In recent days, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates announced that her department would not defend the president's executive order on immigration. She was promptly fired. President Trump said she "betrayed the Department of Justice." About one thousand State Department career foreign service officers and civil servants used the agency's "dissent channel" to disagree with the same order, prompting Press Secretary Sean Spicer to tell them they should "either get with the program or they can go." Many Americans agree with the president and his press secretary. They are tired of obstruction by bureaucrats. Others cheer the federal workers, recalling the horror of Nazi Germany's civil servants who just followed orders.
This issue is not new. Civil servants have taken what they regard as principled stands before. The "dissent channel" was used to question President Obama's lack of more aggressive action on Syria. Some civil servants objected to the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" during the Iraq War. Presidents, of course, don't usually appreciate federal workers who refuse to "salute the flag."
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