Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) announced Monday that he will retire from Congress after the House votes on President Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill.
Green, who flip-flopped on retiring from Congress last year and faced allegations of infidelity shortly before being re-elected to a two-year term, is leaving politics for a job in the private sector, he said.
“It is with a heavy heart that I announce my retirement from Congress,” the House Homeland Security Committee Chairman said in a statement. “Recently, I was offered an opportunity in the private sector that was too exciting to pass up.”
“As a result, today I notified the Speaker and the House of Representatives that I will resign from Congress as soon as the House votes once again on the reconciliation package.”
Green’s sudden exit will further diminish House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) already slim Republican majority in the lower chamber. A special election will be held to find a replacement for Green as Tennessee’s 7th District representative at a yet-to-be-determined date.
The district voted for Trump by more than 20 percentage points in last year’s presidential election and is expected to remain in GOP control.
The Tennessee Republican has been a top advocate for the $46 billion in spending on new border wall systems included in the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act, which the House is expected to take up for another vote in the coming weeks if it’s approved by the Senate.
Under Green’s leadership, the Homeland Security panel led the charge to impeach Biden Administration Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last year.
Last February, a day after the Mayorkas impeachment vote, Green announced he would retire after the completion of his term.
But Green nixed his retirement plans a few weeks later amid pressure from Trump and several of his colleagues to vie for another term.
“Though I planned to retire at the end of the previous Congress, I stayed to ensure that President Trump’s border security measures and priorities make it through Congress,” the congressman said Monday. “By overseeing the border security portion of the reconciliation package, I have done that. After that, I will retire, and there will be a special election to replace me.”
In September, Green confirmed his family was going through a “difficult time” as he and his wife were in the process of getting a divorce.
His wife, Camilla “Camie“ Green, accused her husband of “having an affair with a 32-year-old woman” in a group text sent to other lawmakers.
“Satan has rewritten our marriage in his mind,” she charged, going on to describe how lawmakers in Washington “can become intoxicated with power and adoration,” while serving far away from their families.
A woman later told Politico that she engaged in an on-again-off-again relationship with Green, claiming that she came forward “in the interest of making sure there is no collateral damage,” after a reporter was falsely accused by his wife as being romantically involved with the congressman.
Green, who has served in Congress since 2019, has not publicly admitted to having an affair.
