Trump Fires Acting Attorney General • Hacker News Board

Re: Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

#241

Post by Broken_Hippo » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 2:12 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #51

hueving wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The major worry for me is Trump's seeking to punish anyone who shows disloyalty. This shouldn't be surprising nor worrying. This is how hierarchical leadership works and it's fully expected that anyone under the President may be forced to do whatever the President wants. It's the entire reason there are 2 other branches of government.

Hierarchical leadership doesn't work like that with attorneys. If Yates couldn't come up with a good faith argument for the legality of the order, she wasn't allowed to go into court and defend it, regardless of what her boss said. She could have countermanded the order and accepted the consequences (which she did), or she could have resigned. Whether the order rises to that level I'm not sure. I think there are defi…

I was going to comment something along those lines.

A business might hire an attorney, but they generally listen when they say a policy has shaky legal ground, if any at all. The response isn't generally to fire the lawyer and find one that agrees.

Re: Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

#242

Post by ubernostrum » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 2:12 PM UTC

mordant wrote: post #211

throwaway5752 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you can educate us, then, when the executive branch gained the power to create law in the form of executive orders? Thought experiment: if Obama had issued an EO stating that his interpretation of the 2nd amendment referred only to state militias, and as a result he was proceeding to forcibly confiscated all privately owned firearms, would that be constitutional?

President Trump is merely exercising his clearly-delineated powers as defined in Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. You really should bone up on the law if you're going to start trying to make arguments about what's legal and what isn't, in a given context.

Yes, you really should bone up on the law:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13529036

Re: Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

#243

Post by ubernostrum » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 2:13 PM UTC

cookiecaper wrote: post #97

siidooloo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She said that she felt the order was illegal. Should she follow orders and obey something she thinks is illegal?

If she is unable to faithfully discharge her duty to execute U.S. law, she should resign. She offers no argument to support her claim that the order was not lawful, other than her self-evident personal disagreement. Do you know of a credible legal argument that the president is not allowed to issue instructions to the Department of Homeland Security via executive order? Ms. Yates apparently does, but she doesn't wish…

I know of a credible argument that this executive order was inconsistent with federal immigration law:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13529036

Re: Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

#244

Post by cryoshon » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 2:13 PM UTC

zigzigzag wrote: post #215

pm90 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There aren't any, and I'm serious about it. Unless Trump does something that is totally and obviously anti-populist, like raise taxes for everyone by 20% or send in the National Guard into a city. It took me a while to understand why but you kinda have to see where Trump supporters get their worldview. Unfortunately, they use Facebook/Twitter a lot, and have been bombarded for years and years by outrageous fake news.…

I don't think fake news is a useful term, it never has been. The media has been flooded with both outright fake news and more importantly missing news for years, when it was supporting the Democrat world view. For instance, just go look at how often you can read the Russia "invaded" Ukraine or Russia "invaded" Crimea. The Russian army is huge and what's left of the Ukrainian army is made of fresh conscripts. If those…

>just go look at how often you can read the Russia "invaded" Ukraine or Russia "invaded" Crimea.

putting your soldiers onto someone else's turf without permission equals invasion...

Re: Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

#245

Post by rantanplan » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 2:14 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #227

Spooky23 wrote: post #12

I despise Trump, but I don't think it's it's acceptable for a civil servant to insert themselves into the news. If you're getting an unlawful or unethical order, you follow the process, suck it up or resign in protest. By going rogue and making yourself the story, you're attacking the office of the president. It's a bad idea, bad precedent and will have bad outcomes.

-5? Wow the groupthink is amazing here.

That's only one of the possible reasons.

Now, have another guess :)

Re: Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

#246

Post by joshbert » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 2:15 PM UTC

probably_wrong wrote: post #58

Daishiman wrote: post #49

Please, take two seconds to read the statement. There's third graders who literally have a better grasp of the English language than Trump.

Let's not fall into the trap of thinking that Trump is stupid. He may be a lot of things, but stupid people don't make it into the White House. And speaking of people who may be smarter than we think: http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/

Truly a riveting read. I had no idea Bush was like that behind closed doors.

Re: Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

#247

Post by what013117 » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 2:15 PM UTC

zigzigzag wrote: post #215

pm90 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There aren't any, and I'm serious about it. Unless Trump does something that is totally and obviously anti-populist, like raise taxes for everyone by 20% or send in the National Guard into a city. It took me a while to understand why but you kinda have to see where Trump supporters get their worldview. Unfortunately, they use Facebook/Twitter a lot, and have been bombarded for years and years by outrageous fake news.…

I don't think fake news is a useful term, it never has been. The media has been flooded with both outright fake news and more importantly missing news for years, when it was supporting the Democrat world view. For instance, just go look at how often you can read the Russia "invaded" Ukraine or Russia "invaded" Crimea. The Russian army is huge and what's left of the Ukrainian army is made of fresh conscripts. If those…

I am speechless at this revisionist view of recent history.

Two things:

1. If anyone is confused about the Crimea invasion simply go back and read the primary sources. Read newspapers from overseas, especially those in different languages. No one believed that the recent invasion of Crimea began as a civil war/proxy war. It had become that, sure, but let's keep the facts straight.

2. To the poster: how can you be so sure of global events? Your viewpoint is the accepted perspective of the Russian government. Does that not give you pause, to repeat the words of a clearly self-interested party?

Re: Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

#248

Post by gm-conspiracy » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 2:17 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #72

TenOhms wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find worrying is she ordered that the DOJ not support the President without any clear conviction that the law was unconstitutional, it smelled of an entirely politically motivated action not grounded in US law.

The decision to prosecute a defendant or not (or defend a statute, or not) is at the discretion of the prosecutor, barring some sort of statutory requirement. The President isn't a king, whose orders are to be followed regardless of the Constitution or prevailing law. Both the President and the AG serve at the pleasure of the People of the United States, and Trump is about to find that out the hard way.

I thought the FBI director recommends to the AG whether to pursue charges, no?

Re: Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

#249

Post by sp332 » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 2:21 PM UTC

willstrafach wrote: post #48

rabboRubble wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comes as a surprise as she is the only person in the DOJ authorized to sign off on foreign security letters [0] How nice that Trump right out of the gate has kneecapped his administration in terms of intelligence gathering! At least until a puppet replacement is approved by the Senate. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/us/politics/trump-immigra... [Edit: earlier in the day I read that the acting AG was the only…

This is not true. The NYT article has been fixed.

Heck it was basically rewritten multiple times. http://newsdiffs.org/article-history/www.nytimes.com/2017/01...

Re: Trump Fires Acting Attorney General

#250

Post by rtkwe » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 2:28 PM UTC

manicdee wrote: post #160

rtkwe wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the comparisons to Nixon's actions are quite a bit strained. At the very least the magnitude of the actions is vastly different. Nixon was shopping around for a AG that would remove a special prosecutor investigating him.

Trimp is shopping around for an AG that won't investigate him.

I don't see any signs that the new acting AG is anything other than a temporary slot until Sessions (or if his nomination is blocked his next AG). If Trump really was just shopping for an AG that wouldn't investigate him he already appoints one as part of the normal process of becoming president why bother now when it looks like Sessions will get through?