U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) had tough questions on Thursday for Washington, D.C., Council Chair Phil Mendelson over allegations that D.C. crime statistics have been manipulated.

Former Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Sergeant Charlotte Djossou had accused her department leadership of deliberately under-counting crime statistics and then claiming that crime levels in the metro had dropped.

Jordan took Mendelson to task over claims that theft statistics had dropped while pointing out that a new category called “taking property without right” had grown 500%.

Mendelson struggled to answer questions about the definition of “taking property without right” prompting Jordan to ask him what that particular classification of crime meant.

The D.C. Council Chairman responded, “It means what it says.”

Jordan kept the pressure up, asking, “Why not just call it stealing? That’s what we would all. Someone comes and takes something that belongs to me, or someone comes and takes something that belongs to you, we call it stealing,”

Mendelson then claimed that he was not “familiar” with the new category.

That evasion prompted an increasingly exasperated Jordan to say, “Sounds like you guys were cooking the books there, according to this is under oath from the deposition from this case that was just settled with the person who brought the action, a sergeant in your police department — but you’re not cooking the books?”

Mendelson told Jordan that he didn’t think that’s what was happening but answered, “As I said, there are two investigations. I know there’s one internal in the Metropolitan Police Department. I know that there’s an investigation by this committee.”

Jordan then asked Mendelson if DC Police Union head Gregg Pemberton was lying about crime statistics to which Mendelson replied, “Yes.”

According to NBC Washington, Pemberton said in a statement that there are three active investigations into D.C. police crime data: one by the House Oversight Committee, one by the Justice Department and a third by the Metropolitan Police Department.

President Trump had deployed the National Guard and taken other measures to address crime in the nation’s capital last month, with violent crimes dropping significantly.