Tea Party star announces decision not to run in 2014 as FBI and Office of Congressional Ethics probe staff behaviour
Michele Bachmann, the outspoken Minnesota lawmaker who ran for the Republican party's presidential nomination last year, announced on Wednesday that she will not seek re-election for her seat in the US House of Representatives.
The announcement, which Bachmann made on a video posted on her website and Facebook page and on YouTube, came six months after she was narrowly re-elected to the House for a fourth term, after her most challenging campaign so far and amid investigations into her 2012 presidential campaign's fundraising activities.
In the video, which runs for nearly nine minutes, Bachmann tells her supporters that her decision was not based on any concern that she would be defeated next year, or due to federal inquiries into activities of her former presidential campaign staff. She says that she decided not to run again after a great deal of thought and deliberation unrelated to her recent difficulties.
Wearing a dark blue satin blouse, a set of pearls and her trademark broad smile, Bachmann tells her "good friends" that "I have decided next year I will not seek a fifth congressional term to represent the wonderful people of the sixth district of Minnesota. Be assured, my decision was not in any way influenced by any concerns about my being re-elected to Congress."
Bachmann says she had "every confidence" that if she ran she would win again. "And rest assured, this decision was not impacted in any way by the recent inquiries into the activities of my former presidential campaign or my former presidential staff."
Bachmann defeated the Democrat Jim Graves by only 1.2% in the 2012 election– among the smallest margins in the country – despite outspending him. The GOP presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, carried her heavily conservative district by 15 points. Graves recently announced that he will seek the seat again in 2014.
Bachmann's announcement comes against a backdrop of continuing investigations by the Office of Congressional Ethics and the FBI, into her presidential campaign and political action committee finances. Seperately, according to the Star Tribune, she has reportedly been settling a matter in which her campaign staff were accused of stealing a list of home-school families to use for fundraising purposes.
Bachmann made history by winning the 2011 Iowa straw poll, becoming the first Republican woman to win such a poll, caucus or primary, and gained early support before her presidential bid collapsed. A strong anti-abortion campaigner who is known for her Tea Party and traditional family values-based beliefs, Bachmann won a brief spell in the spotlight among the Republican party candidates for the presidency. But in the televised debates, she was pilloried for making statements that were later proved to be false. Of claims she has made, checked by Politifact, 36% were rated "false", while 25% were rated "pants on fire".
She won the Washington Post's "Four-Pinocchio" rating for her confident but often incorrect statements. Among them were a statement that the human papilloma virus was linked to "mental retardation" and the false assertion that "Barack Obama has a $1.4bn-a-year presidency of perks and excesses." The money was mostly spent on Secret Service protection and helicopters.
In her video, Bachmann speaks about some of the key issues driving her, from the fight to protect "innocent human life", "traditional marriage" and "academic excellence" to opposing the current administration, whose "foreign policy blunders" during the Arab Spring had contributed to turning "the Middle East into a devastating, evil jihadist earthquake".
Bachmann has not ruled out a return to politics. In the video, she says: "There is no future option or opportunity, be it directly in the political area or otherwise, that I won't be giving serious consideration if it can help save and protect our great nation for future generations.
"Feel confident that over the next 18 months I will continue to work 100-hour weeks and continue to do everything I can to advance our conservative principles that have served as the bedrock for who we are as a nation."