Team Trump's messy defenses of the immigration order could hurt them in court

Incompetent, contradictory — and accidentally revealing.

Updated by Dara Linddara@vox.com Jan 30, 2017, 11:28am EST

The Trump administration’s defenses of its executive order banning people from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the US (as well as nearly all refugees) are consistent with the way the executive order’s been applied: all over the place.

Reports from inside the administration have made it clear that the executive order wasn’t developed with anywhere near the typical amount of caution, interagency involvement, or review that would normally happen before an executive order was published — and that, after the order was published, the White House overruled lawyers at the Department of Homeland Security, who initially concluded it wouldn’t apply to green card holders.

Administration officials’ appearances on Sunday talk shows appeared to be less cautious than one might expect in explaining and defending the order, too — and it could really come back to hurt them.

That’s because the administration is already being sued all over the US over the order, with more lawsuits on the way. Public statements about the order from administration officials aren’t just spin, they’re evidence. And the evidence that Trump spokespeople offered into the record on Sunday could make it harder for the government to defend this case in court.

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http://www.vox.com/2017/1/29/14430478/trump-admit-muslim-ban-giuliani