Facing impeachment, Alabama governor reportedly booked into jail, about to resign
On Monday, state lawmakers began hearings to decide whether to impeach Bentley for allegedly using state resources and campaign funds to conceal an affair with a top member of his staff.
With mounting calls for Bentley to resign, the two sides have settled on a potential resignation agreement, WRBC reported. Sources with knowledge of the discussions told the local ABC station that the timing of the announcement wasn't decided yet.
And AL.com reported Monday evening that the governor was booked into Montgomery County Jail:
On Friday, Jack Sharman, special counsel to the state's House Judiciary Committee, submitted a 130-page report alleging that Bentley intimidated members of his office into keeping quiet about an affair with his adviser Rebekah Caldwell Mason.
"Governor Bentley directed law enforcement to advance his personal interests and, in a process characterized by increasing obsession and paranoia, subjected career law enforcement officers to tasks intended to protect his reputation," the report concluded.
On Monday, district attorney Daryl Bailey had referred the criminal investigation to Alabama's acting attorney general. The report also specifies that it considers Bentley's attempts to obstruct the investigation by withholding messages as an "independent ground for impeachment."
"Impeachment is a remedy, not a punishment," the report concluded.
Before the report was released, Bentley stood on the steps of the state Capitol on Friday and declared he did "not plan to resign."
The investigation began after Spencer Collier, the recently fired head of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, confirmed he was looking into text messages "of a sexual nature" between Bentley and Mason in March 2016.
The governor's ex-wife, Dianne Bentley, provided the messages to the House Judiciary Committee. She discovered them on a state-issued iPad her husband gave her that synced his accounts.
"I sure miss you. I need you. I want you. You are the only one," Bentley said in one text to Mason.
In the report, witnesses also accused Bentley of getting a law enforcement officer to retrieve a recording of his phone conversation with Mason, threatening his wife's chief of staff, and taking Mason on state aircraft although she wasn't an employee at the time.