Some of the House Republicans who crashed the secure impeachment hearing Wednesday were apparently looking to get arrested.

According to Chad Pergram of Fox News, the Republicans who entered the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) Wednesday — where Democrats were holding a hearing with Pentagon staffer Laura Cooper on matters related to Ukraine — asked to be arrested. According to Pergram, those Republicans were hoping to use the visual of being taken away to paint Democrats as abusing the process.

6) Fox is told there was never any chance mbrs who barged into SCIF would be arrested by USCP wBut some mbrs members asked to be arrested. They wanted the optic of being frog marched out of the SCIF in front of TV cameras. That would help w/GOP narrative of Dem process abuse

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) October 24, 2019

Earlier on Fox News, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) — who led the Republican march into the SCIF — defended the maneuver, calling Democrats “an angry pack of rabid hyenas.”

“We had the audacity to want to know what was going on behind closed doors,” Gaetz said, “where Democrats have engaged in a strategy of secret interviews, selective leaks, theatrical, weird performances of transcripts that never happened and lies about whistleblowers. It’s reasonable to suggest we would want more transparency on behalf of the millions of people we represent.”