Acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates took a bold stand Monday in refusing to defend the indefensible executive order to ban refugees and travelers from a selective group of Muslim-majority nations. Doing so would have defied her “solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right,” she said, adding that she was not “convinced that the executive order is lawful.”
By day’s end, President Trump fired her.
Yates had to have known when she told the Justice Department not to defend Trump’s order that she would be ousted. As a candidate and in his first week as president, Trump has been combative at even the slightest hint of dissent. Yates had been appointed to the temporary post by President Barack Obama.
Yet the Trump White House cannot escape its culpability for the chaos that ensued from an ill-conceived and insufficiently vetted travel ban that resulted in unwarranted detentions at U.S. airports, anxiety among allies and undue validation of the jihadist narrative that Islamists were engaged in a war against infidels.
Federal judges in different cities ruled against elements of the order. Following this pressure, the White House said green card holders should be allowed to enter the country.
That’s not good enough. The executive order is far too broad, it wasn’t vetted by the nation’s security experts and diplomatic brass — let alone the U.S. Justice Department — and its narrow focus against a religious group is constitutionally suspect.
