U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott resigning as Sacramento region's top federal prosecutor

Sacramento Bee (CA)

Feb. 10—U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott, who has served two stints as the Sacramento region's highest-ranking federal law enforcement officer, announced Wednesday that he is resigning effective Feb. 28.

Scott's departure had been expected since President Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in November's election, and comes one day after the Justice Department issued a news release titled " U.S. Attorney Transition Begins" that said Biden would nominate new U.S. attorneys for his administration.

Scott, 58, said he was called Tuesday by Acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson and told that the president had asked for resignations of Trump-appointed U.S. attorneys, a customary move with the change in administrations.

"I will be submitting later today my letter to the president pursuant to his request and it will be effective Feb. 28," Scott said in an interview.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert will serve as acting U.S. attorney, a post he served in previously for nearly two years after U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner stepped down in 2016.

Talbert, a 27-year veteran of the Justice Department, recently was awarded the Justice Department's Director's Award for his service, and is expected to be a candidate for the job of U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California, which stretches from the Oregon state line to Bakersfield and is one of four federal districts in the state.

"I have the utmost confidence in him," Scott said. "He is fully committed to the mission of the Department of Justice and the people in this office, and I know he will do an exemplary job just as he did when he became the acting U.S. attorney when Ben Wagner resigned at the end of the Obama administration."

Scott said he has no definite plans for his future yet, and said he will take some time off before making any decisions.

He added that he is proud of the fact that he and his leadership staff have been "fully committed to doing the best we could to take care of our people while continuing to do the work of the Department of Justice."

"When I took this job, I knew that in all likelihood it would be an unconventional presidency and that there might very well come a time when it would be necessary for me to do all I could to protect the office from unusual events in Washington, D.C., so that the people here could simply do the work that they've been hired to do," he said. "And I take pride in the fact that I think I've accomplished that mission to protect and shield them to do that work."

Scott added that he was never asked by the previous administration to do anything that concerned him. He said he had planned originally to depart sometime around Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, but delayed leaving because of the events of Jan. 6 during the U.S. Capitol riot.

"If they let me do this job for the rest of my life I'd be the happiest man," Scott said. "It's been an honor and a privilege to do this job twice."

Scott served as U.S. attorney for President George W. Bush for nearly six years before stepping down upon the election of President Barack Obama in 2008.

He returned to the post in 2017 after being nominated by Trump, and in 2019 served as an adviser to then-Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker during special counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Scott has been a prosecutor for most of his career, serving as a deputy district attorney in Contra Costa County and later as Shasta County district attorney.

While in Redding, Scott oversaw the investigation and prosecution of brothers Benjamin Matthew Williams and James Tyler Williams, who were convicted in the slayings of two gay men in Shasta County and the arson attacks against three Sacramento-area synagogues and an abortion clinic.

He also witnessed the lethal injection execution at San Quentin State Prison in 2000 of Darrell Rich, who killed three women and an 11-year-old girl in 1978 in the "Hilltop Rapist" crime spree.

As U.S. attorney under Bush, Scott oversaw huge mortgage fraud cases stemming from the housing market collapse in 2008.

Under Trump, Scott's office launched prosecutions of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang, pursued cases against online Dark Web sites selling guns and drugs illegally and cracked down on illegal firearms sales.

He also helped investigate California's unemployment fraud scandal, which has cost taxpayers at least $11 billion so far, and said he believes he has strengthened relations with local law enforcement agencies to fight violent crime.

Between his two tenures as U.S. attorney, Scott served in private practice and volunteered his time to advise kidnap victim Jaycee Lee Dugard and to help conduct an independent investigation into former UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, who resigned in 2016 following a Sacramento Bee investigation into her use of university contracts to enhance her online reputation.

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