Robert Bentley appoints Luther Strange to U.S. Senate

Gov. Robert Bentley Thursday appointed Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange to the U.S. Senate amid questions about what role, if any, the Alabama attorney general's office is taking in probing accusations involving the governor's relationship with an aide.

Questions about that issue dominated a news conference at the Alabama Department of Archives and History, where both men stressed their common belief in states' rights and conservative causes.

"Let me tell you why I chose Luther Strange," Bentley said in the Joseph M. Farley Alabama Power auditorium. "I truly believe Luther has the qualifications and has the qualities that will serve our people well and serve this state well."

Strange, 63, was elected the state's attorney general in 2010 and re-elected in 2014. He succeeds Jeff Sessions, who resigned from the Senate Wednesday evening after winning confirmation as U.S. attorney general.

Speaking with his wife Melissa by his side, Strange called the appointment "the honor of my life," while citing his efforts with other Republican attorneys general to stop environmental, educational and labor regulations put forward by former President Barack Obama's administration.

"Now we have the chance to go on the offense," he said. "Jeff Sessions as attorney general is the first step in that process."

Bentley and Strange flew to Washington, D.C., Thursday; the governor said he planned to personally deliver the letter with Strange's appointment to allow the new senator to be sworn in.

Probing questions

Questions about the attorney general office's work on issues surrounding Bentley have swirled since the fall. The House Judiciary Committee began investigating Bentley's possible impeachment last year over allegations from former Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Secretary Spencer Collier that the governor had an affair with Rebekah Mason, his former political adviser; used state resources to pursue it and attempted to interfere with a criminal investigation of then-House Speaker Mike Hubbard, R-Auburn.

The committee suspended its investigation on Nov. 3. Leaders of the committee said in a statement that Strange asked them to suspend the probe. The committee cited a letter from Strange, which said the probe might “intersect with certain issues and witnesses.”

In its statement, the committee said that Strange was conducting a "separate investigation of the governor." Strange's letter did not make any explicit reference to an investigation, and the attorney general's office has declined comment on the existence of any probe into the governor.

"We have never said in our office that we are investigating the governor," Strange said Thursday. "I think it’s actually unfair to him and unfair to the process. We have six years of a record of the highest caliber of conduct of people in our office. That’s why we don’t comment on these things and why I don’t plan to comment on that any more."

The appointment brought criticism from some Republican legislators who were involved in the impeachment process, including Rep. Ed Henry, R-Hartselle, who spearheaded the process. Henry said it was improper for Strange, one of 20 people who interviewed for the job in December, to seek the office.

"I do not understand how Attorney General Strange can stop an impeachment proceeding and then, in a matter of weeks, turn around and petition for an appointment by the very person he stopped the impeachment for," he said.

Rep. Mike Ball, R-Madison, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, was also critical of the appointment.

"It's an abomination," he said. "It's a horrible thing."

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Mike Jones, R-Andalusia, said the request came before Donald Trump's win in the November presidential election, which led to Sessions' appointment as attorney general and opened the seat up.

"At the time it was made, I do believe it was in good faith and I’m still in that position today," he said.

Jones and House Speaker Mac McCutcheon, R-Monrovia, said they would wait for word from the attorney general's office before resuming the committee's work. McCutcheon said he wanted the process to play out.

"Once we get the info from the attorney general’s office on where they are and (if) we’re ready to move forward, we'll move forward," he said. "There's no kind of plan in place to fast-track it."

Henry said the "optics look bad," an opinion shared by Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, a member of the House Judiciary Committee who has express skepticism about the impeachment process. Givan said Bentley had the right to name who he wanted but said "the governor may have done himself a little more harm than good."

"Sitting from this vantage point, it does give me pause," she said.

Alice Martin, a former U.S. attorney who served as the chief deputy attorney general in the office, will take over the office. Bentley said he will interview candidates for the position, but declined to say whether the next attorney general should recuse themselves from any probe into him or his office.

"I will ask the next attorney general to be the best attorney general they can possibly be," he said. "It is a constitutional office I ask them to do their jobs and to up hold the laws of the state."

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, said he had "informal conversations" with the governor about the appointment. Ward said he would recuse himself from any investigation of the governor that may be taking place.

"I think you have to," he said. "I don't think you could do that without a cloud hanging over the office."

Ward is a former deputy attorney general who has led efforts to reduce the state's prison overcrowding crisis. He was arrested for a DUI in 2015. Ward said he had to "own that" and understood some might consider the arrest disqualifying.

"I think the most important thing for me as a person, whether I'm in the Senate or as an attorney general, the most important thing is that you have to own up to your mistakes," he said. "It's a fact of life."

A résumé

Strange as attorney general helped negotiate a settlement with BP over the 2010 Gulf oil spill, which ravaged the shorelines and economies of Mobile and Baldwin counties. He also entered the fray in several lawsuits around the nation over hot-button issues for conservatives such as immigration and gun rights.

Strange spent his first term in office challenging gambling in Alabama. The office conducted raids at some facilities and sued the federally-recognized Poarch Band of Creek Indians over the use of electronic bingo at their casinos in Atmore, Montgomery and Wetumpka. While Strange succeeded in forcing the closure of VictoryLand in Macon County, his office ultimately lost its challenge to the Poarch Band.

After winning re-election in 2014 -- in a campaign where the Poarch Band provided major support to Democratic nominee Joe Hubbard -- Strange sent a letter to law enforcement that said his office would delegate enforcement of state laws to local authorities. The letter, combined with an announcement from Bentley a few months later, was widely viewed as signaling a retreat from active state enforcement of gambling laws. VictoryLand reopened late last year.

Strange's office prosecuted Mike Hubbard over allegations that he used his office to secure jobs and contracts. Strange recused himself from the case in early 2013. Hubbard was convicted on 12 felony ethics counts in June; he has appealed those convictions and maintains his innocence.

As attorney general, Strange had a sometimes tense relationship with the Legislature, and not only because of the Hubbard prosecution. Amid a budget squeeze, legislators in 2014 cut direct funding to the office, saying they had more than enough in outside settlement money to pay their bills. Strange strongly disagreed, saying legislators overestimated his office's resources. Direct funding was restored the following year.

Sen. Vivian Davis Figures, D-Mobile, who ran for U.S. Senate against Sessions in 2008, said she would wait and see about his performance in Washington.

"I try to work with everybody and I want to give him the benefit of the doubt," she said. "He and I have worked together -- I sponsored one of his bills last session. We have a great relationship and I look forward to working with him as U.S. senator."

Raised in Homewood, Strange earned his bachelor’s and law degrees from Tulane University in New Orleans. He worked as a Washington lobbyist in the 1980s and 90s and later founded his own law firm.

Strange ran for lieutenant governor in 2006, but lost to former Gov. James Folsom Jr., a Democrat. In 2010, he ran for attorney general, defeating incumbent Troy King in the Republican primary and Democrat James Anderson, now a Montgomery County circuit judge, in the general election.

An election for the Senate seat will be held next year. Strange has already begun fundraising for that race.

Updated at 7:52 a.m. Friday to correct that Alice Martin is a former U.S. attorney, not a former U.S. attorney general.