The former Social Security Administration leader who briefly canceled contracts this spring for birth and death records in Maine now says he intentionally tried to undermine his own order so that the decision would be quickly reversed.

The new details from Leland Dudek, the former acting SSA commissioner, were outlined in a ProPublica article on Monday.

Dudek’s controversial order, which canceled a routine program that allows parents to register their newborns for a Social Security number while they are still at the hospital, briefly caused a major disruption at birthing centers when it went into effect on March 6. With the contracts canceled, it would have required Maine parents registering newborns to show up in person at a Social Security office. Ending the program would have also eliminated the ability of funeral homes to file death records electronically.

After the decision became public, it touched off public outrage and near-immediate pushback from Maine’s congressional delegation and Maine Gov. Janet Mills. Dudek rescinded the order the next day, on March 7.

Dudek, who was acting commissioner of the SSA before being placed on leave in May, told ProPublica that when crafting the email in February to cancel Maine’s contracts, he wrote it in such a way that he knew it would gain negative attention. In the email, he called Mills a “petulant child.”

Maine was the only state targeted and, according to comments Dudek made this spring to national media, it was done in response to the dustup between Mills and President Donald Trump at the National Governors Association meeting in February. Mills told Trump “see you in court” after he ordered the state to change its high school sports policy for transgender athletes.

Dudek told ProPublica that the “press attention he generated compelled him to do what he already wanted to do: reinstate the contracts.”

Dudek also told the news outlet: “Do I care about Janet Mills? No.”

Ben Goodman, a spokesperson for Mills , said in a written statement on Tuesday that “while the excuses for this action become more unbelievable, they cannot obscure one consistent and clear fact: the president and his administration are a threat to the stability of Social Security.”

Shortly after reinstating the contracts, Dudek issued a public apology and, in March, told The New York Times: “I was ticked at the governor of Maine for not being real cordial to the president.”

Also in March, Dudek told HuffPost that his decision was not “political retaliation” over the dispute between Mills and Trump, but he also admitted to being upset with Mills.

Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-1st District, said in a written statement on Tuesday that “the idea that (Dudek) was playing some kind of four-dimensional political chess — indulging Trump’s desire to punish Maine on the one hand, while using language in an email he somehow knew would result in Maine’s Social Security contracts being reinstated — seems far-fetched to me.”