Ousted FBI Director James Comey told said Thursday that former President Clinton’s surprise meeting at an Arizona airport with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch prompted him to go public with results of the FBI probe into Hillary Clinton’s email server.

“That was the thing that capped it for me, that I had to do something separately to protect the credibility of the investigation, which meant both the FBI and the Justice Department,” Comey said.

Comey said Lynch asked him “not to call it an investigation, but instead to call it a matter, which confused and concerned” him.

Comey announced last July that criminal charges were not warranted, angering Republicans.