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Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, R, stepped down on Monday on the same day state lawmakers opened impeachment hearings against him. Bentley has fought for more than a year against allegations he used public resources to carry out and conceal an affair with his former top aide.
He also pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges related to covering up the alleged affair, one for failing to file a major contribution report and another for knowingly using campaign contributions for personal use, according to the state's attorney general office.
"I love my people with all my heart," he told reporters.
On his way to officially resign, he showed up to the Montgomery County Jail and posed for a mug shot.
The events leading to the end of Bentley's career were spelled out in the 3,000 pages of a report released by the House Judiciary Committee attorney Friday detailing various indiscretions the governor may have tried to keep secret as he allegedly carried out an affair with his married aide, Rebekah Caldwell Mason.
The report says Bentley sent heart-eyed emojis to Caldwell (texts that were linked up to his now ex-wife's iPad) and made threats to the first lady's staff to keep the affair secret. The report also detailed what allegedly went on behind closed doors when Mason, according to the report, left the office "with her hair tousled and her clothing in disarray."
After he loses his job, Bentley could face jail time as well. The Alabama Ethics Commission recommended Wednesday the governor be charged with four felonies related to campaign finance and ethics fraud tied to his affair, including an allegation he illegally loaned Mason campaign money for legal funds. Alabama Republicans connected to the transition say Bentley plead guilty to misdemeanor charges related to the affair cover up in an effort to avoid felony charges and potential jail time.
Despite being dogged for a year by salacious allegations of an affair with his top aide and allegations he used state resources to cover it up, Bentley fervently denied he had done anything worth losing his job over. In fact, he never fully admitted to an affair, even after a secretly taped phone call leaked of him professing his love to a woman named "Rebekah."
"I do not plan to resign," Bentley said on the Alabama state Capitol steps just Friday morning. "I have done nothing illegal."
But a series of events unfolded over the past few days that intensified the pressure on the Republican governor to make a decision about whether to keep defending himself in a state House and state court or to step down.
Bentley did not react to the 3,000-page report released Friday afternoon, which, among other salacious details, alleged he opened a hotel door in his boxers expecting to see Mason. By Saturday, Alabama's Supreme Court agreed to let state House impeachment proceedings go ahead. By Sunday, the state Republican Party officially called on the governor to step down. By Monday afternoon, Bentley booked himself at the Montgomery County Jail. By evening, Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey, R, is expected to be sworn in as governor.
Bentley is expected to resign a little more than a year and a half before the second of his two terms is up. The 74-year-old former dermatologist and Sunday school deacon was an unlikely choice to rise to the state's top job. He surprised many in Alabama by making it to a runoff in 2010. In his 2014 reelection race, Bentley won the largest percentage of the vote – 63 percent – of any modern-day Republican governor in Alabama.
Rumors of an affair between Bentley and Mason had swarmed Alabama politics for months before the story finally broke open in March 2016. Bentley fired the state's top cop, who then went to AL.com with sordid details of Bentley and Mason's alleged affair – including a phone call between Bentley and a woman he addresses as "Rebekah" that, unbeknown to the two on the phone, was being taped by his now ex-wife.
A defiant Bentley asked God for forgiveness while he was touring a jail to promote his prison reform legislation and said at a news conference he loved some of his staff more than others and responded "no" when a reporter asked if that phone call was the only indiscretion. But he never quite admitted to an affair.
Meanwhile, Alabama Republicans in the state legislature had little to lose and much to gain by abandoning Bentley, a politician with little legislative accomplishments and even few ties to the GOP establishment. If Bentley didn't go of his own accord, Alabama Republicans say he would have been impeached in the next month or two anyway. They defended their right to impeach Bentley in a last-minute court battle that played out over the weekend.
Republicans are pretty much the only game in town in deep-red Alabama, making it unlikely a Democrat could sweep in and try to win the governor's mansion.
Bentley will become the third top Alabama public official in less than a year to lose his job over a scandal and/or face jail time. Former House speaker Mike Hubbard, R, was sentenced in July to four years in prison after being convicted of violating state ethics laws he helped pass by using his political leverage to increase his personal wealth. And in September, a state ethics court suspended Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, citing "clear and convincing" evidence that he tried to block same-sex marriage in the state after the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing it.
Bentley will be Alabama's fourth governor to resign while in office. Most recently, former Alabama governor Guy Hunt, R, resigned in 1993 after being convicted of taking $200,000 from his inaugural fund for personal use.
Former Democratic governor Don Siegelman is serving a seven-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2006 – three years after he left office – for corruption related to bribery.