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| Sex Scandal Ensnares Alabama’s Governor and Its Capital |
But because the governor was Robert Bentley, who is against a deepening political morass afterwards acknowledging endure anniversary that he had sexually answerable conversations with a top aide, that was hardly how a annual appointment could disentangle in this northwest Alabama city. Instead, he had to alpha by discussing whether he would be able to accumulate his job.
“I accept no intentions of resigning,” said Mr. Bentley, a Republican in his additional term. “My intentions are to try to accomplish this accompaniment better. My intentions are to try to plan through all the difficulties that we’re traveling through.”
Within hours, Rebekah C. Mason, the governor’s chief political adviser and the woman with whom he affianced in evocative conversations, captured on tape, said she had quit. And by day’s end, it was ambiguous whether it would be politically achievable for Mr. Bentley, 73, to abide in appointment in this state, which has a blatant history of aspersion but has been in something of a morals-driven accident back the governor’s acceptance endure Wednesday.
Some assembly are talking of impeaching Mr. Bentley. The governor’s above pastor batten of “church discipline” and said that Mr. Bentley was no best a affiliate of the Tuscaloosa aggregation area he was already a deacon. And as audio recordings of the governor’s conversations with Ms. Mason were replayed and dissected beyond the Internet, even Mr. Bentley’s accomplishment at buzz sex has been a accountable of conversation.
“As far as my bearings is concerned, it is absolutely just a shock to people, and, you know, I accept that,” Mr. Bentley said on Wednesday in an interview, his aboriginal back he accustomed the attributes of his behavior with Ms. Mason. Mr. Bentley, who complained about “a lot of errors and misconceptions and opinions” on amusing media, said a fuller annual would anytime put his behavior in a bigger light. “I still feel that, in time, all of this will appear out, and aggregate will be exposed.”
Mr. Bentley, who was adopted statewide in allotment because of his acceptability as a churchgoing, squeaky-clean accessible official, said that his conduct had not been “all that egregious,” but aswell said, “All I can say is that I anticipate I let humans down, and that disturbs me added than annihilation else.”
People actuality accept been audition affluence about what happened.
According to the ecology account TV Eyes, Alabama television stations accept mentioned Mr. Bentley, whose wife of 50 years filed for annulment endure year, added than 700 times back endure Wednesday. In the absolute ages arch to Mr. Bentley’s annual conference, the stations had referred to him on beneath than 650 occasions.
“It’s absolutely humiliating,” said Accompaniment Representative Allen Farley, a Republican who endure year batten with Mr. Bentley about rumors of animal impropriety. “This man has got to accept that every day he’s in the governor’s office, this bazaar will go on.”
Alabama was mired in aspersion able-bodied afore Ms. Mason became a domiciliary name. A above governor is confined a bastille appellation for corruption, and the apostle of the Accompaniment House of Representatives is to angle balloon this year on accuse of belief violations.
“We’ve bottomed out,” Mr. Farley said. “We’ve got a apostle of the House that’s got 23 abomination violations for application his appointment for claimed gain, and now we’ve got a governor who’s application his appointment for God knows what.”
The Accompaniment Belief Commission said this anniversary that it would investigate whether Mr. Bentley and Ms. Mason had committed wrongdoing. The accompaniment advocate general’s appointment has beneath to say whether it has opened an inquiry.
Mr. Bentley has denied a concrete accord with Ms. Mason, admitting recordings in which the governor refers to “when I angle abaft you and I put my accoutrements about you and I put my easily on your breasts.” In an extract appear by the Alabama Media Group, he aswell said, “If we’re traveling to do what we did the added day, we’re traveling to accept to alpha locking the door.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Bentley has not said how continued the inappropriate actualization of his accord with Ms. Mason lasted. Referring to that arguable period, he said, “We accepted at that time the boundaries, I should say, and we still do.”
It was not bright whether Ms. Mason’s abandonment would advice Mr. Bentley to achieve his political basement and whether a appointed actualization at a bastille in Wetumpka on Thursday ability backpack a affinity of normalcy. In a account appear by Mr. Bentley’s office, Ms. Mason said, “My alone affairs are to focus my abounding absorption on my adored accouchement and my bedmate who I adulation dearly.”
Before Ms. Mason’s departure, belief about Mr. Bentley rained down on the governor’s office.
In the interview, if he referred to endure week’s annual appointment as “a battlefront squad,” Mr. Bentley accepted some data of a address by Yellowhammer News, which said Tuesday that he and Ms. Mason had aggregate a safe drop box at a coffer in Montgomery.
He denied that Ms. Mason endemic the box, but said that she was appointed to accept admission to it if he died.
“I couldn’t ask my advocate to appear down and assurance for it,” said Mr. Bentley, who added he would absolution a video bulletin in the advancing canicule to “get my bulletin out unfiltered.”
“I wish them to apprehend from my aperture because if I was in the columnist appointment the added day, that’s affectionate of a shock thing,” he said. “I can’t acknowledgment everything, and in fact, I couldn’t acknowledgment aggregate that day because I didn’t apperceive what was advancing out. I absolutely didn’t. I had never heard any of this stuff. I didn’t know.”
But there are doubts that the aspersion will achromatize from appearance anytime soon. “It’s not football season,” said Paul DeMarco, a Republican above affiliate of the Legislature.
And about the state, there are questions of what added ability appear — or, as Accompaniment Senator Dick Brewbaker put it, whether “this gets any weirder.”
“I absolutely abhorrence 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 agreement and can leave appointment after aspersion has absolutely able something in Alabama.”
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