Just breaking today that Gov. John Kitzhaber will step down amid ongoing scandal

Wednesday, Feb. 18, in a letter submitted to Secretary of State Kate Brown.

“I am announcing today that I will resign as Governor of the State of Oregon,” he wrote in a statement released just after noon Friday.

Brown will be sworn in as Oregon’s 37th governor, but the timing of that ceremony is uncertain.

Kitzhaber’s resignation does not end the criminal investigation against him and his fiancee, Cylvia Hayes, or the state ethics review.

Kitzhaber did not appear in public on Friday and neither did his fiancee, Cylvia Hayes. Instead, he issued a page-long statement that was released Friday that made clear his pain and frustration with having to abandon what was to be a historic fourth term. Yet, he wrote, he understood why the move was necessary.

“I understand that I have become a liability to the very institutions and policies to which I have dedicated my career and, indeed, my entire adult life,” he wrote. “As a former presiding officer I fully understand the reasons for which I have been asked to resign.”

Kitzhaber had met with his staff midmorning to tell them his plan to step down.

“It is not in my nature to walk away from a job I have undertaken — it is to stand and fight for the cause,” he wrote in his statement. “For that reason I apologize to all those people who gave of their faith, time, energy and resources to elect me to a fourth term last year and who have supported me over the past three decades. I promise you that I will continue to pursue our shared goals and our common cause in another venue.”

The governor continued, “I must also say that it is deeply troubling to me to realize that we have come to a place in the history of this great state of ours where a person can be charged, tried, convicted and sentenced by the media with no due process and no independent verification of the allegations involved. But even more troubling — and on a very personal level as someone who has given 35 years of public service to Oregon — is that so many of my former allies in common cause have been willing to simply accept this judgment at its face value.”

State officials, organizations and unions issued statements Friday commending Kitzhaber’s work over his past three terms as governor and showing support for Brown.