President Donald Trump fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates on Monday night after she directed Justice Department lawyers not to defend his executive order on immigration.
The Trump administration said it had “relieved” Yates — who was deputy attorney general in the administration of President Barack Obama and stayed on as acting attorney general pending the confirmation of Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama — and named Dana Boente, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, to serve in the meantime.
The move was a swift reaction to Yates’ memo to Justice Department lawyers earlier in the day ordering them not to go to court to defend Trump’s sharp restrictions on immigration from seven majority Muslim countries.
Yates “has betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States,” the White House said in a statement, adding: “Ms. Yates is an Obama Administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration.”
The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel signed off on Trump’s order last week, but Yates said the office’s reviews don’t “address whether any policy choice embodied in an Executive Order is wise or just.”
“At present, I am not convinced that the defense of the Executive Order is consistent with [the Justice Department's] responsibilities nor am I convinced that the Executive Order is lawful,” she wrote. “For as long as I am the acting attorney general, the Department of Justice will not present arguments in defense of the executive order, unless and until I become convinced that it is appropriate to do so.”