James Schultz resigned last week to return to the private sector after serving as a deputy to the White House's senior ethics official for almost a year.
Schultz will return home to Philadelphia where his family still resides to continue his work at his previous law firm Cozen O’Connor, Politico reports.
During his time in the White House, his duties consisted of work on transportation and contracting-related executive orders, as well as on judicial and U.S. attorney nominations in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Schultz's duties will be taken over by Associate Counsel Scott Gast, who previously worked at the House's Office of Congressional Ethics before joining the White House in January.
Schultz told Politico his resignation was spurred by his desire to get back into private law work and get back to his family in Philadelphia.
"I was interested in continuing with private practice and saw this as a tremendous opportunity to go serve and get things up and running, and the plan was to move on about this time. ... These are typically year-to-about-18-months-type positions," Schultz said.
He added he’s willing to join the televised debate to talk "about the good work the Trump administrations is doing" but plans to "have a robust law practice."
"That'll be something I'd be willing to do, certainly, getting out and talking about the good work the Trump administration is doing on these issues," he said. "I will be out, but I don't plan to make a career out of being a pundit on TV. ... I'm planning to have a robust law practice."
Schultz revealed he agreed to an ethics pledge required by the Trump administration, which imposes a five-year ban on becoming a registered lobbyist and a lifetime ban on being a foreign lobbyist.
Ultimately, Schultz saw the "real legacy" of his time in the administration being his work on judicial nominations.
"I look at the judges as a real legacy in changing the face of the courts and putting originalists into those positions," Schultz said. "That's something where even now we can look back and say, 'we had some real impact.'"