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U.S. President Donald Trump fired the federal government's top lawyer Sally Yates on Monday (January 30) after she took the extraordinarily rare step of defying the White House and refused to defend new travel restrictions targeting seven Muslim-majority nations.
Yates said late on Monday that the Justice Department would not defend in court Trump's directive that put a 120-day hold on allowing refugees into the country, an indefinite ban on refugees from Syria and a 90-day bar on citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
Yates said she did not believe defending the order would be "consistent with this institution's solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right."
Hours later, she was fired.
The White House said Yates "has betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States" and portrayed her actions as political.