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Congress waits, waits, waits for Sally Yates documents
[Washington Examiner] Obama appointee Sally Yates was acting attorney general under President Trump for just 10 days -- from January 20, 2017 until January 30, 2017 -- but by any measure they were consequential days. Even now, two issues from Yates' brief tenure are still of interest to congressional investigators. One was the series of events that led Yates, in charge of the Justice Department, to reject the president's executive order temporarily suspending the admittance into the United States of people from some Muslim nations. The second is Yate's role in the FBI's questioning, apparently on dubious premises, the president's national security adviser, Michael Flynn, four days into the new administration -- questioning that ultimately led to Flynn's guilty plea in the Trump-Russia investigation.Both are matters of great public significance and interest -- and on both, the Justice Department is refusing to allow the Senate Judiciary Committee access to documents from Yates' time in office. On Feb. 23, 2017, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Charles Grassley wrote to Attorney General Jeff Sessions asking for "all emails to, from, copying, or blind-copying Ms. Yates from Jan. 20, 2017, through Jan. 31, 2017." Grassley also asked for all of Yates' other correspondence from that period, plus records of her calls and meetings. The reason Grassley cited -- his committee has direct oversight authority over the Justice Department -- was that Yates' order to the Justice Department not to defend the president's executive order cost the administration precious time as it prepared to fight the inevitable legal challenges. The Department did not have its facts together when a federal judge in Washington State demanded them, setting the stage for the judge to issue a temporary restraining order. "It looks like Ms. Yates' action may have substantially harmed the Justice Department's initial ability to defend the executive order," Grassley wrote. "It is important to determine the extent to which Ms. Yates' actions may have sabotaged the government's defense in that litigation." "Even commentators who took issue with the executive order believed her directive to stop the entire Justice Department from defending the order in the middle of frenetic ongoing litigation was improper," Grassley added. Posted by: Besoeker 2018-09-03 |
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