In a state where a poultry magnate once handed out $10,000 checks on the Senate floor and where officials got rich off manipulating stock prices, House Speaker Dennis Bonnen’s current brush with infamy doesn’t rank high on the list of Texas political scandals. But whether you call it “Bonnengate” or the more popular “Bonnghazi,” the latest Lone Star state shenanigans are roiling the Republican Party and may lead to criminal charges.

At the heart of the matter is the recording of a meeting between right-wing activist Michael Quinn Sullivan, Bonnen, an Angleton Republican, and Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock. Sullivan, who heads Empower Texans, claims that the speaker offered him a deal: in exchange for targeting 10 mostly moderate Republicans in the primary, Bonnen would supposedly grant Sullivan’s group long-sought press credentials to cover the 2021 legislative session from the House floor.

Initially, Bonnen strongly denied any wrongdoing. Once Sullivan started playing his recording to select legislators and conservative activists, the speaker backtracked.

Along with the alleged quid pro quo — which could amount to bribery and is the subject of a Texas Rangers investigation — the recording also includes the speaker disparaging other members of the House.

Bonnen has kept quiet on the more serious allegations but has admitted he said “terrible things that are embarrassing” and has gone on an apology tour with individual legislators. Some who have heard the recording describe the speaker’s words as “damaging” and “hurtful.”

What the first-term speaker was thinking is a mystery — even for those who have long regarded him as a loose cannon. Why Bonnen would even meet with Sullivan, such an unsavory foe of thinking Republicans, is hard to fathom — especially when the speaker was riding high after achieving school finance reform that had vexed his predecessor, and especially when he went out of his way to emphasize bipartisanship over cut-throat politicking.

During the session, Bonnen threatened consequences for House members — of either party — who campaigned against each other in 2020, saying that bringing elections into the legislative process poisons it and makes it impossible to reach compromise on major priorities because “you don’t get over the wounds and the battles.”

Now we’re told the speaker is waging the very battle he claimed to eschew — behind closed doors when he thought Texans weren’t watching.

That would only show that Bonnen is no better than the Empower Texans crew he tried to sideline during the session: “They aren’t worth responding to,” Bonnen said in May. “You will never please or appease those folks and I’m sure as hell not going to waste my time trying.”

He should have taken his own advice. Targeting moderate Republicans is Empower Texans’ bread and butter. When not bullying lawmakers to approve bills on red meat social issues, the group’s political action committee oversees the ideological purification of the Texas GOP by supporting hardline conservative candidates. The powerful group’s influence seemed to have waned for a while, with its midterm losses leaving it scrambling for relevance, but this episode seems to have bolstered its standing in some circles.

Empower Texans had criticized Bonnen all session for not aptly prioritizing guns and anti-abortion rights legislation and the group’s take-no-prisoners approach was at odds with the united front that Bonnen, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick maintained as they focused on more money for schools and reducing property taxes.

Perhaps Bonnen saw an opportunity to make amends with Sullivan, to try and turn a thorn into a tool. He knew that Sullivan had sued to obtain media credentials that would allow his partisan activists easy access to lawmakers as they parade around as journalists. Over in the Senate, Sullivan had already won a seat at the press table after Patrick interceded. It’s probably just coincidence that the group contributed $75,000 to Patrick’s re-election campaign last year.

But this latest scandal shows exactly why Sullivan should never be considered a journalist — just in case you weren’t convinced in 2014 when he was charged with unregistered lobbying for directly trying to influence lawmakers. He was fined $10,000 by the Texas Ethics Commission, a penalty he has continued to fight in court.

A real journalist who obtained a newsworthy recording would report on it and almost certainly release it online for the world to hear. Sullivan refuses to do so on the premise that it would “damage” the Republican Party.

Bonnen has asked that the full recording be made public. That’s the least that should be done.

Texans deserve the truth about whether the speaker we had come to admire misrepresented the facts, and his own character, to the people he serves.

Did he violate the law? Our trust? Or both? The answers will determine Bonnen’s fate. A House divided cannot stand, and neither can a leader with a forked tongue.