Outgoing Attorney General Jeff Sessions received applause from members of the Justice Department while leaving the building on Wednesday evening.
Sessions was shown shaking hands with his chief of staff Matthew Whitaker, who is slated to replace him as acting attorney general, in his publicized exit.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and other top Justice Department officials were also on hand to salute the departing attorney general.
President Trump earlier Wednesday ousted Sessions as his attorney general, after more than a year criticizing Sessions’s decision to recuse himself in the federal Russia probe.{mosads}
Sessions agreed to resign at Trump’s request, according to a copy of his resignation letter obtained by The Hill.
“I came to work at the Department of Justice every day determined to do my duty and serve my country,” Sessions wrote. “I have done so to the best of my ability, working to support the fundamental legal processes that are the foundation of justice.”
Trump announced in a tweet that Whitaker would replace Sessions as acting attorney general until a permanent replacement is confirmed by the Senate.
The Justice Department later confirmed that Whitaker, a GOP loyalist who served as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, would take over oversight of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, which Rosenstein had watched over since Sessions’s recusal last year.