Top impeachment lawyer says Robert Bentley did not cooperate

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The top lawyer in an impeachment investigation says Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley did not cooperate with the probe.

Special counsel Jack Sharman said Monday there was a question of the governor’s “candor.” Bentley is accused of misusing state resources to keep an alleged affair with a staffer from being exposed.

Sharman says the governor’s office turned over only innocuous text messages between him and former political adviser Rebekah Caldwell Mason. Sharman says the governor’s former wife turned over others. In those texts, Bentley repeatedly told Mason how much me loved and wanted her.

The governor’s then-wife, Dianne Bentley, was able to read the text messages because they also showed up on his state-issued iPad, which he had given the first lady. Dianne Bentley provided the messages to the committee.

It is not known if the messages were deleted from the governor’s state phone when the committee requested them.