Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was relieved of duty just hours after she pledged not to defend Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration from a number of legal challenges. Her replacement, however, will have his work cut out for him.
President Trump announced at 8:30EST Monday that he had axed Yates and replaced her with Dana Boente, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
In characteristic fashion, the pink slip was hardly subtle, accusing Yates of “betraying the Department of Justice,” and being an Obama appointee who was “weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration.”
Boente , an Obama appointee just like Yates, was instrumental in investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a home brew server in her home in Chappaqua, New York (though he did decline to prosecute the former Democratic Presidential candidate).
His experience, will definitely come in handy, because Donald Trump’s executive order is already drawing a flurry of lawsuits.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a lawsuit late Monday, on behalf of 20 Muslims they say are affected by the 90-day immigration ban, accusing the Trump Administration of authoring a “Muslim Exclusion Order.” The suit follows closely on the heels of the ACLU’s legal action, filed on Saturday, on behalf of two Iraqi men who served as contractors for American forces during the Iraq war.
That lawsuit resulted in the temporary injunction Yates refused to contest.
More lawsuits are likely to follow. Several states attorneys general have declared that they will challenge Trump’s order, and Washington has already completed the first steps.