But Paul’s repentant tone ended there. In an interview with National Review Online on Capitol Hill, Paul was furious, especially with the press coverage of the allegations. “It annoys the hell out of me,” Paul said. “I feel like if I could just go to detention after school for a couple days, then everything would be okay. But do I have to be in detention for the rest of my career?”

Paul, a likely candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, also said he is sensitive about his character being questioned. “What makes me mad about the whole thing is that I believe there is a difference between errors of omission and errors of intention,” he said. “We aren’t perfect and we have made errors of omission, but we never intended to mislead anybody.”

Moving forward, Paul said he would speak out more against media outlets that are covering him, especially if he feels unfairly targeted. His once warm relations with the Fourth Estate have chilled. “I’m being criticized for not having proper attribution, and yet they are able to write stuff that if I were their journalism teacher in college, I would fail them,” he said.