MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Lawyers for Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley are telling an impeachment committee that only the most egregious offenses merit removal from office and a governor should not be impeached just because lawmakers “disapprove” of something the governor has done.
The governor’s office submitted the filing on the legal standard for impeachment to the House Judiciary Committee last week as the committee begins a probe on if there are grounds to impeach Bentley.
Twenty-three House members signed impeachment articles in April after Bentley’s former law enforcement secretary accused him of having an affair with a staffer and of interfering with law enforcement business. The governor admitted inappropriate conversations but denied the other accusations.
The governor’s attorneys are making a case that the standard for impeachment is high as the committee wades through a vague and rarely used impeachment process.
“Law and history make clear that impeachment is reserved for situations in which no lesser response will do, where the misconduct is so clear and so grave that no other remedy is adequate. It is not surprising that impeachment has been called the ‘political equivalent of capital punishment,'” lawyers for the governor wrote.