This is an opinion column.

First, there was the money we knew about.

A politically connected Chattanooga real estate mogul with plans to privatize an abandoned nuclear power plant in northeast Alabama donated almost $300,000 to Robert Bentley's 2014 reelection campaign.

Those donations, which ran through a bevy of political action committees, made Franklin Haney Bentley's largest individual campaign donor.

And that money helped Bentley build up one political slush fund -- excess campaign funds which he used to pay his love interest and senior political advisor, Rebekah Caldwell Mason.

But this week, we learned from a sworn deposition that Haney contributed to another slush fund, too -- a Bentley-aligned political nonprofit called ACEGOV.

A little light on dark money

When asked two years ago whether he contributed to ACEGOV, Haney told AL.com he couldn't remember and directed further questions to his lawyer.

But in sworn testimony last month, Bentley said Haney did contribute to ACEGOV, and the former governor made the ask.

As a 501(c)4, ACEGOV does not have to disclose its donors to the public. The political activities of these nonprofits are supposed to be limited, but the IRS has done little to police these groups.

In an hours-long deposition, a lawyer for former ALEA Secretary Spencer Collier, Kenny Mendelsohn, asked the governor about donations to ACEGOV. Collier, who first alleged Bentley was having an affair with Mason when Bentley fired him, is suing Bentley for wrongful termination.

Mason has acknowledged previously that she was paid out of ACEGOV funds.

In the deposition, Bentley acknowledged Haney had contributed to ACEGOV, but Bentley's lawyers wouldn't let him say how much Haney had given.

"Without a subpoena, I'm not too sure I can reveal that," Bentley said. "I've already said that he did [contribute], but I'm not going to reveal the amount, because I don't think I can reveal it."

According to Bentley's testimony, he never worked for ACEGOV, nor did he serve on its board. However, the people who did let him know who contributed, and they worked with Bentley to solicit donations for the organization.

"There were certain people I could raise it from," Bentley said.

And one of those was Haney.

Over Mendelsohn's objections, Bentley refused to say who else had contributed to the fund.

Man with a plan

For years, Haney had pushed the Tennessee Valley Authority to sell the Bellefonte nuclear power plant, which TVA abandoned after nearly 50 years of stop-and-go development.

TVA agreed last year to sell the plant to Haney for $111 million.

Haney has since sought foreign investment in the project, enlisting President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to help him solicit the the minister of economy and commerce of Qatar and the vice chairman of the Qatar Investment Authority.

And he has lined up support from Reps. Mo Brooks, Martha Roby, Bradley Byrne and Robert Aderholt, too. In May, those lawmakers encouraged the Department of Energy to lend Haney up to $6 billion for Bellefonte -- on top of another $2.5 billion in tax credits, if the plant were to become operational.

A plan critics called delusional now looks like something that could happen.

But before he got so far, Haney asked for Bentley's help -- at the same time Haney was putting money into ACEGOV.

And Bentley gave his support publicly to the project.

Who knows

Before TVA decided to sell the plant, Bentley sent the authority a letter encouraging it to put the plant on the auction block. Bentley also hosted a meeting between Haney, Alabama Power executives and TVA executives at the capitol.

Earlier this year, members of Bentley's staff and energy executives who attended that meeting were later called to testify before a state grand jury investigating Bentley and ACEGOV. That grand jury returned no indictments, but it recommended that state ethics laws be changed to cover romantic partners of public officials who were not spouses.

With the criminal investigation out of the way, Collier's lawsuit could finally proceed -- now giving the public its first glimpse at how ACEGOV operated.

But the only reason we now know Haney contributed to ACEGOV is because Bentley wasn't smart enough to keep it secret, not because anyone forced him to reveal that information.

Bentley's testimony lays bare an ugly truth about dark money groups: There's no wall of separation here between the donors and the people they're paying to help. Everyone in those arrangements knows who's cutting the checks and who's being paid.

The only curtain here is between them and us.

Testimony continues, and the trial is expected to last three to six weeks. To keep up on Twitter, follow @WarOnDumb.

Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group.

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