WASHINGTON, United States (AP) – House Speaker Dennis Hastert accused the Justice Department Thursday of trying to intimidate him in retaliation for criticising the FBI’s weekend raid on a congressman’s office, escalating a searing battle between the executive and legislative branches of government.

“This is one of the leaks that come out to try to, you know, intimidate people,” Hastert said in a radio interview. “We’re just not going to be intimidated on it.”

Asked later Thursday whether he thought the Justice Department retaliated against him with the leak, Hastert replied: “All I’m saying is, here are the dots. People can connect any dots they want to.”

“I thought it was an interesting sequence of events,” he added.

The Illinois Republican, in his interview with the Chicago radio station, was responding to an ABC News report that quoted an unnamed law enforcement source as saying that he was “in the mix” of the Justice Department’s investigation into influence peddling by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Within minutes of that report late Wednesday, the department issued the first of two denials that it was investigating Hastert.

The speaker demanded a retraction from ABC News, which stood by its story.

Hastert threatened to sue the network and reporters and executives for libel and defamation.