It’s Not a Big Mystery Why Jason Chaffetz Is Quitting Congress

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The latest from Capitol Hill:

After saying he won’t run again, may leave Congress early, Rep. @jasoninthehouse now says he’s got to be OOO for surgery ASAP pic.twitter.com/VHYUMZ8nhS

— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) April 27, 2017

Ever since Jason Chaffetz announced he would be leaving Congress, people have been trying to figure out what’s going on. Why would he do that?

But it doesn’t seem like much of a mystery to me. Chaffetz is a very ambitious guy. Like everyone else, he assumed Hillary Clinton would win the election and provide him with endless fodder for high-profile investigations from his perch as chairman of the Oversight Committee. He’d be on the front page all the time, doing CNN hits, and just generally gaining lots of name recognition for the next step in his career. President Chaffetz? It could happen!

Then Trump won. Suddenly the Oversight Committee was all but shut down. There would be no investigations. In fact, it was even worse than that. There was a real possibility that Trump would do something so outrageous that Chaffetz would have no choice but to hold hearings. Then he’d really be in trouble. He’d be caught between loyalty to party and the need to avoid looking like a total shill. It’s a lose-lose proposition.

tl;dr version: Trump’s election transformed the Oversight Committee from a platform for fame and fortune into a backwater at best and an endless tightrope with career-ending risk at worst. So Chaffetz decided to quit. In the meantime, though, he might as well get his foot fixed on the taxpayer’s dime, amirite? Plus it gets him out of the line of fire even quicker. What’s not to like?