[FireBeyond]

> It doesn't seem typical for presidents to seek to install such instructions by legislative action. President Obama issued several EOs of a similar nature while Ms. Yates was present at the DoJ. Why did she not resign then?

A pretty critical point: Obama used Executive Orders because in part he had a Congress that, courtesy of Mitch McConnell, stated openly that they had no intention of passing Bills on the President's behalf, even if good. That the way to make him a failure was to "do nothing for him". That left Obama with little option but to enact Executive Orders for many things. And with that being said, he still managed to sign less than Bush II or Clinton.

Trump on the other hand has Congress and Republicans firmly in his control, who've shown themselves to be fully "pliant" (or "spineless", depending on your perspective of the world) of all Trump's desires, so Trump has no _need_ of the Executive Order other than to make a statement, "Look at me, I'm the boss. Why would I act like I need approval from Congress?"

There's a distinct difference.

[wtbob]

> Obama used Executive Orders because in part he had a Congress that, courtesy of Mitch McConnell, stated openly that they had no intention of passing Bills on the President's behalf, even if good.

So? Mr. Obama's executive orders were in many cases inconsistent with the law and the Constitution. 'They won't be nice to me!' is insufficient reason for any president to violate his oath of office, whether Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama or anyone else.

[FireBeyond]

Please point to Obama's EOs that have been shown (or even suspected) to be unconstitutional. It's hard to find without being bombarded with partisan opinion pieces or quotes to Trump threatening to strike down "unconstitutional EOs"

[cookiecaper]

Mr. Obama's infamous EO package known as "DAPA" (an acronym obviously selected to try to give it a more "actual law"-ish feel) was struck down by the Supreme Court last June in a 4-4 vote. [0] The Court's opinion was one sentence long, merely stating that because it was evenly tied, the appellate court ruling was automatically affirmed.

However, the 5th Circuit's ruling [1] includes this language:

>the INA flatly does not permit the reclassification of millions of illegal aliens as lawfully present and thereby make them newly eligible for a host of federal and state benefits, including work authorization.

DAPA was, from its inception, widely recognized as illegal and it lost at every stage of the judicial process. Obama signed it knowing it would probably get struck down. Yet, Ms. Yates did not see a constitutional obligation to assume the judiciary's function to interpret constitutionality and legality as it related to these orders. Curious that.

[0] http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/united-states-v-t...

[1] http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/15/15-40238-CV0.pdf

[zaroth]

Thank you for taking the time to write all you did throughout this thread. Great discussion, much appreciated.

[FireBeyond]

I appreciate that. Thanks.