Susan Collins

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins on Friday made her first public comment on a widely reported New York Times article about Graham Platner’s past relationships, calling the story “troubling.”

The Republican senator from Maine made the remarks about her Democratic challenger to reporters at the annual Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Newry, WMTW reported.

“The allegations in the latest story are troubling, and I believe that Graham Platner has a lot of questions to answer,” Collins said.

The Times’ story, published on Thursday afternoon, focused on three women who dated Platner in the past and described him as physically intimidating and emotionally abusive. Other women interviewed by the Times described him as a caring partner with whom they remain friends.

In an interview Thursday night, Platner denied the strongest allegations in the story and said the relationships happened at a time when he had recently returned from deployment in the Marines and had undiagnosed PTSD.

“The fact that I was, you know, a bad boyfriend a decade ago, that’s something I’ve talked about openly at length for quite some time in multiple places,” he said.