alabama governor Robert Bentley resignation April 2017

The U.S. Senate special election candidacy of Roy More brought Alabama politics to the center of national attention last winter, but in 2017 there was a lesser noticed political sex scandal in the Yellowhammer State.

It concerned Alabama Governor Robert Bentley's alleged relationship with a member of his staff, Rebekah Mason. Despite the governor's best efforts to publicly ignore the allegations and impede investigations into the matter and surrounding alleged misconduct, Bently resigned that April, facing almost certain impeachment.

The details of the impeachment investigation, which included misappropriation of state funds, were not that relevant to my viewers in Japan; we predicted the audience would react much more to the technological naivete of the governor, which is what initiated the chain of events that eventually brought him down. Gov. Bentley apparently did not realize that the iPad he gave his wife of 50 years was linked to his iCloud account, meaning that every text message exchange the governor had on his iPhone, displayed on his wife's iPad in real time. 

After reading the romantic and salacious texts exchanged between the governor and Ms. Mason, First Lady Dianne Bentley, with the help of her chief of staff Heather Hanna, decided to secretly record the governor speaking with his paramour on the phone. Ms. Hanna described to me how they made the recordings, what Ms.Hanna heard, and the violent threats and harassment that she subsequently suffered as a result. 

Alabama set up a Special Counsel to investigate the governor, which recommended that impeachment proceedings be opened. You can review their evidence, including all the text messages and audio recordings here.

AL.com's Leada Gore also generously appears to share her reporting.