Rachel Brand, who up until yesterday had been the third-most senior official at the Justice Department, denied that she was departing the agency due to concerns she would be called to oversee special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
“Anyone who actually knows me knows that had nothing to do with my departure,” Brand told Fox News on Tuesday.
Brand served directly under Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing Mueller’s Russia probe to determine if the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin during the 2016 election. Rosenstein took over oversight of the federal Russia inquiry after Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recusal.
In the event Rosenstein were removed, Brand could have taken over overseeing the investigation, prompting some to believe that she may be leaving the agency to avoid overseeing the investigation if Rosenstein were removed. Trump has often condemned the investigation as a “witch hunt” and has reportedly weighed firing Rosenstein.
“I never had any reason to think that the Mueller probe would come to me, and even if it had, it has nothing to do with why I left the department,” Brand told Fox News. “… This was about seizing an opportunity, not about leaving DOJ.”
Brand is leaving the DOJ to work as Walmart’s executive vice president of global governance and corporate secretary. She said she left the DOJ to accept a position “most lawyers would dream their whole career about taking.”
“These kind of jobs come along maybe once in a career, and when they come along it might not be the perfect timing for you, but you have to take the opportunity when it comes,” she said.
Brand assumed her position as associate attorney general in May 2017 and worked in the Justice Department over the past three presidential administrations.
As deputy attorney general, she oversaw a large part of the Justice Department, including the civil division, the civil rights division and the antitrust division. She announced her resignation earlier this month and her last day as associate attorney general was Tuesday, according to Fox News.
