Justice Department emails reveal support for Sally Yates after she refused to enforce Trump’s travel ban

A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and subsequent lawsuit filed against the US Justice Department for the release of former acting Attorney General Sally Yates’ emails revealed mess, including a prominent prosecutor who praised Yates’ decision not to enforcePresident Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban earlier this year.

Judicial Watch released emails sent from multiple Justice Department employees to Yates during her tenure as acting attorney general in the first week of the Trump administration. On January 27, Trump implemented an executive order intended to temporarily bar refugees and people from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the US.

Yates, a former deputy attorney general under the Obama administration, refused to defend Trump’s order, saying his administration’s justification for the ban — that it was a national-security issue and not a religious one — was indefensible. Yates was promptly fired.