Both Texas senators exchanged barbs with former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates during a hearing Monday on Russia’s communication with advisers to President Donald Trump.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, turned the discussion to Yates’ declaration in the early days of the Trump administration that the Justice Department would not defend Trump’s executive order banning travel to the United States from certain Muslim-dominated countries. Yates was fired from her position as a result.

"I voted for your confirmation because I believed you had a distinguished career," Cornyn told Yates, referring to her 2015 confirmation as deputy attorney general under President Barrack Obama. "But I have to tell you that I find it enormously disappointing that you somehow vetoed the decision of the Office of Legal Counsel with regard to the lawfulness of the president’s order and decided instead that you would countermand the executive order of the president of the United States because you happened to disagree with it as a policy matter."

Yates fired back by using the senator’s own words against him. "I remember my confirmation hearing and an exchange that I had with you," she told Cornyn. "You specifically asked me in that hearing that if the president asked me to do something that was unlawful or unconstitutional ... would I say no? I looked at this and I made a determination that I believed it was unlawful. I also thought that it was inconsistent with the principles of the Department of Justice, and I said no. And that what I promised you I would do I would do and that’s what I did."

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also shifted his questioning from the Russia campaign probe to the Trump travel ban.

If an attorney general disagrees with a policy decision of the president, a policy decision that is lawful, does the attorney general have the authority to direct the Department of Justice to defy the president’s order?"

Yates replied, "I don’t know if the attorney general has the authority do that or not, but I don’t think it would be a good idea, and it’s not what I did in this case."