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Sally Yates

Sally Yates

Sally Caroline Yates (née Quillian; August 20, 1960) is an American lawyer. She served as a United States Attorney and later United States Deputy Attorney General, having been appointed to both positions by President Barack Obama.

Following the inauguration of Donald Trump and the departure of Attorney General Loretta Lynch on January 20, 2017, Yates served as Acting Attorney General for 10 days. She was dismissed for insubordination by President Trump on January 30, after she instructed the Justice Department not to make legal arguments defending Executive Order 13769, which temporarily banned the admission of refugees and barred travel from certain Muslim-majority countries. Rather than defend it, Yates stated the order was neither defensible in court nor consistent with the Constitution.[1][2] Large portions of the order were subsequently blocked by federal courts, which ruled that those sections violated the Fifth Amendment. However, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the third executive order (Presidential Proclamation 9645) and its accompanying travel ban in a 5–4 decision, with the majority opinion being written by Chief Justice John Roberts.[3]

Following her dismissal, Yates returned to private practice and declined to run for elected office.

External video
Sally Yates
Acting United States Attorney General
In office
January 20, 2017 – January 30, 2017
PresidentDonald Trump
Preceded byLoretta Lynch
Succeeded byDana Boente (acting)
36th United States Deputy Attorney General
In office
January 10, 2015 – January 30, 2017
PresidentBarack Obama
Donald Trump
Attorney GeneralEric Holder
Loretta Lynch
Preceded byJames M. Cole
Succeeded byRod Rosenstein
United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia
In office
March 10, 2010 – January 10, 2015
PresidentBarack Obama
Preceded byDavid Nahmias
Succeeded byJohn A. Horn
In office
Acting: July 1, 2004 – December 1, 2004
PresidentGeorge W. Bush
Preceded byWilliam S. Duffey Jr.
Succeeded byDavid Nahmias
Personal details
Born
Sally Caroline Quillian

(1960-08-20)August 20, 1960
Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse(s)Comer Yates
Children2
EducationUniversity of Georgia (BA, JD)
Sally Q Yates testifying.png
Yates testifying [79] before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, May 8, 2017, C-SPAN

Early life and education

Yates was born in Atlanta, Georgia, to John Kelley Quillian (1930–1986),[4] an attorney and judge who served as a judge on the Georgia Court of Appeals between 1966 and 1984, and his wife, Xara "Mickey" DeBeaugrine Quillian (née Terrell; 1931–2012), an interior designer.[5][6][4] Her grandmother had been one of the first women admitted to the Georgia Bar; however, she was not hired as an attorney, instead working as a legal secretary for Yates's grandfather.[7]

Yates attended the University of Georgia, receiving her Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism in 1982. In 1986, she earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Georgia School of Law, graduating magna cum laude. While in law school, Yates served as the executive editor of the Georgia Law Review.[8][9]

Career

In 1986, Yates was admitted to the State Bar of Georgia.[10] From 1986 to 1989, Yates was an associate at the law firm King & Spalding in Atlanta, specializing in commercial litigation.[10] In 1989, she was hired as Assistant U.S. Attorney by Bob Barr for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia.[11] Early in her career at the Department of Justice, Yates prosecuted a variety of types of cases including white-collar fraud and political corruption.[9] In 1994, she became Chief of the Fraud and Public Corruption Section. She was the lead prosecutor in the case of Eric Rudolph, who committed the Centennial Olympic Park bombing,[12] a terrorist convicted for a series of anti-abortion and anti-gay bombings across the southern United States between 1996 and 1998, which killed two people and injured over 120 others.[13] She rose to First Assistant U.S. Attorney in 2002 and to Acting U.S. Attorney in 2004. In the U.S. Attorney's office she held leadership positions under both Republican and Democratic administrations.[14]

President Barack Obama nominated Yates to be U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Georgia. She was confirmed by the Senate on March 10, 2010.[11] Yates was the first woman to hold that position in the Northern District of Georgia.[9] During her time as a U.S. Attorney, Yates was appointed by Attorney General Eric Holder to serve as Vice Chair of the Attorney General's Advisory Committee.[11]

Deputy Attorney General

Yates was questioned by Senator Jeff Sessions at her confirmation hearing.

Yates was questioned by Senator Jeff Sessions at her confirmation hearing.[15]

On May 13, 2015, the United States Senate voted 84–12 (4 not voting) to confirm Yates as Deputy Attorney General of the United States, the second-highest-ranking position in the Justice Department;[16][17] during her confirmation hearing, when questioned by Senator Jeff Sessions if she would disobey a president's unlawful orders, she responded that she would have an obligation to follow the law and the Constitution, and to give independent legal advice to the president.[18] She served under Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who took office shortly before Yates's confirmation.[9][19]

As Deputy Attorney General, Yates was responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Justice Department, which included approximately 113,000 employees. In 2015, she authored the policy, known as the "Yates memo", prioritizing the prosecution of executives for corporate crimes.[20][21] During the final days of the Obama administration, she oversaw the review of 16,000 petitions for executive clemency, making recommendations to the President.[22]

Acting United States Attorney General

Letter from Sally Yates explaining her view of Executive Order 13769

Letter from Sally Yates explaining her view of Executive Order 13769

In January 2017, according to a Justice Department spokesman, Yates accepted a request from the incoming Trump administration to serve as Acting Attorney General, beginning on January 20, 2017, and until the successor for Attorney General Lynch would be confirmed by the United States Senate.[23]

In late January, Yates warned the Trump administration that National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn had not been truthful about his contacts with Russia related to sanctions and that he was vulnerable to blackmail by Russian intelligence. Yates' warning was not immediately acted upon until The Washington Post publicly reported her warning on February 13, 2017. Flynn resigned within hours.[24][25]

On January 27, 2017, President Trump signed Executive Order 13769, which restricted travel to the United States from seven Muslim majority countries, among other provisions. While the executive order had been approved as to "form and legality" by the Department of Justice's Legal Counsel,[26] Yates ordered the Justice Department not to defend the order because she believed the order to be unlawful.[27] Her decision came after several federal courts had issued stays on various parts of the order to stop their implementation, and many U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents had acted in defiance of those stays.[28] In a letter to DOJ staff, Yates wrote:

At present, I am not convinced that the defense of the executive order is consistent with these responsibilities of the Department of Justice, nor am I convinced that the executive order is lawful...I am responsible for ensuring that the positions we take in court remain consistent with this institution's solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right. For as long as I am the acting Attorney General, the Department of Justice will not present arguments in defense of th[is] executive order, unless and until I become convinced that it is appropriate to do so.[29]

In a New York Times editorial published on July 28, 2017, Yates expressed concern about Trump's political influence on the Justice Department, writing "President Trump's actions appear aimed at destroying the fundamental independence of the Justice Department. ... Its investigations and prosecutions must be conducted free from any political interference or influence. ... The very foundation of our justice system—the rule of law—depends on it."[30]

Dismissal

White House press release on the dismissal of Sally Yates

White House press release on the dismissal of Sally Yates

Upon announcing her decision not to defend the order, Yates was immediately dismissed by the Trump administration via hand-delivered letter, and replaced with Dana Boente, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.[31][20] After taking office, Boente ordered the Justice Department to enforce the executive order.[32]

In a White House statement, Yates was said to have "betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States"[33] and to be "... an Obama administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration."[2][34]

Shortly thereafter, acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Daniel Ragsdale was demoted and replaced by Thomas Homan with Ragsdale remaining as deputy director.[35][2]

Reactions

Many legal scholars praised Yates for standing up against what they perceived as an unconstitutional executive order. Some legal experts argued that Yates should have resigned, rather than directing the Justice Department not to defend the executive order, which Cato Institute scholar Josh Blackman called "a textbook case of insubordination".[36] Many also believed the rhetoric of "betrayal" Trump used in his letter was unnecessarily incendiary.[37]

In response to her decision not to defend the order, former Attorney General Eric Holder tweeted that he trusted her judgment.[38]

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called Yates's actions "a profile in courage. It was a brave act and a right act", while Rep. John Conyers criticized the decision to fire her: "If dedicated government officials deem [Trump's] directives to be unlawful and unconstitutional, he will simply fire them as if government is a reality show."[34]

Law professor Jonathan Adler said, however, that "Yates did not claim she was convinced the order was unlawful, but only that it was not 'wise or just'" and that he was "not aware of any instance in which the Justice Department has refused to defend a presumptively lawful executive action on this basis". Adler argued that she should have resigned and publicly stated her reasons for doing so.[39] It was reported that Yates considered and opted not to resign because she did not want to leave her successor facing the same question.[2][40]

The editors of National Review said her defiance of the executive order was "inappropriate", since Yates was unelected and "every official in the Justice Department knows, if one disagrees with the law one is called upon to apply, or the policy one is bound to enforce, one is free to resign".[41]

The New York Times and others drew comparisons to the 1973 Saturday Night Massacre, during the Watergate scandal, when Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus both resigned after refusing to carry out President Richard Nixon's order to dismiss special prosecutor Archibald Cox.[2] By analogy, some cable networks began calling Yates's dismissal the "Monday Night Massacre".[42][43] However, Watergate investigative journalist Carl Bernstein, speaking on CNN, rejected the comparison. "There's a big difference, because the Saturday Night Massacre was really about firing the attorney general when Nixon was the target of an investigation and was actively obstructing justice", he said. "I think the president is within his rights here to fire the attorney general, that he has that ability."[44]

Representative Jackie Speier nominated Yates for the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.[45] Georgia State Senator Elena Parent introduced a resolution commending Yates. Democratic Party operatives in Georgia began recruiting Yates to run for Governor of Georgia in the 2018 election.[46]

Testimonies

House Intelligence Committee

In March 2017, Yates was invited by the House Intelligence Committee to testify before Congress at a public hearing as part of the committee's "bipartisan, ongoing investigation into the Russian active measures campaign targeting the 2016 U.S. election".[47]

Later the same month, however, The Washington Post published documents indicating that the Trump administration had sought to block her from testifying, including letters from the Justice Department to Yates indicating that the administration considers her possible testimony on the ouster of Flynn to be barred by the presidential communications privilege or deliberative process privilege.[48]

The public hearing at which Yates had been set to testify was canceled by Chairman Devin Nunes, who said through his spokesperson that neither he nor anyone else in the committee had discussed Yates's testimony with the White House.[49] White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer called The Washington Post story "false"; said that "the White House has taken no action to prevent Sally Yates from testifying" and that the White House had given its tacit consent; and added "I hope she testifies."[50][49]

Senate Judiciary Committee

On May 8, 2017, Yates and James Clapper testified for three hours before the Senate Judiciary's Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism over the Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.[51] Yates said the FBI interviewed then-National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn on January 24, 2017. Because of that interview she made an "urgent" request to meet with White House Counsel Don McGahn.[52] She met with him on January 26 and again on January 27.[53] She informed McGahn that Flynn was "compromised" and possibly open to blackmail by the Russians. As previously reported, she told McGahn that Flynn had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other administration officials about the nature of his conversation with the Russian ambassador.[54] She said Flynn's "underlying conduct", which she could not describe due to classification, "was problematic in and of itself," adding "(i)t was a whole lot more than one White House official lying to another."[53][52]

After the Justice Department

After leaving the Justice Department, Yates became a lecturer at Georgetown University Law Center and returned to Atlanta as a partner at the Atlanta-based law firm King & Spalding, where she had worked 30 years earlier. Yates' practice focuses on investigations.[55]

Honors

In January 2016, Yates received Emory University School of Law's Emory Public Interest Committee (EPIC) Inspiration Award.[56] Following Yates's dismissal as Acting Attorney General, Representative Jackie Speier nominated her for the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award, and Georgia State Senator Elena Parent introduced a resolution commending Yates.[45][46] In April 2017, Yates received the Mary Church Terrell Freedom and Justice Award during the Detroit NAACP's 62nd Annual Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner.[57][58]

Personal life

Yates's husband, J. Comer Yates, is an executive director of the Atlanta Speech School. In 1994 and 1996, he unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a Democrat.[59][60] The couple have two children,[61] a daughter, Kelley Malone and a son, James "Quill" Quillian.[62][63]

Yates is a Democrat, but at the Department of Justice served under both Democratic and Republican administrations, as a career civil servant.[64] She was hired by Republican Bob Barr for her first DOJ position.[64] When appointed deputy attorney general in 2014, Yates was described as well-regarded and non-political; her appointment was praised by Georgia's two senators, both Republicans.[65] After leaving the Justice Department, Democrats in Georgia sought to draft Yates as a candidate for governor in 2018;[66] she declined to run.[67]

Yates has written and spoken about suicide prevention, discussing her father's struggles with depression and his suicide in 1986.[68][69][70]

References

[1]
Citation Linkwww.cnn.comPerez, Evan; Diamond, Jeremy (January 30, 2017). "Trump fires acting AG after she declines to defend travel ban". CNN. Retrieved March 12, 2018.
Sep 29, 2019, 7:42 PM
[2]
Citation Linkwww.nytimes.comLandler, Mark; Shear, Michael D.; Apuzzo, Matt; Lichtblau, Eric (January 30, 2017). "Trump Fires Acting Attorney General Who Defied Him". The New York Times. Retrieved January 30, 2017. The decision by the acting attorney general is a remarkable rebuke by a government official to a sitting president that recalls the dramatic "Saturday Night Massacre" in 1973, when President Richard M. Nixon fired his attorney general and deputy attorney general for refusing to dismiss the special prosecutor in the Watergate case. That case prompted a constitutional crisis that ended when Robert Bork, the solicitor general, acceded to Mr. Nixon's order and fired Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor.
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[3]
Citation Linkwww.nytimes.comhttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/26/us/politics/supreme-court-trump-travel-ban.html
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[4]
Citation Linkwww.gaappeals.us"J. Kelley Quillian, 1966–1984 Chief Judge: 1981–1982". Georgia Court of Appeals. Retrieved January 30, 2017.
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[5]
Citation Linkm.legacy.com"Xara QUILLIAN Obituary". Legacy.
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[6]
Citation Linktimes-herald.comSkinner, Winston (February 1, 2017). "Ousted AG has ties to local area". Times Herald.
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[7]
Citation Linkwww.cnbc.comClifford, Catherine (January 31, 2017). "How Sally Yates' life and career formed the principles that just got her fired". CNBC. Retrieved February 12, 2017.
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[8]
Citation Linknews.uga.eduBill, David (December 23, 2014). "UGA law graduate Sally Yates nominated for U.S. deputy attorney general". UGA Today.
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[9]
Citation Linkwww.cnn.comWatkins, Eli (January 30, 2017). "Who is Sally Yates?". CNN. Retrieved January 31, 2017.
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[10]
Citation Linkwww.judiciary.senate.govQuestionnaire for Non-Judicial Nominees: Sally Quillian Yates, United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary (2015).
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[11]
Citation Linkwww.ajc.comJeffries, Fran (December 21, 2014). "Report: Sally Yates is Obama's pick for deputy attorney general". Atlanta Journal Constitution.
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[12]
Citation Linkwww.washingtonpost.comHorwitz, Sari (December 21, 2014). "Sally Yates said to be Obama's nominee for Justice Department's second in command". Washington Post.
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[13]
Citation Linkwww.justice.gov"#477: 10-14-98 Eric Rudolph Charged in Centennial Olympic Park Bombing". www.justice.gov. Retrieved January 31, 2017.
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[14]
Citation Linknation.foxnews.comStockman, Rachel (January 31, 2017). "Who Is Sally Yates? Some Republicans Once Called Her 'Hero' Before She Defied Trump's Order". Fox News. Retrieved January 31, 2017.
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[15]
Citation Linkwww.c-span.org"Senator Sessions Advising Sally Yates to Disobey Improper Presidential Orders". C-SPAN.org. Retrieved January 31, 2017.
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[16]
Citation Linkwww.senate.gov"Senate Roll Call Vote #177, 114th Congress - 1st Session: "On the Nomination of Sally Quillian Yates, of Georgia, to be Deputy Attorney General"". United States Senate Recorded Votes. May 13, 2015.
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[17]
Citation Linkwww.washingtonpost.comHorwitz, Sari (May 17, 2015). "New deputy attorney general: 'We're not the Department of Prosecutions'". Washington Post. Retrieved January 30, 2017.
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[18]
Citation Linkwww.vox.comPlumer, Brad (January 31, 2017). "Watch: Jeff Sessions tells Sally Yates to be ready to stand up to the president — in 2015". Vox. Retrieved January 31, 2017.
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[19]
Citation Linkwww.nytimes.com"Loretta Lynch Is Sworn In as Attorney General". New York Times. Retrieved April 27, 2015.
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[20]
Citation Linkwww.washingtonpost.comHorwitz, Sari (January 30, 2017). "Who is Sally Yates? Meet the acting attorney general Trump fired for 'betraying' the Justice Department". Washington Post. Retrieved July 25, 2019.
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