Representative Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota Republican whose status as a leading Tea Party voice in Congress has faded in the wake of a failed bid for president and a widening investigation into her campaign spending, said Wednesday that she would not seek re-election.
Mrs. Bachmann, defiant as ever as she insisted that she would have won re-election had she tried, said the legal inquiries had nothing to do with her decision. She vowed to continue to fight for the principles she said she holds dear: religious liberty, traditional marriage, family values and opposition to abortion.

“I fully anticipate the mainstream liberal media to put a detrimental spin on my decision not to seek a fifth term,” she said in a gauzy network-television quality video posted on her campaign Web site. “They always seemed to attempt to find a dishonest way to disparage me. But I take being the focus of their attention and disparagement as a true compliment of my public service effectiveness.”

Like other conservative politicians with a national profile — Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum — Mrs. Bachmann, 57, may find numerous options, many of them lucrative, available to her in talk radio, television, advocacy for conservative causes and the speaking circuit.

Given the uncertain political and legal paths that she faced, a new career in the private sector may have presented a more attractive option.

Mrs. Bachmann spent heav.