Senator Jefferson Beauregard “Jeff” Sessions
III is the junior United States
Senator from Alabama
and a member of the Republican Party. He is the most senior junior
Senator, and is also the current nominee, and likely imminent appointee as the
next United States Attorney General.
Sessions
served as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1996,
and re-elected in 2002, 2008,
and again in 2014.
The Senator is considered one of the most conservative members of the Senate,
and was rumored to be a possible Vice
Presidential nominee by the current administration.
Sally Quillian
Yates is an American attorney who practiced law at the King
& Spalding law firm in Atlanta. In
addition, she:
·
Was
appointed Assistant U.S. Attorney
by Bob Barr for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of
Georgia
·
Served
as Chief of the Fraud and Public Corruption Section in that office
·
Acted
as the lead prosecutor in the case of Eric Rudolph, who
committed the Centennial Olympic Park bombing. Rudolph was a
terrorist convicted for a series of anti-abortion and anti-gay bombings across
the southern United States between 1996 and 1998, which killed two people and
injured over 120 others.
·
Rose
to First Assistant U.S. Attorney in 2002 and to Acting U.S. Attorney in 2004.
In the U.S. Attorney's office she held leadership positions under both
Republican and Democratic administrations.
·
Was
confirmed by the Senate on March 10, 2010.
·
Was
appointed by Attorney General Eric Holder to serve as
Vice Chair of the Attorney General's Advisory Committee.
The United
States Senate voted 84–12, in 2015, to confirm Yates as Deputy Attorney
General of the United States, the second highest-ranking position in
the Justice Department. While Yates was going through confirmation hearings,
Senator Sessions
posed a series of questions that ultimately led to him encouraging her to
resist unlawful orders.
She served
under Attorney General Loretta Lynch,
who took office shortly before Yates's confirmation
As Deputy
Attorney General, Yates was responsible for the day-to-day operations of the
Justice Department, which included approximately 113,000 employees. In 2015,
she authored the policy, known as the "Yates memo" prioritizing the
prosecution of executives for corporate crimes. During the final days of the
Obama administration, she oversaw the review of 16,000 petitions for executive
clemency, making recommendations to the President.
Circling back
to Ms. Yates’ confirmation hearings to become Deputy Attorney General, and
Senator Sessions’ questioning her, he grilled her intensely regarding her
willingness to oppose a President (Obama) if he required her to execute
“unlawful” views. As it turns out, Sessions is now on tap to lead the Justice
Department.
During her
hearing, the Senator observed:
“You have to watch
out because people will be asking you to do things and you need to say no. You
think the attorney general has the responsibility to say no to the President if
he asks for something that's improper?"
He went on,
referring to AG Nominee Loretta Lynch…
"A
lot of people have defended the Lynch nomination, for example by saying, 'Well,
he appoints somebody who's going to execute his views, what's wrong with that?'
"
"But if the views the President wants to execute are
unlawful, should the attorney general or the deputy attorney general say
no?"
Ms. Yates
responded:
“Senator, I believe the attorney general or the deputy attorney
general has an obligation to follow the law and the Constitution and to give
their independent legal advice to the President."
So fast
forward back to the present. Earlier this week, Yates, who had been running the
Justice Department while Sessions completed the confirmation process,
transformed her 2015 words to 2017 actions.
On January
2017, Yates accepted a request from the incoming Administration
to serve as Acting Attorney General, beginning on January 20, 2017, and serving
until the United States
Senate confirms the new Attorney General. On January 30, 2017, Yates
ordered the Justice Department not to defend Trump's
executive order on travel and immigration. She wrote:
“At present, I am not convinced that the defense of the
executive order is consistent with these responsibilities of the Department of
Justice, nor am I convinced that the executive order is lawful...I am
responsible for ensuring that the positions we take in court remain consistent
with this institution’s solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for
what is right. For as long as I am the acting Attorney General, the Department
of Justice will not present arguments in defense of this executive order,
unless and until I become convinced that it is appropriate to do so.”
Former Attorney
General Eric Holder
tweeted he trusted Yates’ judgment, in response to her statement. Not
surprisingly, the administration reacted in stark contrast. Shortly afterward,
she received a hand-delivered letter from the administration firing her.
She was
replaced with Dana Boente,
the United States
Attorney for the Eastern District
of Virginia. According to the White House statement on the subject,
Yates "betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal
order designed to protect the citizens of the United States.”
The peculiar
ironic time warp in which Sessions and Yates found themselves was when
Sessions, a Republican, questioned Yates, he and his fellow GOP’ers wanted
assurances that as Deputy AG, would not just roll over and execute the
recommendation of the President, who at the time of course, was a
Democrat. Time and circumstance have a
way of showing themselves fickle. By the
time Yates was actually faced with a real world scenario, the likes of which
Sessions had invoked, the worm had turned, Yates was a placeholder until
Sessions received confirmation, and the President was a Republican.
Yates held up
her end of the bargain. As she said she
would, she declined to order staff to defend an executive order that she did
not believe to be lawful. Based upon the
predicate conversations during her 2015 hearings, her actions were, or should
have been predictable. She did not disappoint.
Let’s be clear, the administration also did the expected, in light of
what it considered defiance. It fired Yates. All things considered, no one
should be surprised by any of this; least of all the principals. “Jeff & Sally: The Irony of It All.”
I’m done; holla
back!
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