Highlighting her belief that voters "have a right" to know all the facts regarding the potential charges against the former US President Donald Trump, Sally Yates, a seasoned Justice Department official who previously held the position of acting attorney general, emphasized this during a recent conversation on “The Axe Files” podcast.
Trump abruptly dismissed Yates in 2017. This came after she advised Justice Department attorneys to refrain from defending his executive order, which disallowed citizens from seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the US for 90 days. Yates was supposed to hold her position until the confirmation of Jeff Sessions, Trump’s choice for attorney general.
Yates’s recent statements come at a time when the ex-president is wrestling with a whopping 91 criminal charges at both state and federal levels across four separate legal cases.
Jack Smith headed a federal investigation as part of the special counsel into alleged interference with the 2020 election. As a result, early in August, Trump faced multiple charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding. These are aside from an additional 40 counts in a separate federal indictment related to the improper handling of classified documents.
Yates, having been a part of the Department of Justice for almost 30 years, touted Smith as an efficient and straightforward professional. She also commended the powerful nature of his team’s cases against Trump, identifying the case relating to document mishandling in Florida as particularly compelling.
Yates weighed in on the logic at the heart of the special counsel’s case concerning events on January 6, namely that Trump knew his election claims were untrue after being told by numerous close advisors that he had lost. In her view, the government doesn’t need to prove that Trump genuinely believed he had lost the election. What matters is whether he used unlawful means to achieve his purposes.
Unlawful actions, she stressed, are what could turn Trump's claims into a crime. Though he was within his rights to contest the election through legal procedures, using unlawful methods, like with the alleged false electors, constitutes potential criminal behavior.
Yates also rejected the idea propagated by Trump and his followers of a dual-tiered justice system that has been used against him. “Certainly we still suffer from racial disparities. That’s the two tiers here. Not that Donald Trump is being unfairly held to account for just about the most serious crimes you could commit if you’re president of the United States,” she said.
She briefly touched topics such as the ongoing criminal investigation into Hunter Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland's decision to keep Trump-appointed US attorney David Weiss in place to complete the investigation.
Given the circumstances, Yates maintained that Attorney General Garland’s choice was the correct one. However, most importantly, she underlined, the voters have a right to hear all the evidence and know the truth before the upcoming 2024 elections.
