The House Judiciary Committee assembled Thursday morning to determine whether the impeachment articles against President Trump should be put to vote. Several members exchanged heated words throughout the proceedings, but a certain congressman’s argument certainly stood out.

Rep. John Ratcliffe said it was “OK (for a president) to solicit interference in an election.”

At one point, the second-term Republican Texas congressman tried to correct Jerry Nadler, the proceedings’ chairman. Nadler (D-NY) noted that he was “startled” by Ratcliffe’s claim “that it is OK for a president to invite foreign interference in our elections.”

Ratcliffe shot back and said that the chairman had made a “false statement.” He tried to clarify that he’d said, “It was OK to solicit foreign involvement in an election.” And that the word “interference” was never used by him.

While there was laughter from the crowd, and Nadler smirked an “OK,” there was some weight to this. — During the course of the impeachment debate, Rep. Pramila Jayapal had said, “Will ‘any one’ Republican say it is ‘OK’ to invite foreign election help?” It appeared that Ratcliffe had delivered the answer.

The 54-year-old Texas representative also claimed that this was not the first time there was foreign involvement in America’s elections and that Obama’s administration had sought to involve foreign forces to investigate Trump.

Moreover, this was an investigation initiated and conducted by LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS at the FBI, not a U.S. president investigating someone he feared running against.

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— Heidi Przybyla (@HeidiNBC) December 12, 2019

Ratcliffe actually jumped on the NBC correspondent’s Twitter thread to defend what he’d said.

So disingenuous. I never said “interfere”—I clearly said “involved”—Don’t pretend to be a reporter if you’re really just a political advocate

— John Ratcliffe (@RepRatcliffe) December 12, 2019

Americans on Twitter are definitely not happy with the representative’s take on interference in the election.

Maybe @RepRatcliffe doesn't mind soliciting foreign interference in our elections, but I most certainly do. I don't think I am alone in feeling that our elections should be held sacred against such interference.

— kathy palumbo (@KpalumboK) December 12, 2019

This is not the first time that he’s stood up for the president. He railed at Mueller during his testimony and took issue with the fact that Trump had not been exonerated from the Russian interference investigation in this report. CNN noted that he was “coincidentally” nominated as the Director of National Intelligence by Trump the same week.

Until then, “most Americans had never heard of John Ratcliffe,” the report says.