Whitfield's retirement will be effective Sept. 6, the day Congress returns from August recess. | AP Photo Rep. Whitfield will resign following ethics probe

Rep. Ed Whitfield, the Kentucky Republican dogged by ethics problems around “special favors” he granted his lobbyist wife, is resigning from Congress next week.

Whitfield sent a letter to Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin and House Speaker Paul Ryan announcing his retirement, effective Sept. 6, the day Congress returns from August recess.


“As you know, I did not seek re-election to Congress this year and have now decided to submit my resignation as the congressman of the First District of Kentucky,” Whitfield said in a short, three-paragraph letter sent to Bevin’s office Monday and first reported by the AP.

Bevin said in a statement he will hold a special election on Nov. 8, the same day as the general election, to fill the remaining two months of Whitfield’s term.

Whitfield “has served the people of Kentucky’s first district admirably, and we wish him all the very best in the years ahead,” Bevin tweeted Wednesday afternoon.

James Comer, the GOP nominee running for Whitfield’s seat, has already said he plans to run to fill the vacancy.

“I will seek the nomination for the unexpired term of Congressman Whitfield, and fully expect to be on the ballot twice on November 8, once for the unexpired term and once for the full two-year term,” Comer said in a statement.

Whitfield, first elected in 1994, had already planned to retire after this Congress, announcing last year he wouldn’t run for another term amid an ongoing ethics investigation into special access he gave his wife, a lobbyist for the Humane Society Legislative Fund, as she pushed animal welfare legislation dealing with horse shows.

The House Ethics Committee released a scathing report in July that found Whitfield violated House rules by giving his wife “special favors.” But the committee ultimately decided against sanctioning Whitfield, saying he didn’t intentionally violate House rules regarding lobbying by a lawmaker’s spouse.

“Specifically, the Committee finds that Representative Ed Whitfield failed to prohibit lobbying contacts between his staff and his wife, Constance Harriman, and dispensed special privileges to Ms. Harriman,” the panel wrote in its July report, “but that he did not violate the rule against improperly using his position for his own interest.”

The critical report came after a more than yearlong investigation into Whitfield’s actions, first launched after a 2013 POLITICO story investigated his wife’s lobbying.

Theodoric Meyer contributed to this report.