Members of the Trump administration are prepping for a big weekend of nailing their talking points concerning the Baghdad strike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. (Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will appear on each of the Sunday shows.) It remains unclear if the GOP will maintain one rationale for the targeted killing, Mike Pence’s swiftly rebuffed claim that Soleimani was directly connected to the 9/11 attacks against the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001.

In the 11th of a 12-tweet thread from Friday afternoon that listed justifications for Donald Trump’s “decisive action,” the Vice President declared that Soleimani “assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.”

This statement raised eyebrows among many experts in the field. The New York Times published a fact check that concluded the claim was “dubious.”

For starters, there were 19, not 12, terrorists who attacked on 9/11. Pence’s spokeswoman Katie Waldman later clarified that he was referring to the 12 of 19 who transited through Afghanistan, and 10 of those 12 were assisted by Soleimani.

While there is evidence that some 9/11 attacked did travel through Iran, there are no known reports of Soleimani’s involvement in assisting them. Moreover, the 9/11 Commission Report says that Iran and Hezbollah (the Lebanon-based terror group with which Soleimani was heavily involved) and even the future attackers themselves were “probably not aware of the specific details of their future operation.” Soleimani’s name does not appear anywhere in the report.

The Times’ Zach Montague goes on to point out the illogic in Iran's staunchly Shiite Soleimani offering assistance to the Sunni Al Qaeda, whose co-founder, Osama bin Laden, was born to a prominent Saudi Arabian family. Iran and Saudi Arabia have been at odds since before either nation was known by those names.

Pence's statement drew sharp criticism on social media.