CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked Biden about a comment he made last week that the Justice Department should prosecute Trump administration officials who defied subpoenas issued by the committee. “I do, yes,” Biden told reporters when he was asked whether the department should prosecute officials including former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.

“The way I said it was not appropriate,” Biden told Cooper on Thursday. “I said — they asked me, would I — do I think that they should be prosecuted for denying the — for not showing up at the committee. And I said, ‘Yes.’”

Biden said the department was “corrupted” under Trump and added, “I should have chosen my words more wisely. I did not, have not, and will not pick up the phone and call the attorney general and tell him what he should or should not do in terms of who he should prosecute. But I answered the question honestly, and I think that anyone who does not respond to that kind of a question from the legitimate committee and the House of Representatives and the United States Senate should be held accountable. So that’s as much as I can say without coming and looking like I’m telling — I have yet to talk to the attorney general about anything.”