Cleaning Up Corrupt Government in Alabama
By Donald V. Watkins
©Copyrighted and Published (via Facebook) on April 7, 2017
©Copyrighted and Published (via Facebook) on April 7, 2017
Alabama Governor Robert Bentley is on his way out of office. He will be impeached by the House of Representatives, which will automatically remove the governor from office.
The face of government in Alabama is slowly changing. For the most part, this change has been positive and is being driven by online journalism and social media. In just three short years, online community activism has achieved the following changes in state government:
1. After three years of living a lie about his secret love affair with married "senior political adviser" Rebekah Caldwell Mason, Governor Bentley is facing a trifecta of disastrous events on a personal level. He will be impeached and indicted by separate state and federal grand juries. Online journalists Roger Alan Shuler and I were out front on the exclusive news articles breaking the story of Bentley's "Forbidden Love" and "Executive Betrayal".
2. Mark E. Fuller, the wife-beating and marital cheating federal judge in Montgomery, Alabama, was forced to resign his judgeship in August 2015. Our Facebook news team exposed Fuller's shocking misconduct as a federal judge in a litany of breaking news articles. As it turned out, Fuller had a history of beating his wives and sleeping with female courthouse employees.
3. Mike Hubbard, the powerful Speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives, was ousted from office after his conviction last year on ethics law violations. Former Deputy Attorney General Alice Martin and Special Prosecutions Chief Matt Hart, together with their team of investigators and prosecutors, deserve full credit for this remarkable accomplishment.
4. Roy Moore, Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, was suspended in 2016 for the rest of his term for violating the Judicial Cannons of Ethics -- for the second time. The Alabama Judiciary Inquiry Commission and Alabama Court of the Judiciary bravely rose to the occasion and tossed this demented repeat offender out of office.
5. George Beck, Jr., the U.S. Attorney for Montgomery, was forced to resign his post last month. Beck, who was Bentley's chief protector within the federal law enforcement community, was completely removed from the federal investigation of Bentley after our Facebook news team exposed Beck's close ties to David Byrne, the governor's chief legal adviser. Last month, the Trump Administration rebuffed Beck's effort to seek a reappointed to his federal prosecutor's position.
6. Gwen Boyd, the President of Alabama State University, was fired last December. At the request Governor Bentley and David Byrne, Boyd falsely accused me of being the recipient of $50,000 in ASU money that was secretly funneled to me through another law firm that was representing the school. This false allegation was fully probed during George Beck's long-running federal grand jury investigation of ASU. The grand jury probe, along with a companion state grand jury investigation of the University, resulted in no civil or criminal charges against any ASU official.
7. John Harrison, the Alabama Superintendent of Banks, suddenly resigned his job last year. Harrison orchestrated and oversaw a scheme to target Alamerica Bank for heightened regulatory scrutiny by the State Banking Department and FDIC after I began publishing Facebook articles in 2013 that were highly critical of Governor Bentley's conduct in office. The goal of Harrison's heightened scrutiny was to intimidate, discredit and silence me. I am the single largest shareholder of the Bank. Harrison is now gone; I kept publishing breaking news articles on Bentley; and the bank is profitable again.
8. Charles Dean, the Alabama Media Group reporter who covered Bentley for the state's largest mainstream media organization and who wrote favorable stories for the governor and his lover during the early days of the "sex for power" scandal, faded from the scene after Roger Alan Shulerbroke a story that Dean was listed as a customer of Ashley Madison, the online dating site for married cheaters.
Several key players in the Bentley saga endured extreme hostility from the governor and overcame the entrenched forces of resistance to positive change in government. Here are some of them:
1. Spencer Collier, the chief of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, was fired by Bentley last year after he refused to lie to state prosecutors in the Mike Hubbard case and after he refused Bentley's directive to target me for a trumped up criminal investigation. Last year, a Montgomery grand jury declared that Collier had committed no acts that warranted an investigation of his activities by Governor Bentley. Collier is now the police chief of Selma, Alabama.
2. Lt. Wendell Ray Lewis, the chief of the governor's executive security detail, was forced out of the state troopers rank in 2015 after he refused to participate in a cover-up of Bentley's secret love affair with Rebekah Mason. Last year, Lewis sued Bentley claiming he was wrongfully forced out of his job.
3. Jim Zig Zeigler, the Alabama State Auditor, filed the ethics complaint against Bentley that is leading to the governor's removal from office. Zeigler, who has always been a reformer in state government, is expected to run for governor in 2018.
In the midst of it all, former Attorney General and now-U.S. Senator Luther Strange failed Alabamians by giving Bentley a "pass" on prosecuting the governor for his crimes in exchange for Bentley's appointment of Strange to his current senate seat in Congress. Prosecutors should set their sights on Strange next. His quid pro quo deal with Bentley stinks all the way to Washington.
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