Liberal Legal Experts: Yates Deserved to Go

Liberals across the country are throwing a fit over President Donald Trump’s firing of acting Attorney General Sally Yates.

To hear Democrats and their agents in the mainstream media tell it, Trump’s action was an unprecedented exercise in executive overreach — an astonishing display of authoritarian tendencies. The Huffington Post went so far as to call the move — in large, bold red letters — a “crisis.”

“The law favors Trump on constitutionality.”

But there was nothing remotely authoritarian or extralegal — or surprising — about Trump’s decision to fire Yates, a fact that liberals who actually know and understand the law readily admit.

“Yates is a terrific public servant, but I think she’s made a serious mistake here,” Alan Dershowitz said on CNN’s “OutFront” Monday night. “This is a holdover heroism. It’s so easy to be a heroine when you’re not appointed by this president and when you’re on the other side. She made a serious mistake,” he said.

“I think what she should have done is done a nuanced analysis of what parts of the order are constitutional, what parts are in violation of the statute, what parts are perfectly lawful,” Dershowitz continued. ”

[lz_jwplayer video=oA9BR8B6]

“There is also a distinction between what’s constitutional, what’s statutorily prohibited, what’s bad policy. This is very bad policy, but what’s lawful. And I think by lumping all of them together, she has made a political decision, rather than a legal one,” he said.

Appearing on MSNBC Tuesday morning, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley echoed Dershowitz’s analysis. “They absolutely had that right. There’s no question at all about that,” Turley said of the administration removing Yates.

“This is a very curious move by the former acting attorney general in some respects. As you know, I think this executive order was a terrible mistake. I said that seconds after it was signed. But … the law favors Trump on constitutionality,” continued Turley.

The fact is that as an officer of the executive branch, it was Yates’ duty to obey the president’s order. She did not.[lz_related_box id=”279720″]

“Our Constitution vests all executive power — not some of it, all of it — in the president of the United States,” explain the editors at the National Review.

“Executive-branch officials do not have their own power. They are delegated by the president to execute his power. If they object to the president’s policies, their choice is clear: salute and enforce the president’s directives, or honorably resign. There is no third way.”