Labour MPs say they have no hard feelings towards David Cunliffe's wife, Karen Price, after she attacked them using an online alias.
But Mr Cunliffe himself was accused of complicity in his wife's actions and faced renewed attacks ahead of the leadership race.
Labour's former leader said yesterday that Ms Price was "recovering" at home after admitting attacking journalists and his rivals using an anonymous Twitter account. Mr Cunliffe said he knew nothing about the account until alerted by media on Tuesday.
Ms Price, an environmental lawyer, said she set up the Twitter handle @TarnBaby67 out of "extreme frustration" after the election and had used it to make comments that she now deeply regretted.
She initially criticised the Herald on Twitter for publishing candid pictures of her husband after his election defeat, and later attacked his caucus opponents Trevor Mallard, Clayton Cosgrove and Grant Robertson.
Those attacked were forgiving of Ms Price, but not of her husband.
Mr Cosgrove said Mr Cunliffe must have known about his wife's account.
"Let me put it this way. If my partner set up a Twitter account to attack members of the caucus, I would know about it."
Mr Cunliffe rejected this claim.
Asked why he had followed @TarnBaby67 on Twitter, he said his staff had managed his Twitter account since November and were told to follow any person who followed him.
"To the best of her recollection, Karen followed my account amongst several others and later unfollowed it along with several others," he said.
Mr Cosgrove also responded to some of Ms Price's tweets, which called him jealous and past his use-by date. "If David holds the view that I'm jealous of him, why would I be jealous of someone who took us to the biggest catastrophic defeat ... since 1922?"
Mr Cosgrove said Labour MPs had been very loyal to their former leader, yet had repeatedly found themselves attacked on blogs and other places online.
- By Isaac Davison of the NZ Herald
