RUSSELLVILLE, Ala. — The governor of Alabama wanted to talk about broadband.
But
because the governor was Robert Bentley, who is confronting a deepening
political morass after acknowledging last week that he had sexually
charged conversations with a top aide, that was hardly how a news
conference could unfold in this northwest Alabama city. Instead, he had
to start by discussing whether he would be able to keep his job.
“I
have no intentions of resigning,” said Mr. Bentley, a Republican in his
second term. “My intentions are to try to make this state better. My
intentions are to try to work through all the difficulties that we’re
going through.”
Within hours, Rebekah C. Mason, the governor’s senior
political adviser and the woman with whom he engaged in suggestive
conversations, captured on tape, said she had quit. And by day’s end, it
was uncertain whether it would be politically feasible for Mr. Bentley,
73, to remain in office in this state, which has a gaudy history of
scandal but has been in something of a morals-driven meltdown since the
governor’s admission last Wednesday.
Some lawmakers are talking of
impeaching Mr. Bentley. The governor’s former pastor spoke of “church
discipline” and said that Mr. Bentley was no longer a member of the
Tuscaloosa congregation where he was once a deacon. And as audio
recordings of the governor’s conversations with Ms. Mason were replayed
and dissected across the Internet, even Mr. Bentley’s proficiency at
phone sex has been a subject of conversation.
“As far as my situation
is concerned, it is really just a shock to people, and, you know, I
understand that,” Mr. Bentley said on Wednesday in an interview, his
first since he acknowledged the nature of his behavior with Ms. Mason.
Mr. Bentley, who complained about “a lot of errors and misconceptions
and opinions” on social media, said a fuller account would someday put
his behavior in a better light. “I still feel that, in time, all of this
will come out, and everything will be exposed.”
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Mr.
Bentley, who was elected statewide in part because of his reputation as
a churchgoing, squeaky-clean public official, said that his conduct
had not been “all that egregious,” but also said, “All I can say is that
I think I let people down, and that disturbs me more than anything
else.”
People here have been hearing plenty about what happened.
According
to the monitoring service TV Eyes, Alabama television stations have
mentioned Mr. Bentley, whose wife of 50 years filed for divorce last
year, more than 700 times since last Wednesday. In the entire month
leading to Mr. Bentley’s news conference, the stations had referred to
him on fewer than 650 occasions.
“It’s totally humiliating,” said
State Representative Allen Farley, a Republican who last year spoke with
Mr. Bentley about rumors of sexual impropriety. “This man has got to
understand that every day he’s in the governor’s office, this circus
will go on.”
Alabama was mired in scandal well before Ms. Mason
became a household name. A former governor is serving a prison term for
corruption, and the speaker of the State House of Representatives is to
stand trial this year on charges of ethics violations.
“We’ve
bottomed out,” Mr. Farley said. “We’ve got a speaker of the House that’s
got 23 felony violations for using his office for personal gain, and
now we’ve got a governor who’s using his office for God knows what.”
The
State Ethics Commission said this week that it would investigate
whether Mr. Bentley and Ms. Mason had committed wrongdoing. The state
attorney general’s office has declined to say whether it has opened an
inquiry.
Mr. Bentley has denied a physical relationship with Ms.
Mason, despite recordings in which the governor refers to “when I stand
behind you and I put my arms around you and I put my hands on your
breasts.” In an excerpt published by the Alabama Media Group, he also
said, “If we’re going to do what we did the other day, we’re going to
have to start locking the door.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Bentley has not
said how long the inappropriate phase of his relationship with Ms. Mason
lasted. Referring to that controversial period, he said, “We understood
at that time the boundaries, I should say, and we still do.”
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It
was not clear whether Ms. Mason’s resignation would help Mr. Bentley to
regain his political footing and whether a scheduled appearance at a
prison in Wetumpka on Thursday might carry a semblance of normalcy. In a
statement released by Mr. Bentley’s office, Ms. Mason said, “My only
plans are to focus my full attention on my precious children and my
husband who I love dearly.”
Before Ms. Mason’s departure, speculation about Mr. Bentley rained down on the governor’s office.
In
the interview, when he referred to last week’s news conference as “a
firing squad,” Mr. Bentley confirmed some details of a report by
Yellowhammer News, which said Tuesday that he and Ms. Mason had shared a
safe deposit box at a bank in Montgomery.
He denied that Ms. Mason owned the box, but said that she was designated to have access to it if he died.
“I
couldn’t ask my attorney to come down and sign for it,” said Mr.
Bentley, who added he would release a video message in the coming days
to “get my message out unfiltered.”
“I want them to hear from my lips
because when I was in the press conference the other day, that’s kind
of a shock thing,” he said. “I can’t answer everything, and in fact, I
couldn’t answer everything that day because I didn’t know what was
coming out. I really didn’t. I had never heard any of this stuff. I
didn’t know.”
But there are doubts that the scandal will fade from
view anytime soon. “It’s not football season,” said Paul DeMarco, a
Republican former member of the Legislature.
And around the state,
there are questions of what more might come — or, as State Senator Dick
Brewbaker put it, whether “this gets any weirder.”
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“I
really hate that this happened to the governor, but he did it to
himself,” Mr. Brewbaker, a Republican, said. “It just shows that any
governor who serves two terms and can leave office without scandal has
really accomplished something in Alabama.”
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Governor of Alabama, Robert Bentley, Says He Won’t Quit
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