDt3WA07zc
- cmurf 10y ago
  This is spelled out in her letter: she's not convinced the EO is lawful and she invited being convinced. Instead of sending Stephen Miller over to provide a compelling argument in favor of the EO, or assign a special defender for the EO, she was fired. That's legal, but comes with political consequences, as both law and history indicate. And I just saw a clip from March 2015 of Jeff Sessions asking Sally Yates during her confirmation hearing as deputy AG whether she would stand up to the president if what he's asking her to do is not lawful, and she stated she would. And now she's doing exactly what she promised she'd do. What smells, sounds, and looks like politics, is having a political operative placed on the NSC as a regular attendee. And having an executive order providing no credible improvement to national security by the estimation of numerous national security experts and over 100 career diplomats at the State Department. Distilled, it's an EO that appears throws meat to an anti-Muslim nationalist base at the expense of refugees, global opinion of the U.S., and visa holders in the U.S. needing renewal inside the temporary ban who now are at risk of deportation primarily because they're Muslim. But it also puts the president's own agenda at risk by putting a spotlight on his impulsiveness, and leaves him open to political distractions and even reprisal. At best this EO is clumsy. At worst it's intentional. Either way it's totally self inflicted distracting nonsense of the administration's own choosing. Yes he promised to do something like this, but he promised to be a bigot and break the law, and I think that's a campaign promise he could just not keep. So it appears to be rather intentional and clumsy.
cookiecaper 10y ago
Lawyers do not decide whether a law is lawful. (Specific types of) judges do. There is a long, well-established process to this. Lawyers obviously already know that. This is a publicity stunt intended to raise her profile and nothing more. She is claiming that there are potential legal conflicts without being specific because she knows that her only defense is to claim that she is bound to disregard the order by a higher law. Like a lot of things lawyers say, it's just enough to give her a shade of grey sufficient for plausible deniability. Without such a claim, there'd be no question that she had failed to fill her obligations as an officer of the law, because as we've already established, it's not the AG's position to determine the validity of the laws. We elect legislators and install judges to perform those functions. The AG's duty is to fairly enforce the laws without allowing their personal inclinations to supersede the will of the people expressed through the republican-democratic processes under which we are governed. Executive orders, including executive orders that address immigration, have long since been established as lawful. If Ms. Yates sees a blatant constitutional violation in President Trump's order, the correct thing to do would be to resign and immediately work to assist challenges to the law via the long-established processes that permit that. As a high-ranking official in the DoJ, she would surely have the knowledge and connections to do this expeditiously. Would Democrats have been pleased with Loretta Lynch if she refused to do her part to uphold Obama's EO's regarding immigration enforcement? Something tells me they wouldn't.

dragonwriter 10y ago

> Trump has dismissed the acting AG for refusing to execute the laws. An E.O. that conflicts with statute or the Constitution is not law, in fact, it a violation of the law. > As far as I know, Ms. Yates's job as acting AG is to preside over the enforcement of the law, not to decide whether it is constitutional Deciding whether the is a reasonable legal argument for an action before defending it and not defending it otherwise is absolutely her obligation, both as a officer of the court and a public officer with an oath to the Constitution. > Would Democrats be pleased to see the same latitude offered to Senator Sessions once he's installed? Democrats prime objection to Sessions involves recognizing that this job responsibility and being concerned that Sessions' past record indicates he would exercise it poorly, from their perspective.

mordant 10y ago
>An E.O. that conflicts with statute or the Constitution is not law, in fact, it a violation of the law. And that is not the case, here. The Executive Order in question is firmly grounded in section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Get your facts straight.
- soundwave106 10y ago
  The two objections I have seen most often in commentary are that Trump's order fell afoul of the 1965 Hart-Celler Act (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/opinion/trumps-immigration-ban-is-illegal.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/opinion/trumps-immigratio...), or Trump's EO fell afoul of 8 U.S. Code § 1152 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1152 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1152). I have seen a lot of commentary arguing one way or another regarding this issue. My personal conclusion at this time is "firmly grounded" would be too strong of a statement, in my opinion.
- PeterisP 10y ago
  "An EO conflicts/doesn't conflict the statute" is a decision that only the judiciary branch is qualified to make, not you or the president. If judiciary and president disagrees about whether something is a valid law or a violation of the law, the judiciary branch is right by definition.

rayiner 10y ago

Executive officers have an independent duty to consider the constitutionality of orders they enforce. Indeed, they can be held personally liable for violating "clearly established law."