On Monday, 30th January, 2017, President Trump fired the Acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, only after hours, as she instructed the Justice Department, not to defend Trump’s executive order, which is controversial and restricting Muslims to travel and immigration to U.S.
Yates wrote in a memo to federal attorneys, “At present, I am not convinced that the defense of the executive order is consistent with these responsibilities nor am I convinced that the executive order is lawful.”
On late Monday, Trump fired Yates and replaced her with Dana Boente, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, who is set to rescind the order.
The White House read the statement announcing Yates ouster, “It is time to get serious about protecting our country. Calling for tougher vetting for individuals travelling from seven dangerous places is not extreme. It is reasonable and necessary to protect our country.”
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When Trump’s pick for Attorney General, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions is confirmed, Yates will set to be out of power within days. It has still put her in the pantheon of high-profile Trump objectors from Georgia.
Trump unleashed a stream of criticism, earlier this month, aimed at Georgia Rep. John Lewis, after he questioned the legitimacy of his presidency and announced he would boycott his inauguration. Trump targeted the civil rights icon, Lewis as “all talk” and said his Atlanta-based district was in “horrible shape.”
On Monday, The president also vented at Yates, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, on Twitter saying that, Democrats have “nothing going but to obstruct.”
In Georgia, Yates has deep roots. In the University of Georgia School of Law she graduated, before becoming an assistant U.S. attorney in Atlanta in 1989, she worked at the King & Spalding law firm in Atlanta.
Before Obama tapped her for the No. 2 job at the Justice Department in 2014, she was promoted to U.S. Attorney for the district, in 2010. Months later, she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support, including the backing of Republican Sens. Johnny Isakson and David Perdue.
While endorsing her, Isakson said, “She has been an equal opportunity prosecutor. She’s prosecuted Democrats, Republicans, independents, Olympic park bombers, anybody that violated the public trust, any abuse of power.”
Democratic circles in Georgia were abuzz, within hours of Yates decision, with the talk that she could return to Atlanta to run for governor or other statewide office in 2018. In 1996 her husband Comer, a veteran school administrator, ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a centrist Democrat against Cynthia McKinney.
Her career is marked with high-profile cases, including the prosecution of Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph, and the successful public corruption cases against ex-Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell, former Fulton County Commission Chairman Mitch Skandalakis and former state school Superintendent Linda Schrenko.
She often talked of her job as a prosecutor as a calling, at 2013 woman’s leadership series organized by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, she said that, she can’t imagine working in any other role.
“This is going to sound incredibly corny, but when I was at the U.S. Attorney’s office and realized the luxury that you have as a lawyer to believe that you’re on the right side of a matter, to be representing the people of the United States, and to carry that privilege every day – how do you go back to something else when you’ve had that chance to do that?”
By Mrudula
