Robert Bentley and Rebekah Caldwell Mason.JPG

Former Gov. Robert Bentley and former political adviser Rebekah Mason.

( file)

When Gov. Robert Bentley resigned from office last month, it seemed like a hard conclusion for a drawn-out story, even as it looked like the former governor was getting off easy. Bentley pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor campaign finance violations, packed up his stuff at the governor's mansion and left town.

But Bentley might not have made as clean a getaway as it appeared at the time.

A public records request to Gov. Kay Ivey's administration has revealed that the Alabama Attorney General's Office and the Alabama Ethics Commission still have an interest in the former governor and his administration.

Knock once, knock twice

The week after Bentley resigned, I sent a new public records request to the Ivey administration. New might be the wrong qualifier. My colleague John Archibald and I had sent the same request twice before under Bentley's watch. Those requests asked for the governor's emails and text messages.

Replies from the governor's office for those requests were stubborn, evasive and ultimately dishonest.

First, we were told, the governor didn't use those things.

After pushing a little more, we were told the governor didn't use those things on state equipment.

At various points, we were told there were no documents responsive to our requests. Then we'd push a little harder, and what do you know, they would find a handful of documents that were responsive but absolutely meaningless.

Finally, a source showed me messages and emails the governor had sent and received. My agreement with the source was that I couldn't publish the documents, but I could see them as proof that the governor's office was lying.

When I called out the governor's office for lying, Bentley said the problem was that I didn't know how to ask for the documents.

"All of that is public record," Bentley said. "All they have to do is go and ask the person who either sent the email that's public or received an email from me, and they can get it. That's public record."

I make public records requests about every week, I know how.

I know something else, too. There's a direct relationship between how hard a public official fights a request and the value of the information they don't want to give you.

Whatever it was, Bentley's office fought hard.

Later, during an Alabama House committee's impeachment hearing, the Legislature's investigators revealed that, not only had they had the same sort of problems, but they had gotten their hands on documents that showed the governor had used emails and texts -- including romantic texts with his senior political advisor, Rebekah Caldwell Mason.

The governor's office had been caught lying again.

Then Bentley made his getaway before the impeachment process ran its course.

Third time's the charm?

Under Alabama law, Gov. Bentley has, not only an obligation to preserve public documents, but also a duty to hand all those documents over to the new governor. If he doesn't, a state judge can jail him until he does.

When Gov. Ivey's administration moved in, I sent them the third request for those documents.

And I got shot down a third time, but this time for a different reason.

"The Attorney General's Office has instructed us that text messages on former Gov. Bentley's state phone are considered to be relevant to a pending investigation and should not be disclosed at this time," Gov. Ivey's legal advisor wrote.

But that wasn't all. On May 5, the Alabama Ethics Commission had asked that all records, including emails, text messages, spreadsheets, notes -- everything -- be preserved and put in a "legal hold" until further notice.

Look, I've been shot down for requests before. My feelings aren't hurt. But the public, sooner or later, has a right under Alabama law to see them.

Whatever's in those documents, I won't stop looking.

And neither, for the moment at least, has law enforcement.