Goldsmith v. Lederman on Yates
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 1 February 2017
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On Monday, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates ordered the Justice Department not to defend President Trump's executive order banning refugees and immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries, only to be quickly fired by Trump. Jack Goldsmith and Marty Lederman, who have both served in senior positions in the Office of Legal Counsel, penned responses—Jack criticizing Yates's actions and Marty defending them. We got them on the line for a special edition of the Lawfare Podcast.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
| 0:04.5 | To access an ad-free version of the LawFair podcast, become a material supporter of LawFair |
| 0:11.2 | at patreon.com slash lawfair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash lawfair. |
| 0:18.3 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, lawfair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:33.9 | The difference for me between a Rosie Nation and this letter is that she purported to be |
| 0:39.6 | invoking the principles of the Department of Justice and she was acting as the head of |
| 0:43.4 | the Department of Justice and purporting to invoke those principles and purporting |
| 0:47.8 | to be acting on behalf of the Department of Justice and making this decision. |
| 0:52.4 | And it is deeply ironic that in doing so, she in several respects indeed the entire document |
| 0:59.4 | mistated the standards by which the Department has long provided in deciding where to |
| 1:04.6 | defend. |
| 1:05.6 | So I'm not agreeing with you as I see what the source of our disagreement is. |
| 1:11.4 | It is the way that she phrased some of these things in this letter about the Justice |
| 1:17.6 | Department not presenting arguments and invoking the standards that are usually used in the |
| 1:24.2 | context of constitutionally dubious statutes. |
| 1:27.1 | I'm Benjamin Wittes and this is the LawFair podcast special edition February 1, 2017. |
| 1:35.3 | Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, defied President Trump and ordered the Justice Department |
| 1:41.9 | not to make arguments in defense of his immigration and refugee executive order and she quickly |
| 1:49.0 | became the former acting Attorney General as a result as he fired her. |
| 1:54.8 | On LawFair, the evening of the firing, Jack Goldsmith wrote a piece criticizing her action |
... |
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