See what happens when you don’t listen to your lawyer?

 

President Trump’s venal and stupid executive order on immigration, which caused total chaos and mass protests at American airports yesterday, was issued without any guidance from legal counsel:

The policy team at the White House developed the executive order on refugees and visas, and largely avoided the traditional interagency process that would have allowed the Justice Department and homeland security agencies to provide operational guidance, according to numerous officials who spoke to CNN on Saturday.
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Department of Homeland Security leadership saw the final details shortly before the order was finalized, government officials said.
Friday night, DHS arrived at the legal interpretation that the executive order restrictions applying to seven countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan and Yemen — did not apply to people with lawful permanent residence, generally referred to as green card holders.
The White House overruled that guidance overnight, according to officials familiar with the rollout. That order came from the President’s inner circle, led by Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon. Their decision held that, on a case by case basis, DHS could allow green card holders to enter the US.
[…]
Before the President issued the order, the White House did not seek the legal guidance of the Office of Legal Counsel, the Justice Department office that interprets the law for the executive branch. A source said the executive order did not follow the standard agency review process that’s typically overseen by the National Security Council, though the source couldn’t specifically say if that included the decision to not have the order go through the Office of Legal Counsel.
Separately, a person familiar with the matter said career officials in charge of enforcing the executive order were not fully briefed on the specifics until Friday. The officials were caught off guard by some of the specifics and raised questions about how to handle the new banned passengers on US-bound planes.
I was shocked and devastated by Trump’s election, but I tried to stay positive by reminding myself that no one can predict the future with certainty, and that many Presidents have grown in office and taken their Administrations in unexpected directions.
With this vindictive, incompetent man-child, I think we’ve seen enough after nine days.  The question is, what will make Republicans (who have remained silent about this mess, with a few honourable exceptions) realize the wreckage wrought by Trump outweighs the power they’ve been given?

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