Trump confirmed Sanders’ departure in tweets on Thursday, saying the press secretary would be leaving her post by the end of the month and returning to her home state of Arkansas. The president hinted that Sanders might be eying a run for governor.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is leaving the White House after a tenure defined by lashing out at reporters for critical coverage of Donald Trump while standing by the president’s lies and falsehoods.

After 3 1/2 years, our wonderful Sarah Huckabee Sanders will be leaving the White House at the end of the month and going home to the Great State of Arkansas....

....She is a very special person with extraordinary talents, who has done an incredible job! I hope she decides to run for Governor of Arkansas - she would be fantastic. Sarah, thank you for a job well done!

In remarks delivered during an unrelated White House event on Thursday, Sanders said she would miss working for Trump but that she planned to spend more time with her three children.

“It’s truly been something that I will treasure forever. It’s the greatest job I’ve ever had. I’ve loved every minute, even the hard minutes,” Sanders said.

Trump also spoke at the event and reiterated his hope that Sanders would run for governor.

“If we can get her to run for the governor of Arkansas, I think she’d do very well. I keep trying to get her to do that,” the president said.

Sanders’ departure came about two months after special counsel Robert Mueller’s report that said she lied to reporters in 2017 about the circumstances surrounding James Comey’s ouster as FBI director.

The press secretary told reporters on May 10, 2017, that Trump fired Comey after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein recommended he do so. But Mueller’s report released April 18 said “substantial evidence” indicates Trump fired Comey for refusing to publicly state that the president wasn’t personally being investigated. Sanders also falsely claimed during that news conference that FBI employees “lost confidence” in Comey, and later admitted to the special counsel’s office that her remark was fabricated.

Trump’s White House has had a continually combative relationship with the press. The White House temporarily revoked press credentials for CNN reporter Jim Acosta, who has frequently sparred with Trump and Sanders at news conferences.

To defend the revocation, Sanders tweeted a video from right-wing conspiracy website Infowars, which appeared to be doctored to purportedly show Acosta assaulting the White House intern in charge of handing reporters the microphone to ask Trump questions during a news conference.

Journalists and media advocacy organizations condemned the decision and fabricated justification, part of a pattern of Trump and administration officials undermining the free press.

The administration has also significantly cut back on press briefings. In a January tweet, Trump said he had told Sanders “not to bother” with briefings anymore because “the press covers her so rudely & inaccurately.”

By the time Trump announced the press secretary’s departure, it had been 94 days since Sanders’ last press briefing.

There were rumors last year that Sanders would leave the White House. In June 2018, CBS News reported that she “has told friends that she plans to leave the administration at the end of the year.” In a tweet, Sanders pushed back on the report but did not deny it.