TORONTO - Premier Doug Ford's former chief of staff has dropped a libel lawsuit he launched last month against a former Progressive Conservative legislator.

A lawyer for Dean French has confirmed that the suit launched against Randy Hillier, who is now an independent legislator, has been dropped.

French, who resigned from his job earlier month, filed the suit in June alleging that shortly after Hillier was kicked off the Tory team he began a libellous and defamatory campaign against him.

French said that Hillier posted several tweets with "outrageous and completely unsupported allegations" of using his email server to cast fraudulent votes in Alberta's 2017 United Conservative Party leadership race.

Hillier initially apologized in a Twitter post, but in his court filings denied the defamation allegations, saying French already had a "negative reputation" before the series of tweets in question.

French's lawyer says that since Hillier has deleted the tweets and French is no longer involved in government there was little point in carrying on the litigation.