Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx announced on Tuesday that she will not seek a third term in office in 2024, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The progressive Democratic prosecutor in Chicago, Illinois, has sparked controversy over the years with her criminal justice reform efforts and lax prosecution of criminals and repeat offenders, but is arguably most infamous for dropping justifiable criminal charges against disgraced actor Jussie Smollett in relation to the hoax "hate crime" he staged against himself.

In an interview with the Tribune ahead of her announcement on Tuesday, Foxx defended herself and her policies from critics and revealed that the reason for her decision to not seek re-election was to fulfill a promise made to her family that she would only serve two terms.

Plan to retire at end of 2024 revealed

According to local CBS affiliate WBBM-TV, State's Attorney Foxx announced her decision to not run for another term next year in a speech delivered during a luncheon with supporters and guests at the City Club of Chicago.

"I am announcing today that, at the conclusion of my term in November of 2024, I will be stepping down as State's Attorney. I will not be on next year's ballot by my choice," Foxx said. "I leave now with my head held high, with my heart full, knowing that better days are ahead."

"I want to thank my detractors who are also here today," she added at one point, "because it is because of you that I have learned to really dig into why; the why I do what I do."

Foxx financially backed by Soros

Cook County SA Foxx was first elected in 2016 with the support of progressive leftist billionaire George Soros, who contributed approximately $400,000 to her campaign and supported her again in 2020 with $2 million in funding for a political action committee that backed her re-election, according to Fox News.

Foxx is just one of the dozens of progressive leftist prosecutors that Soros, through personal donations and organizations he funds, has admittedly and openly supported financially as part of a broader effort to impose a variety of progressive "restorative" and "social justice" reforms to the criminal justice system, such as the elimination of cash bail, reduction of felonies to misdemeanors, non-prosecution for most juveniles, and a hostile and oppositional attitude toward law enforcement agencies and officers.

Some of the other more notable leftist prosecutors with the financial backing of Soros include Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, among others, all of whom have imposed progressive policies and seen crime rates surge during their tenures in office.

Rising crime rates amid declining prosecutorial staff

The Tribune reported that Foxx, in response to the criticism she has received about rising crime in Chicago, routinely points to the fact that crime rates initially declined in her first few years in office and only began to rise, in her view, due to the pandemic that started in 2020.

Yet, the pandemic alone can't entirely explain Chicago's resurgent crime over the past three years, and Foxx's leadership and policies have led to turmoil and an exodus of senior prosecutors and other employees from the Cook County State's Attorney's office.

In fact, WBBM-TV reported that there were 136 assistant state's attorneys who resigned from that office in 2022, compared to just 11 a decade prior in 2012, and there are around 143 vacancies, or nearly 20 percent of the entire staff, that used to be "highly sought-after jobs" but now must be advertised to receive applicants.

That has reportedly also led to high caseloads for the remaining prosecutors matched with low morale amid a constantly growing backlog of pending cases and disappointed or outraged victims and families who don't feel they are receiving the justice they deserve.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that the Tuesday announcement from Foxx means the office she currently holds will essentially be open in 2024 for the first time since 2008, setting the stage for a 2024 "free-for-all" in which there are more than a half dozen prospective candidates who have already signaled their interest or announced their intention to run for that job to fix the messes that Foxx created.