Sally Yates on Bob Mueller: ‘Folks Ought to Have Tremendous Confidence in Him’
Sally Yates said on Tuesday that “folks ought to have tremendous confidence” in Bob Mueller, the former FBI director who is leading the Department of Justice investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Yates, the former acting attorney general who was fired by President Trump in January, said Mueller “is the consummate professional. He is going to call it like he sees it. He’s going to do this the right way.”
Yates has many reasons to be that the White House had instituted a travel ban on citizens and refugees from seven majority-Muslim countries. She had to “furiously” search for details on the internet from a car on the way to the airport, she said during an interview at the Aspen Ideas Festival, which is co-sponsored by the Aspen Institute and . After a hectic weekend of chaos and protests at multiple American airports, Yates determined that she wasn’t comfortable defending the constitutionality of the ban: It “would require me to send lawyers into court to say this ban had nothing to do with religion,” she said. “I did not believe that to be a defense that was grounded in truth.” Shortly thereafter, she was fired from her post.
