Democratic Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison’s office has finally responded to a reported hotel meeting between Ellison and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan — by attacking the media.

Despite swearing off his relationship with Farrakhan when he ran for Congress, Ellison attended at least three meetings with the hate group leader since taking office, according to photos, videos and witness accounts reviewed by The Daily Caller.

One of those meetings included a visit to Farrkahan’s hotel room, which Farrakhan later described as friendly. Ellison’s office has repeatedly declined TheDC’s requests for comment about that meeting. (RELATED: Seven Louis Farrakhan Quotes On Jews, Gays And White People)

When Ellison’s hometown paper, the Minnesota Star Tribune, asked about the hotel meeting, Ellison spokesman Karthik Ganapathy chose to attack the media instead of confirming or denying that the meeting took place.

“Rep. Ellison has advocated a pluralistic, peaceful and broadly prosperous vision for our nation’s future his entire career, and the idea that matters less than whether or not he was once upon a time standing near somebody is an insane symptom of how our country’s political media coverage is so broken,” Ganapathy told the Tribune.

“Rep. Ellison knows Minnesotans understand that standing in a room doesn’t mean you endorse every view of everyone else in that room, and wishes the space being used to print this story was instead spent calling more attention to the scourge of white nationalist gun violence, or the deportation threat facing hundreds of thousands of young immigrants across our country,” Ganapathy said.

While Ganapathy portrayed the meeting as taking place “once upon a time,” it appears to have taken place within the last few years.

Farrakhan in Dec. 2016 said that Ellison and Democratic Indiana Rep. Andre Carson had visited him during a recent trip to Washington, D.C.

Read TheDC’s full coverage on Ellison’s meetings with Farrakhan here.