Matt Hart, Mike Hubbard, Lance Bell

Deputy Attorney Gen. Matt Hart opens the case against Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard in court on Tuesday, May 24, 2016, in Opelika, Ala. This week Hart's division sent subpoenas to lawmakers, asking to see proof of their campaign spending. (Todd J. Van Emst/Opelika-Auburn News via AP, Pool)

(Todd J. Van Emst)

Certainly at one point both men believed they could spend their campaign funds as they wanted without fear of being caught. Or so they thought.

When state Rep. Oliver Robinson pleaded guilty last year to federal corruption charges, he copped to more than taking bribes from lobbyists. Among the crimes he admitted was using campaign funds to pay personal expenses, including $2,024 he spent at Saks Fifth Avenue and $400 at Victoria's Secret.

Likewise, when state Rep. Micky Hammon pleaded guilty to mail fraud last year, he too admitted to transferring campaign funds to his personal bank account -- money he later used to fund a failed private business venture in Hoover. Federal prosecutors have said that Hammon converted more than $50,000 of campaign funds for his personal use.

But if you looked at either of these men's campaign accounts there was never any evidence there of suspicious transactions. Not a clue.

While state law requires Alabama politicians to disclose campaign expenditures and itemize any greater than $100, the state has no mechanism to ensure what lawmakers report is accurate.

That is, maybe, until now.

The Alabama Attorney General's office has been investigating lawmaker campaign spending since at least the fall of 2017 and this week current and former Alabama lawmakers received a flood of subpoenas. Those subpoenas ask the officials to produce supporting documentation showing their campaign finance reports are accurate.

The Attorney General's office has a standing policy of not commenting on ongoing investigations, and the grand jury secrecy act prohibits witnesses and other officials from disclosing what goes on behind grand jury door. However, on Thursday, Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill confirmed that his office has been assisting a state investigation of lawmakers' campaign accounts.

"They have contacted us over a period of months for information to help them in an investigation of expenditures they wanted more information on," Merrill said.

According to Merrill, his office did not initiate the investigation, although it has reported other candidates and elected officials in the past for filing late or incomplete campaign finance reports.

"We did not initiate any of this," he said. "It's not part of our normal review process."

Likewise, the Alabama Ethics Commission has not referred any officials to the Attorney General's office for prosecution.

Merrill said that much of the information investigators from the special prosecutions division, led by Deputy Attorney General Matt Hart, requested was available through his office's online database.

"It appears that they are interested in expenditures that are not delineated," he said.

According to Merrill investigators asked for information related to current and former officials.

Under Alabama law, candidates must report all expenditures, and they must itemize expenditures greater than $100. However, a review of the state's campaign finance database shows that many officials don't itemize all expenses greater than $100, while others report payments to their credit card bills without disclosing what those credit cards were used to pay for.

The credit card dodge has been a longstanding problem, Merrill said.

After I wrote about this gap in campaign disclosures in 2016, he said, his office changed the state's reporting system and put candidates on notice that they must itemize those payments.

"We saw that as a glaring weakness in the system," he said.

Under Alabama law, officials may use excess campaign funds for expenses related to their duties, donations to charitable organizations, or transfers to the Alabama General Fund.

In 2016, the Alabama Ethics Commission gave further guidance to public officials, outlining what sorts of costs might be reasonably related to their duties and which are not.

Using campaign funds to pay personal expenses unrelated to an office is a Class B felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison. The statute of limitations is four years.

Hammon wasn't afraid of being caught, nor was Robinson, until the feds came knocking on his door. Neither thought anyone was looking, and for a time, they were right.

But now someone is looking, and in Montgomery this week, that false confidence suddenly is gone.

And in its place is fear.

Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group. You can follow his work on Facebook at Reckon by AL.com.