Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates said Tuesday that President Trump’s attacks on the Department of Justice are “tearing down the legitimacy” of the DOJ.
Yates, whom Trump fired last year after she refused to defend his travel ban on refugees from several Muslim-majority countries, warned that the president’s attacks on top DOJ officials like Attorney General Jeff Sessions and special counsel Robert Mueller are “not normal,” but are becoming normalized.
“There is a time-honored tradition at the Department of Justice, at least since Watergate, that is nonpartisan,” Yates said, according to Yahoo News. “There is a wall between the Department of Justice and the White House when it comes to criminal investigations and prosecutions.”
“It used to be a big news story that would say, ‘In an unprecedented step, Trump said this,’” Yates said. “Now it doesn’t even make it through the full 24-hour news cycle because it happens so frequently.”
Trump, whose targets at the DOJ include former FBI director James Comey and former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, threatened last month to intervene at the department.
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