And both those charges by yates against Trump make him look bad and make her look very good. The conservative watchdog group is requesting Yates' emails from January 21 to January 31 of this year.
Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates offered her version of what took place on the drafting of the order during a Senate subcommittee hearing devoted largely to her warning to the White House that Trump's first national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, had lied about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
"In the over 200 years of the Department of Justice history, are you aware of any instance in which the Department of Justice has formally approved the legality of a policy and three days later the attorney general has directed the department not to follow that policy and to defy that policy?"
"In looking at what the intent was of the executive order - which was derived in part of an analysis of facts outside of the face of the order - that is part of what led to our conclusion that it was not lawful", said Yates to Republican Senator John Cornyn and the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"Even if Trump is somehow innocent of everything implied and inferred about collusion with Russia, he is NOT innocent of choosing a Russian stooge, a Russian vessel like Flynn, and defending him to the last", he continued.
Cruz on Monday brought up the "binding statutory authority for the executive order that you refused to implement that lead to your termination", asking Yates if she was familiar with the power vested in the president by that statute.
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Heath Hembree entered with runners at second and third and allowed both inherited runners to score. Gausman looked puzzled, at first, and then hollered. "I don't know how you control that", he said.
"I learned about this from media reports", Yates said.
Leon Fresco, who headed the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Immigration Litigation under Obama, said the OLC and attorney general usually work in tandem.
Which is to say, Yates - acting as the nation's Attorney General - was kept in the dark until after the executive order was already issued and lawsuits were already imminent. "And in this particular instance, particularly where we were talking about a fundamental issue of religious freedom.it was appropriate for us to look at the intent behind its actions, and the intent is laid out in his statements", Yates said. And that's what I promised you I would do.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) had asked Yates whether she was aware of a situation where the attorney general overruled a decision of the Office of Legal Counsel days after it issued an order. "I said it was unlawful".
"We believed that General Flynn was compromised with respect to the Russians", Yates said.
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