Chaffetz to resign, again raising doubts about Trump probe
ALPINE, Utah — Rep. Jason Chaffetz announced Thursday he will resign from Congress next month, saying a “mid- life crisis” had compelled him to step away from his chairmanship of the House Oversight Committee just as it is poised to investigate President Donald Trump’s firing of the FBI director.
The announcement by Chaffetz, 50, was the latest upending of the Republicancontrolled congressional investigations into Trump.
Chaffetz’s announcement came a day after he tweeted that he had invited ex- FBI Director James Comey to testify next week at a hearing of the oversight committee he leads.
Comey was fired last week amid an FBI investigation into whether Trump’s presidential campaign associates colluded with Russia to influence the presidential election outcome to benefit him.
Chaffetz, a Utah Republican who had just started his fifth term in Congress, used his post as chair of the oversight committee to doggedly investigate Hillary Clinton before the 2016 presidential election and raise his political profile.
After Trump won the election, Chaffetz became a lightning rod for criticism that Republicans weren’t aggressively policing Trump.
Liberals said that he did not go after the incoming administration with nearly the vigor used against the prior Democratic adminis- tration. Constituents booed him at a raucous February town hall.
Last month, Chaffetz stunned the political world by saying he would leave Congress before his current term ends in 2018. But he did not provide a date for his departure until Thursday.
Chaffetz is the second House Republican who is stepping away from a Trump investigation. Rep. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, had to recuse himself from that investigation after a bizarre incident where he emerged from the White House and seemed to suggest he had evidence backing up Trump’s groundless contention that he had been surveilled by the Obama administration. Republican Rep. K. Michael Conaway is now overseeing that probe.
Chaffetz said his last day will be June 30.
“I kind of had a little bit of a midlife crisis. I turned 50, I’m sleeping on a cot,” Chaffetz said of his life as a congressman in Washington. “The overwhelming driving force is the idea that I just love my family. And a lot of people will never ever believe that, but that is the truth.”