Former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown has hired a former aide to embattled New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to head up the team for his possible Senate run in New Hampshire this fall.
Colin Reed, who
ABC News reports was hired as campaign manager for the exploratory committee, is no stranger to Brown's camp. Reed was Brown's press secretary when he was in Congress before working as communications director for his 2012 Massachusetts campaign.
Reed recently served as deputy communications director to Christie, who has been embroiled in the Bridge-gate scandal involving the closing of traffic lanes on the George Washington Bridge last September.
Brown, a Republican who recently moved to New Hampshire, announced Reed's appointment Friday. He also is expected to name other members to the committee, including a political director, in the coming weeks,
The Boston Globe reports.
He is expected to challenge first-term incumbent Democrat Jeanne Shaheen this fall — and Brown told Fox News earlier this month that he would form an exploratory committee on a possible Senate race.
Fox cited the move when it then announced that the network was terminating its relationship with Brown, who had signed a contract in February
to serve as a paid political contributor.
"I’ve known Scott for more than four years," Reed told ABC in a statement. "An opportunity to work with him again is something I couldn’t pass up. I am excited for the next seven months and a victory in November."
In January, Reed was among 18 Christie staffers subpoenaed by a New Jersey General Assembly committee investigating the Bridge-gate scandal, the Globe reports.
Christie, a Republican, has denied any advance knowledge of the closures, which documents show were political retribution to a Democratic mayor who refused to support his re-election bid.
A
report commissioned by Christie’s administration cleared him in the scandal, which now is being investigated by a federal grand jury.
From 2009 to 2010, Reed was deputy press secretary to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, ABC reports. He worked on Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign from 2007 to 2008, and began his career as an intern in former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney press office in 2006.