The state’s attorney general is resigning as details about his personal life become public.
Attorney General Mike Hunter will leave office June 1. Hunter said in a written statement he was stepping down because “certain personal matters” coming to light would be a distraction.
The statement came shortly after the website The Lost Ogle published a divorce petition Hunter filed last week. The petition says Hunter wished to dissolve his marriage with his wife, Cheryl, because of “irreconcilable” differences. The website alleges the filing is related to an extramarital affair between Hunter and a state government employee.
The Oklahoman says it submitted questions to Hunter on Tuesday night about an extramarital affair it confirmed through people familiar with the situation.
Hunter has served as attorney general since 2017, when former Gov. Mary Fallin appointed the then-first assistant attorney general to replace Scott Pruitt, who resigned to become the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Donald Trump.
Hunter was elected to a full term as the state's attorney general in 2018.
He played a major role in Oklahoma’s litigation against opioid distributors and represented the state in a recent U.S. Supreme Court case in which justices decided the Muscogee Nation still has criminal jurisdiction over eastern Oklahoma land granted to them by treaty in the 1800s.
Hunter was an Oklahoma state representative from 1984 to 1991 and served as Congressman J.C. Watts' chief of staff from 1995 to 1999. Former Gov. Frank Keating appointed Hunter to be the state's 29th Secretary of State in 1999, where he stayed until 2002. Outside a one-year stint as the Secretary of the Commissioners of the Land Office, Hunter spent 2002 to 2015 in the private sector.
Gov. Kevin Stitt has full power to appoint a replacement to fill Hunter's expired term, which ends in late 2022.
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