Deputy Attorney General: Sally Q. Yates

Sally Q. Yates was the 36th Deputy Attorney General of the United States. She served as the Department’s second-ranking official from May 2015 to January 2017.

At the time of her nomination for the post of Deputy Attorney General, Ms. Yates was U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. Throughout her tenure as Deputy Attorney General, she focused on strengthening public safety, reforming the criminal justice system, ensuring individual accountability for corporate offenders, and reducing recidivism.

Ms. Yates served in the Department of Justice for nearly 30 years. She began her public service career in 1989 as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia. Over the next two decades, she prosecuted a vast array of cases, including numerous white-collar fraud and political corruption matters, and served as the lead prosecutor of Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph, who subsequently received four life sentences without the possibility of parole. Ms. Yates held several supervisory positions within that office until 2010, when she was appointed by President Barack Obama to lead the office as its first female U.S. Attorney.

A native of Georgia, Ms. Yates graduated magna cum laude from the University of Georgia Law School and practiced commercial litigation at a law firm in Atlanta before joining the Department of Justice.