Cruz Comms Director Amanda Carpenter Departing Senate Office 

Amanda Carpenter, Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) communications director, announced on Tuesday that she will be leaving the Texas Senator’s office to return to conservative commentary.

According to Roll Call, Carpenter told colleagues she will be departing Cruz’s office on July 5.

“Looking back, I’m especially grateful for the opportunity to create #MakeDCListen, help with Sen. Cruz’s Gridiron speech, and contribute to his flawless presidential launch — as well as countless other memorable tweets, jokes, lines, talkers, statements, op-eds, and other items. We’ve been in high gear since Day 1 and I’m very proud of what we’ve done together,” Carpenter reportedly wrote in a note to colleagues.

Carpenter went to Capitol Hill in 2010 to be a speechwriter and communications adviser for Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), who took on the Republican establishment and made moderate incumbents more fearful of being being challenged in a primary with his Senate Conservatives Fund.

After DeMint left the Senate to become president of The Heritage Foundation two years later, Carpenter went to work for Cruz, who upset establishment Republican David Dewhurst en route to getting elected to the Senate in 2012. Personnel is policy, and Carpenter, who has been described as Cruz’s “right-hand woman” on Twitter, helped expand Cruz’s social media profile while ensuring that he would represent grassroots conservatives and keep the D.C. establishment in check. In her note, Carpenter wrote that “taking on the DC establishment is no easy task and it’s been a joy every step of the way.”

“As some of you know, back in 2010 when I first came to Capitol Hill to be Sen. DeMint’s speechwriter, my plan was to only stay a couple years and then return to media. Because I was offered the extraordinary opportunity to work for Sen. Cruz that extended into five years, now going on six years,” she added. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and now that the campaign is fully operational in Houston with a first-rate team, it’s a natural time for me to step away and return to writing under my own byline.”

Carpenter, who has more Twitter followers than any other Capitol Hill aide, was a columnist and a regular on Fox News before she went to work in Congress.