Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley (R) appointed Strange just hours after Sessions was confirmed by the Senate to be the U.S. attorney general, The Associated Press reported. Sessions will be sworn in Thursday morning.

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Strange will serve until an election is held to fill the remainder of Sessions’s term. Bentley has said the election will be held in 2018, but it’s not yet clear whether it will fall on Election Day or earlier in the year.

Whoever wins that election will be up for reelection in 2020, when Sessions’s term would have ended.

Strange last year asked an Alabama state House committee to hold off on an impeachment probe of Bentley, who had faced accusations of having an affair with an aide. Strange said his office was doing “related work” but never released any further information.