[bobwaycott]

Resigning neither defends nor upholds the Constitution. It should be expected that one would go as far as one could, until such time as one could go no further (like, by being fired), to uphold and defend the Constitution. If everyone simply resigned, the oath would be meaningless, and the republic would fall. Inconvenient as it often is, we need people to stand up and refuse to resign when they feel the Constitution is threatened by executive or congressional action.

[cookiecaper]

Ms. Yates has presented no Constitutional argument against President Trump's order. She has not even presented a basic legal argument against it. Her one-page letter [0] cites no statute, no section of the Constitution, no precedent or case law. It does not claim that she is bound to defy President Trump in order to remain fast to her oath of office.

It merely asserts that it is her duty to ensure that the DoJ "always seeks justice" and that she does not feel that allowing DoJ resources to compile an argument in support of Mr. Trump's order is consistent with that.

Remember, as a member of the executive branch, she also has an obligation to respect and serve the chief executive duly elected and installed by the American people. Ms. Yates is [was] an unelected appointee.

While I agree in principle that blatant and serious constitutional violations (the only type someone who is not a member of the judiciary can recognize) require real defiance, if there truly is a cogent Constitutional defense to be made here, would one not expect it to be presented? Ms. Yates does not appear to be defending the Constitution in any meaningful way here, and indeed, she does not claim to be doing so in her letter.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/30/us/document-L...

[bobwaycott]

You're talking past my point to a different one. And no, as both a principle and rule, I do not expect everyone to lay out their case when refusing to go along with an order they believe to violate their oath and/or the Constitution. Acting AG Yates made it clear that she questioned the legality and justness of the order and would not be able to defend it. She also knew exactly what would happen next.

You've been repeating your argument nearly word-for-word throughout the comments here. It's very clear you stand firmly there; nobody has convinced you otherwise despite repeated attempts engaging your points directly, even when your comments do not directly respond to the OPs to which you reply (like me).

Checks and balances are the core of our government. Those checks and balances exist as much within the branches as they exist across the branches. Resigning is an action that neither checks nor balances—and it ought not be expected of anyone, appointed or otherwise. Executive officials, especially within the DOJ, have a responsibility and obligation to the People and Constitution first, and somewhere after that the executive. That's what their oath demands. They don't take an oath to the executive.

[cookiecaper]

>You're talking past my point to a different one. And no, as both a principle and rule, I do not expect everyone to lay out their case when refusing to go along with an order they believe to violate their oath and/or the Constitution.

You're putting words in her mouth. She has not claimed that the Order was unconstitutional. She has not claimed that allowing the DoJ to do its normal work of providing representation to the USG in court actions violated her oath of office. She was not personally given an unconscionable order from POTUS; she chose to interfere in the DoJ's routine work of representing the USG before the judiciary. At this moment, the only viable motive appears to be the desire to make a loud political statement.

"Unconstitutional" means some provision of the Constitution is violated. It doesn't mean "I don't like this law". It doesn't mean "I REALLY don't like this law". The Constitution is a real thing with real words in it, and if those words are not contradicted by an act, it's not unconstitutional. While unconstitutionality is one way in which things can become illegal, it's not the only way, so saying it "may not be legal" isn't claiming it's unconstitutional either.

Ms. Yates does not state that the President's order is unconstitutional. I'm not saying she states it but it doesn't count because she doesn't recount her argument or rationale, she simply doesn't state it. Since she's a lawyer and lawyers thrive on technicalities, she p

>You've been repeating your argument nearly word-for-word throughout the comments here. It's very clear you stand firmly there; nobody has convinced you otherwise despite repeated attempts engaging your points directly, even when your comments do not directly respond to the OPs to which you reply (like me).

I've already addressed the resignation comments elsewhere downthread, and as you point out, the repetition is tiring. I'm sorry if you were offended that I passed over it in this specific reply and chose instead to focus on correcting the incorrect belief that because Ms. Yates thought the order was unjust, she also thought it was unconstitutional, or that her oath to uphold the Constitution mandated her choice.

One can believe something is both Constitutional and unjust, and indeed, a great many things are.

>Resigning is an action that neither checks nor balances—and it ought not be expected of anyone, appointed or otherwise.

No. I'm repeating myself here specifically because you've asked, so please don't try to hold this against me again in another comment.

Government officials resign over personal quibbles because they respect their office and role as representatives of the People of the United States.

If the People have placed that official in a position where they're duty-bound to obey or implement a measure to which they take serious personal umbrage, the honorable thing is to recognize the inherent personal conflict and step aside. This allows the peoples' will to be executed and it allows the moral officer to retain his/her personal integrity.

A person who grasps to the office knowing that he/she cannot faithfully execute its duties and thus requires his/her superior to catch on and make the termination on the people's behalf is showing blatant disrespect for their office and its obligations to the American people and the republican-democratic way of life. Government officials must not forget that their office is not to pursue or represent their personal affairs, interests, or opinions, but those of the people of the United States.

This pattern was followed in the Saturday Night Massacre from the Nixon era, in the which two [acting] AGs turned in their resignations in rapid succession because their personal ethical codes did not allow them to comply with President Nixon's order to fire the Watergate special prosecutor.

Please also note that again, we're talking about specific, already settled things. Saying "Well, I don't think the people want that, so I'm not circumventing their will" is not a real excuse; for these purposes, "the peoples' will" is expressed whenever Constitutional governance is followed. If the people have installed a chief executive whom the AG finds distasteful, the AG is still bound to recognize that executive as the peoples' representative.

All of this applies equally up and down the ranks. It's equally applicable to Kim Davis, the county clerk in KY who refused to comply with SCOTUS's ruling in Obergefell. If she was unable to find some compromise position that would allow her subordinates to file the papers for her or whatever (which, afaik, she ultimately did), she was duty-bound to resign. Kim Davis's refusal to show respect for her office and choice instead to make a political spectacle of herself was very sad.

I'll add that while such unprofessional behavior from a low-level county clerk may not be completely surprising, such behavior from the acting head of the Department of Justice is another story.

>Executive officials, especially within the DOJ, have a responsibility and obligation to the People and Constitution first, and somewhere after that the executive.

Insofar as the executive is duly installed by the People via constitutional means, an obligation to uphold the People and the Constitution is an obligation to the uphold the executive, at least insofar as doing so is part of the structural configuration of the government, and in this case, it is. The DoJ represents the USG before the judiciary. That representation is precisely what Ms. Yates was trying to disrupt.

Everyone agrees that the people knew what they were getting when they put Trump in. Everyone also agrees that there is no glaring constitutional violation in Mr. Trump's order.

If the [acting] AG is at liberty to individually dictate DoJ policy based on nothing but his/her personal feelings of justice, in what capacity are they operating as agents of the people? Why do we need a judiciary and a legislature if the enforcement arm is free to disregard their work, as you seem to be suggesting?

Again, this is not a matter of prosecutorial discretion, in the which the AG would be able to decline to prosecute on certain statutes on a case-by-case basis (and if it just so happens those case-by-case numbers break down with 0 prosecutions, so be it). This is not even the acting AG refusing an unconscionable order. This is simply the acting AG injecting herself into the daily, routine work of the Department of Justice because of her personal sense of justice, with wanton disregard for her role as an officer of the people of the United States, who installed Mr. Trump as the chief executive, and who was quite clear that he would do something like this shortly after getting into office.

[bobwaycott]

Jesus Christ. So, now you are putting a ridiculously great many words in my mouth, alleging I've made claims I did not, apparently for the sake of providing yourself a reason to talk ... a lot. You seem to just want to hear yourself speak throughout your comments here. I didn't ask anything of you at all, yet you somehow imagine I did. You make sweeping statements of what everyone agrees on—yet everyone most certainly does not agree on these things.

We have different opinions on some things related to expectation of behaviors in certain conditions.