Chris Geidner – BuzzFeed News:
“Sally Yates has been relieved,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer tweeted on Monday night, hours after Yates, the acting attorney general, had ordered department lawyers not to defend President Trump’s executive order in court.
You saw that coming the moment Yates ordered the DoJ to not defend Mr. Trump’s ridiculous executive order banning refugees from seven countries. Yates, a political appointee, served at the pleasure of the president.
The following is worth keeping in mind, because similar removals will happen in the coming months (5 USC section 3331, Oath of Office):
An individual, except the President, elected or appointed to an office of honor or profit in the civil service or uniformed services, shall take the following oath: “I, AB, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
Everyone serving in the federal government, from the vice-president on down to the newest employee, and all of the US military recite that oath upon entry to duty. Refuse the oath, you don’t get the job. As the top executive, the president’s oath adds the words “preserve, protect” in place of “support.”
Note we do not swear allegiance to the president, the Congress, or the Court. This is the most obvious and direct example of the US being a nation of laws, not of men (John Adams, the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts).
Yates willingly paid a price for her action, but she didn’t violate her oath. Good for her.
#Trump #GOP #fraud #Yates #DoJ #immigrant #refugee #ban
A Random Stroll 