Tuesday on Talk 99.5’s “Matt and Aunie Show,” show co-host Matt Murphy and Republican Alabama Attorney General hopeful Alice Martin had a heated back-and-forth over Martin’s claim she had not “interviewed” for the Alabama attorney general vacancy that opened up after then-Attorney General Luther Strange was appointed to the U.S. Senate.
Martin had raised the issue about the merits of current Attorney General Steve Marshall’s appointment by then-Gov. Robert Bentley, who at the time was under an investigation headed by Martin by the Alabama Attorney General’s office.
“If memory serves me correctly, you expressed concern when we had you on in February about the process by which [Steve Marshall] achieved that post,” Murphy said. “And I asked you a question – I just want to clean this up – regarding your interest in the job because you were acting attorney general at the time. And I think you said publicly since then you didn’t ask for the position.”
Martin responded by explaining she expressed interest upon learning of Bentley’s decision to appoint Luther Strange to the U.S. Senate but denied she had received an interview.
“Somebody was going to get that appointment,” she added. “What I hoped by saying ‘I will do it’ is that I could control that situation because whoever took that appointment was going to have to recuse from the Bentley investigation, which I had been running. But I wanted somebody who I knew would appoint, which I would have, somebody who had a background doing public corruption work and would go all the way to the end of the road.”
She went on to indicate she wasn’t satisfied by the progress made in the Bentley investigation to date.
“What happened to that grand jury investigation, folks? I think taxpayers want to know,” she said.
Murphy asked her again if she perceived her meeting with Bentley after the news of Strange appointment was an interview, to which she replied it wasn’t.
“When I got there, it wasn’t an interview,” Martin said.
Murphy then asked if she had written Bentley and thanked him for the interview.
“I don’t know if I did or not,” she replied. “And that’s fine if I did.”
Murphy then revealed his possession of a thank you note to Bentley from Martin, which according to Murphy said, “Thank you for the opportunity to interview for the appointment to serve as Alabama’s 50th attorney general.”
“Yes, that is what I said,” Martin said.
From there, the two debated the propriety of Martin seeking the appointment.
“How is it appropriate if you were over the investigation for the governor that you asked for something of value from the person you were investigating?” Murphy asked.
Martin cited the Alabama State Bar’s opinion that it was not inappropriate for Strange to have asked for the U.S. Senate appointment from Bentley, which she argued applied to her circumstances as well.
After a lengthy back-and-forth, which Murphy accused Martin of having “misrepresented herself” and then citing a February appearance, which Martin denied having the interview, Murphy pressed on.
“Were you lying then, or were you lying to the governor?” Murphy said.
“Thank you very much,” Martin replied. “I think I’ve answered the question.”
“So you misrepresented yourself during our first interview?” Murphy said.
“I don’t believe I did,” she answered.
In the February interview, Murphy asked Martin about interviewing for the position, to which Martin said did not consider her meeting with Bentley to be a job interview.
“He never asked me any questions about serving as the attorney general, so I don’t consider that it was a job interview,” she said. “I was asked to come, and by law, I was the acting attorney general.”
Jeff Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and works as the editor of Breitbart TV. Follow Jeff on Twitter @jeff_poor.
