Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

They did a pretty bad job then. The vast majority of Muslims don't live in those 7 countries.

Yes, I agree. It's the judiciary's role to interpret the law and decide whether there is a conflict. It is true that the AG has an oath to uphold the Constitution, including the elements of the Constitution that provide for a duly elected president to act in a capacity as chief executive. Is Ms. Yates more true to her oath to uphold the Constitution when she actively seeks to frustrate the ability of that chief executive to have his orders well-researched and well-defended by the DoJ, or when she provides for that opportunity?

>The law passed by Congress in this case states that the immigration department is not allowed to discriminate based by country of origin.

This is a minor, nuanced legal dispute that the judiciary must decide. It's not the acting AG's role to prevent the DoJ from preparing a counterargument based on her personal opinions about the potential outcome of such an action.

>The Constitution also states that people are required to have due process before their rights are taken away.

a) Do foreign nationals who have not yet been granted access to the United States have rights under the U.S. Constitution?

b) If so, are the administration's established policies on admission into the U.S., visa issuance, and other long-established intricacies of immigration law consistently applied somehow not due process?

Neither of your statements appear to challenge the President's authority to suspend visas by EO.

>If the acting attorney general felt that the order conflicted with these two, as she clearly did, then it was the executive order that should get ignored.

No, if the acting attorney general felt strongly that this EO violated statutory requirements imposed by Congress, she should resign and get involved in an effort to challenge it, not prevent the DoJ from developing a fair argument for the president's position to present to the judiciary.

If she truly felt it violated the Constitution to a degree that exceeds the violation in the DoJ/AG ignoring the Constitutionally-installed president's instructions and depriving him of the ability to develop a cogent legal argument in support of his position, then you're right, she should have done what she did. But at this juncture, barring a major insight or revelation, there does not appear to be an inherent, significant, or major Constitutional violation in President Trump's order, and Ms. Yates has yet to help identify one. Her conduct fails tests of both reasonability and good faith.

>But the President could have consulted with Congress, and didn't.

It doesn't seem typical for presidents to seek to install such instructions by legislative action. President Obama issued several EOs of a similar nature while Ms. Yates was present at the DoJ. Why did she not resign then?

>He could have gone through Homeland Security and didn't.

This is him "going through Homeland Security". Are you really suggesting it would've been better if he had just privately issued these directions through the chain of command, instead of publicly issuing an EO that everyone can see?

>He could have waited until his nominee of choice was confirmed and consulted them, but didn't.

Is there a reason he should've done that? This just seems like something that would've avoided Ms. Yates's publicity stunt, not something that has any actual relevance to policy. Trump promised this action repeatedly on the campaign trail. Why should he delay it just because Congress is dragging its feet on the nomination process?

>So there is alot of this that is backlash against the lack of due process and the attempt to run the government like a corporation, which is against the law itself.

It seems that all "due process" is being fulfilled. It doesn't appear that you've identified a due process that is being skipped.

"Legal" does not mean "something I think is smart". That's not how democracies work. Up to now, people have continually failed to identify any compelling legal issue with Mr. Trump's order. Trump was voted in by many people who cared deeply about this issue. Everything appears on the up and up, and if an obscure law is being accidentally broken, it's the judiciary's role to recognize and issue orders that will resolve it.

That's the legal system we've set up, and people have had to deal with it literally for centuries. Why is there suddenly outrage over the way this works? Because the media is mad that a guy they dislike has the reins now?

I don't dispute that Trump at one point said "Muslim ban". Giuliani appears to indicate that Trump knew this was illegal in the form that it was literally said it on the campaign trail and that Trump called him up and asked him to figure out how to implement what was meant, not necessarily what was literally said, in a legal fashion -- "seriously, but not literally".

>It is clear that in this executive order, the intent and desire (Muslim ban) is imagined, then the subterfuge (the focus on law) applied, contradicting your original point

No, it doesn't contradict my original point at all. It is clear that Trump meant that he wanted to exclude terrorists, not Muslims. If the goal was to exclude as many Muslims as possible, they did a terrible job, because they completely missed the countries with the 5 biggest Muslim populations. The raw populations of the banned countries add up to about 140 million; even if we assume 100% of those people are Muslim, which they aren't, that still leaves more than 90% of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims potentially eligible for entrance to the United States. And the whole thing expires in 90 days. Not a very effective "Muslim ban".

This goes back to the same thing as the campaign. Seriously, but not literally. Trump said Muslim ban on the campaign trail, that is not in dispute. The issue now is whether he really meant a literal ban on Muslims, or whether he just meant a ban on the bad guys that are blowing us up.

Based on his EO, it appears that he meant the latter, but of course there will be people who refuse to let go of their narrative and assume the former because it makes it easier to justify their outrage.

Is that a smart thing to do or not? I don't know. Does my opinion on whether or not it's smart have anything to do with whether its sufficiently illegal to have the acting AG openly refuse to allow the DoJ to develop arguments in its favor? I don't think so.