01-31-2017, 12:00 PM
(01-31-2017, 10:46 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I'm going to be the one to come in here and say it had to happen, and it would have happened if it had been Obama and a Bush appointee had done this. When Yates made her statement, she was going to be fired. She knew it, the whole world knew it. What I think was too far was the White House statement afterwards. That was uncalled for and shows the pettiness that the administration is going to engage in.
I don't know much about the ICE director situation, so I can't comment on that. But another Obama appointee in a position where he was likely to cause a ruckus.
I don't like what happened, but there are some other news items from yesterday that are going to have longer lasting effects. Though the Yates firing could cause some waves down the road. Her martyrdom is going to make her a big figure in politics.
Which was exactly why she did it in the first place. There are aspects of the ban that are questionable, such as the restrictions on green card holders or previously approved work visas. What is certainly not unconstitutional is the ban on travel by people who do not meet those criteria. There is a wealth of precedent for this kind of action by the POTUS, one Obama availed himself of, albeit not at the same scope.
What Yates did was play politics in a job that's supposed to be about the law. In essence she pulled a Mosby. In no way was her statement accurate and in essence what she said was, "I don't like this order (or at least I know you don't) so I'm going to score political points by saying I'm not going to defend it". She is on quicksand legally speaking, she has no firm footing on this issue beyond the portions of the EO mentioned above.
