NH’s very own witch hunt
An article published by Valley News on Christmas Day carried the headline that the sole Democrat on the Executive Council, Karen Liot Hill, had been cleared of “electioneering’ charges by the office of the New Hampshire Attorney General. Their report stressed that it could not “conclude that the emails [the focus of the complaint] constituted a misuse of power or otherwise violated the executive branch ethics code. This matter is closed.”
Most folks would think that would be the end of the matter, but this witch hunt was to then take on a new twist. Summoning his best partisan outrage, House Republican Majority leader, Joe Sweeney, introduced HB 41 on the very first day of the 2026 legislative session, calling for the House to determine whether there were grounds to begin impeachment proceedings against Liot Hill. Despite the AG’s clear finding, Sweeney continues to pursue Councilor Hill’s impeachment.
Karen Liot Hill is well known and respected throughout the Valley News circulation area having been a long term fixture in the region’s political landscape. She is a success story. A blue collar kid, Karen raised her daughter while achieving academic honors at Dartmouth College. She would then go on to serve as the mayor of Lebanon, as well as acting as the Grafton County Treasurer, before being elected as an Executive Councilor.
While Joe Sweeney has helped raise your property taxes to help fund private schools while cutting corporate taxes, Liot Hill has worked tirelessly in a bipartisan fashion to meet the actual needs of all Granite Staters. It is no wonder that they want to forcibly remove her from office. It is time for this partisan witch hunt to end.