At
Kennedy Airport, Customs, the CPB--they had no idea this was coming
down. Last night, incompetence led to chaos at the Justice Department. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, then-Acting Attorney General,
issued a notice saying the Department of Justice will not defend
President Trump's Executive order on immigrants and refugees from
Muslim-majority countries because of its dubious legality and even more
dubious constitutionality. To put this in perspective, this was our
country's top lawyer, someone who served administrations in both
parties, someone who has the reputation of doing things on the merits,
of not being political, saying that the Executive order is on such
shaky legal and constitutional ground that the administration's lawyers
should not defend it. I have to say that she was our country's top lawyer, because within
hours of her principled statement detailing her professional legal
opinion, the Trump administration fired her. An hour later, the Acting
Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director was dismissed as well. The hair-trigger response from the White House to relieve them of
their duties was a Monday night massacre, eerily reminiscent of the
political firing by the Nixon administration during Watergate. But
instead of it happening 6 years into an administration, it happened
within the first 2 weeks.
Keywords matched
Immigration immigrants refugees