(CNN) - Rep. Steve Stockman came back Monday from a 10-day congressional trip overseas to Egypt, Israel and Russia, his office said in a press release.
The outspoken Texas Republican, who's challenging incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the Lone Star State's GOP primary, had largely been off the grid for the past couple of weeks, prompting numerous media reports and questions to his office about his whereabouts.
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Stockman missed 16 house votes this month, but his office refused to comment on his location or explain why he wasn't present to vote.
He made an appearance at a tea party event in Dallas on January 14. About a week later the Daily News Egypt reported he finished up a two-day trip with four other U.S. representatives to meet with interim President Adly Mansour.
The office for the leader of that U.S. delegation, Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, confirmed Monday that Stockman was part of the codel, though Rohrabacher's office declined to tell CNN last week who else was in the delegation.
Stockman, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the congressional delegation held press conferences overseas, and he accused the American media of misreporting his whereabouts.
"We were with media and public officials every day and conducted press conferences. Reporters knew I was on an official State Department trip but refused to admit the truth because it would have spoiled their bizarre stories," Stockman said in the press release.
"We decided to hold out and see how long reporters would pretend they didn't know I was on official business."
While Stockman tried to paint the media as bias, he still appeared to have fun with the "missing" storyline.
Stockman tweeted a cryptic message on Thursday.
CNN's Ashley Killough, Deirdre Walsh and Lisa Desjardins contributed to this report.