NEWARK, Ohio — A county official in Ohio is apologizing after a newspaper quoted him as saying that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton “should be hanging from a tree.”

Licking County Commissioner Duane Flowers read a prepared apology during a meeting on Thursday, after The (Newark) Advocate reported on the comment he made during a meeting earlier this week.

Flowers says he made the remark during a casual conversation with two other officials and a reporter from The Advocate that he thought was off the record.

Flowers says he knows that he “will never again have a casual conversation with a reporter.”