“This company is a very unique company; it is a very independent investment bank,” he said. “The independent investment bank model of advisory is something very different to what one would think of some of the other firms offering investment advice.”

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said the announcement of Cantor’s Wall Street job was “as predictable as the sunrise.”

“We just didn’t know the name of the firm Cantor would join,” Sabato said.

Cantor’s early departure from Congress enabled him to immediately begin negotiations for his new job, bypassing a rule that would prohibit him from doing so before leaving in January.

Cantor doesn’t deny that he began to look for a new job before his announcement that he would not serve the remainder of his term.

“I was certainly considering options once I lost the primary (but) really did not begin to think harder or enter any time of negotiations until the end of July,” he said.

Cantor announced Aug. 1, the day after stepping down as House majority leader, that he would resign his seat effective Aug. 18, more than two months before Election Day.