Scott Schools, the highest-ranking career lawyer at the U.S. Justice Department, is planning to leave the Justice Department at the end of the week, NPR reports. he job title for Schools — associate deputy attorney general — belied his importance as a strategic counselor and repository of institutional memory and ethics. Schools has played a critical role in some of the most important and sensitive issues in the department. This year, Schools recommended that then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe be fired for a “lack of candor” in an internal investigation. Earlier, he advised former acting Attorney General Sally Yates about the boundaries of her congressional testimony in early 2016.
“Scott has provided invaluable leadership and counsel in his years at the department, and his service is an example to all,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions. “He will be greatly missed, and I wish him the best in his future endeavors.” Schools is the latest departure from a Justice Department battered by political attacks over its handling of the 2016 Hillary Clinton email investigation and more recently the Russia investigation. Its previous third-in-command, Rachel Brand, resigned this year. Nominees to run the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Civil Rights Division and Environmental and Natural Resources Division have not been confirmed in the Senate. As for Schools, Slate.com called him “the most important unknown person in D.C.” Schools began his career as a prosecutor in South Carolina, rising to become a U.S. Attorney there and in San Francisco, where he signed off on charges against baseball phenom Barry Bonds.