Impeachment hearings for Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, a Republican, will begin tomorrow after the State Supreme Court reversed a lower-court ruling blocking them.
The development was the latest in a wild week in Alabama politics as the Republican governor battled the Republican-controlled Alabama Legislature over his possible impeachment. The Alabama Ethics Commission found probable cause on Wednesday that Mr. Bentley broke ethics and campaign laws and referred the matter for possible prosecution.
Bentley faces possible impeachment over a sex scandal involving one of his aides—or, more to the point:
The [special counsel's] report says that Bentley, whose 50-year marriage came to a shocking end in 2015, used state law enforcement officers to try and cover up an affair with a top aide, Rebekah Mason. It also says that Bentley tried to charge people who had recordings of his explicit conversations with Mason with crimes.
The evidence against Bentley appears damning, but Bentley has been defiant throughout. The Republican-dominated legislature, however, appears fed up with him. Expect witnesses during the hearing to lay out Bentley's misdeeds in colorful detail.
It also answers the question what the hell does a Republican have to do before his own party threatens to cut him loose. In Alabama, anyway; if you’re a denizen of either Fox News primetime or in Washington D.C., the standards appear to be lower still.