Trump fires acting attorney general

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President Trump has fired on acting U.S. Attorney General, Sally Yates, after she refused to defend the executive order regarding immigration that he signed last friday.

 

According to FOX News, President Donald Trump terminated acting Attorney General,Sally Yates, from her duties on Monday night after she directed Justice Department attorneys not to defend Trump’s controversial executive refugee and immigration ban.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Yates had “betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States.”

The executive order, which Trump signed Friday, temporarily halted the entire U.S. refugee program and banned all entries from seven Muslim-majority nations for 90 days. Those seven countries are Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Trump chose those countries because they were initially identified as “countries of concern” under the Obama administration.

 

Yates said in a memo earlier Monday that she was not convinced that Trump’s order was lawful, nor that its defense was consistent with the department’s obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right.

Yates was a holdover from the Obama Administration Trump has replaced Yates with Dana J. Boente, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, saying that he would serve as attorney general until Congress acts to confirm Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama. In his first act in his new role, Boente announced that he was rescinding Yates’s order.

Boente was sworn in at 9 p.m., according to White House officials, who did not provide details about who performed the ceremony. In a statement, Mr. Boente pledged to “defend and enforce the laws of our country.”