The Patriot Post® · When Sally Yates Defied the Courts

Earlier this week, Donald Trump fired Sally Yates, who exploited her role as deputy attorney general to stage political retaliation against Trump’s travel ban. Democrats responded with lavish praise. Her former boss Loretta Lynch said Yates “displayed the fierce intellect, unshakable integrity, and deep commitment to the rule of law” and called the maneuver “courageous leadership” that “embodies the highest traditions of the Department of Justice.” Yates’ fan club even managed to put her name in contention for the JFK Profile in Courage Award. But let’s be clear: Her dishonorable theatrics were nothing to behold. In fact, it embodies the dangers of the rule of men.

For example, The Washington Times reports that Yates “engaged in no such rebellion against President Obama’s order on immigration amnesty in her role as the second-ranking official in the Justice Department, even after a federal court declared it unlawful.” As George Washington University professor Jonathan Turley put it, “This is the same Justice Department that just last year was defending President Obama in arguing for unilateral authority saying that judges should not second-guess the president on immigration.”

Writing in National Review, Jim Talent is exactly right when he observes, “[A]ny such official who feels he can’t in good faith implement the likely new policies of the new administration shouldn’t stay on. It’s wrong for such a person to deliberately put himself in a position where he either has to implement a policy to which he conscientiously objects, or resign and embarrass the new president. The obvious way to avoid that is simply to decline to stay on in the first place.” For Yates, her staunch defense of Obama’s unilaterally enacted amnesty and defiance of Trump was based on a personal opinion, not fidelity to the Constitution. She had political ambitions in mind, not Rule of Law.