AG Who Hired Ayotte: "Bothered to the Core"

by: Dean Barker

Sun Oct 24, 2010 at 10:49:23 AM EDT

But Philip McLaughlin, the then-attorney general who first hired Ayotte as a prosecutor in 1998, said in an interview last week that while he thinks Ayotte is a "fine attorney," he was troubled by the e-mails.

"When you get on the attorney general e-mail and have those exchanges, it seems to me to be obvious that you have jeopardized the public's right to believe you do things completely apolitically," McLaughlin said.

"I don't know how any adult could read those e-mails and conclude that there was no political consideration. It bothered me to the core when I read it," McLaughlin added.