Sessions used funds from his Senate reelection campaign to cover travel expenses at last year’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland, where he met with Sergei Kislyak,the Russian ambassador to the United States, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal . This directly contradicts recent White House statement that Sessions was not acting on behalf of the campaign at the time.

“He was literally conducting himself as a United States senator,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer had said on Thursday.

But according to the WSJ, Sessions used campaign funds for his travel, rather than official Senate Armed Services Committee funds.

Sessions defended his meeting with Kilslyak as a standard one for a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. But Larry Nobel, the general counsel at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, said Sessions would have had a harder time justifying the use of Senate Armed Services Committee funds while a senior advisor to the Trump campaign.

“If he was truly there solely as a member of the Armed Services Committee, then he could’ve used his legislative account,” he said.