State Auditor Jim Zeigler said today his decision to post two photos of U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona on his Facebook page with a headline about her clothing was an effort to draw attention to Alabama senator Doug Jones, not Sinema.

The Saturday night post shows a vertical photo of Sinema in a dress and tall boots with the headline, “What newly elected AZ democrat senator Kyrsten Sinema wore to work.” A smaller photo shows Sinema on the Senate floor in the same attire. Jones is visible at the edge of the frame.

The photos of Sinema prompted commenters on Zeigler’s Facebook page to refer to Sinema as a prostitute and stripper.

“Who hired the stripper?” one commenter said.

“Who’s her pimp?” said another.

Asked if those comments were appropriate for the Facebook page of an Alabama public official, Zeigler said they were not.

“I stayed up deleting those type of comments. But some of them were coming in faster than I was deleting them,” Zeigler said.

“I can’t control the commenters but for profanity and sexual innuendo, I’ve been attempting to delete those.”

Zeigler said he is exploring the idea of running for the U.S. Senate against Jones next year and is compiling a collection of photos of Jones with prominent Democrats such as Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Cory Booker.

“The wording of my post was Doug Jones does not represent the people of Alabama,” Zeigler said. “He represents the out-of- state senators. And I’ll continue to draw that distinction.”

During the 2017 Senate race between Jones and Roy Moore, Zeigler used a biblical reference to downplay allegations that Moore had pursued teenage girls decades ago when he was in his 30s. (Moore staunchly denied claims of any sexual misconduct.)

“Take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus,” Zeigler told The Washington Examiner at the time. “There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here. Maybe just a little bit unusual.”

In November, voters elected Zeigler to a second term as state auditor. Zeigler called a press conference today to release his plan for funding state highways without a gasoline tax increase, which the Legislature is expected to consider when it convenes in March. Zeigler said he probably should have delayed the Facebook post until after today because it distracted attention from the subject of the press conference.