Former New Hampshire House Speaker Bill O’Brien (R) on Thursday defended his recent criticism at Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) after a staffer for Ayotte resigned over being arrested for allegedly attempting to solicit a prostitute.
On Thursday O’Brien, in an interview with The New Hampshire Union-Leader, said his attacks were “an accurate response. It’s a fair response.”
Those comments follow two Facebook posts O’Brien wrote in which he accused Ayotte —not her state director David Wihby, who was arrested— for “poor selection and supervision of staff.”
“She has also made a poor choice in ignoring the human trafficking that her ‘friend’ was so willing to finance,” O’Brien wrote in one post on Thursday. “She didn’t even have the instincts to condemn it. She can’t just sponsor some legislation, such as the Federal Runaway and Homeless Youth and Trafficking Prevention Act, and think that the issue ends there. It doesn’t end and it doesn’t help that Sen. Ayotte would support those who would perpetuate it.”
O’Brien wrote a separate post which referenced a letter Ayotte and a number of other Republican leaders in New Hampshire signed calling on Republican state representatives to back Gene Chandler for House Speaker in 2015. O’Brien, in the end, won the GOP caucus’s vote but another Republican, Shawn Jasper, actually became speaker thanks to Democratic support.
“Perhaps Dave Wihby can persuade Sen. Ayotte and her pals to circulate a letter on his behalf. Sort of an endorsement / character reference,” O’Brien wrote. “Now, let’s see, whose signatures should be on that letter? Certainly Ayotte. No sense in ducking her involvement now.”