In a move that should shock no one who has a basic understanding of constitutional rights and/or a moral compass, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates issued a letter today declaring that President Trump's Muslim ban is unlawful, ordering Department of Justice attorneys not to defend it in court.

My responsibility is to ensure that the position of the Department of Justice is not only legally defensible, but is informed by our best view of what the law is after consideration of all the facts. In addition, 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. At present, I am not convinced that the defense of the Executive Order is consistent with these responsibilities nor am I convinced that the Executive Order is lawful.

President Trump responded by promptly firing her.

Yes, Yates was "appointed by President Obama" to her former position as Deputy Attorney General. But her elevation to Acting Attorney General was at the request of President Trump, who asked her to take charge of the Department of Justice until his pick for the position could be confirmed. The nation's chief law enforcement officer voiced her well-grounded objections to a legally tenuous policy, and because he didn't like what he heard, he axed her. In this president's White House, dissent is equivalent to betrayal, and Trump's willingness to rid himself of dissidents is a direct threat to the checks and balances on presidential power that are vital to this country's model of divided federal government.

Senate Democrats Should Not Vote to Confirm Jeff Sessions Democrats need to stand against Trump. Otherwise, they stand for nothing.

To be clear: Not since 1973, when President Nixon attempted to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox and forced the resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus in what became known as the Saturday Night Massacre, has a President of the United States forced an attorney general out of office under circumstances like these. Yates is right: as I've written before, the Department of Justice is the agency within the executive branch that is charged with challenging the president's missteps, ensuring that the rule of law does not bend to the president's will. It was for this same reason that when President Nixon ordered Richardson and Ruckelshaus to illegally terminate Cox, who at the time was spearheading the Watergate investigation that eventually led to Nixon's downfall, they refused to do so and quit in protest on the same night.

Read that again, slowly: It took Donald Trump eleven days to replicate the basic facts of the most significant constitutional crisis in American history. His actions tonight flagrantly disrespect the presidency, the Constitution, and his millions of constituents, and show once against that this lawless administration cares about nothing but its own accumulation of power by any means necessary.

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