When introducing James Clapper as his director of national intelligence in 2010, President Obama specifically
justified
the appointment by saying Clapper is someone who “understands the
importance of working with our partners in Congress (and) not merely to
appear when summoned, but to keep Congress informed.” At the time, it
seemed like a wholly uncontroversial statement; it was simply a
president making a sacrosanct promise to keep the legislative branch
informed, with the insinuation that previous administrations hadn’t.
Three
years later, of course, James Clapper is now the embodiment of perjury
before Congress. Indeed, when you couple Edward Snowden’s disclosures
with this
video
of Clapper’s Senate testimony denying that the National Security
Administration collects “any type of data on millions (of Americans),”
Clapper has become American history’s most explicit and verifiable
example of an executive branch deliberately lying to the legislative
branch that is supposed to be overseeing it.
Incredibly (or, alas,
maybe not so incredibly anymore), despite the president’s original
explicit promises about Clapper, transparency and Congress, the White
House is nonetheless responding to this humiliating situation by
proudly expressing its full support for Clapper. Meanwhile, as of today’s announcement by
U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., the demands for Clapper’s resignation are finally being aired on Capitol Hill.
Those
demands are obviously warranted not just because Clapper so clearly
lied, but also because his was no ordinary spontaneous fib. On the
contrary, according to
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.,
Clapper was given a full day’s advance notice that the question was
coming, and yet he nonetheless still opted to lie. That’s not a
spur-of-the-moment fib; that’s a calculated, willful attempt to mislead
those who have a constitutional responsibility to perform oversight.
Seeking to move the national discussion away from the NSA’s potential
crimes,
many politicians and pundits are, not surprisingly, continuing to
insist that Snowden revealed only legal programs and is therefore not a
whistle-blower. They are, in other words, trying to ignore the fact that
whether or not the NSA programs are illegal (
and they very well may be) Snowden at minimum revealed a case of potential
criminal perjury
— and an extremely serious one at that. As Wyden says, “One of the most
important responsibilities a senator has is oversight of the
intelligence community (and) this job cannot be done responsibly if
senators aren’t getting straight answers to direct questions.”
Now
that a United States congressman is starting the drumbeat for Clapper’s
resignation, the rejoinder will almost certainly be a version of what
Clapper told
National Journal and
NBC News.
In
the former interview, Clapper said he “stand(s) by” his statement to
the Senate and insisted, “What I said was, the NSA does not
voyeuristically pore through U.S. citizens’ e-mails.” Of course, as
New York magazine points out, that’s not what he said — not even close.
In
the latter interview, Clapper again stood by his statement, and
claimed, “I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least
untruthful, manner.”
These talking points will no doubt metastasize into the idea that because he was asked about a classified program, Clapper
had no choice but to lie,
and that therefore outright lying is somehow the “least untruthful” —
and therefore acceptable — thing to do in his situation. That’s right,
apparently as if living in 1984, we are all supposed to believe that war
is peace, freedom is slavery and, now, yes, lying is not untruthful.
Beyond
its Orwellian absurdity, the problem with that line of reasoning is
that it is fundamentally false. We know Clapper didn’t have to lie
because other people in a similar position managed to not commit
perjury. As one example, at a
Senate hearing in 2006,
then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was asked a similar question
about mass surveillance, and answered by saying simply: “The programs
and activities you ask about, to the extent that they exist, would be
highly classified.”
Clapper didn’t do this; instead, with a day’s notice of the question, he decided to lie to Congress. And, as the
New York Times’ Andrew Rosenthal says, that’s a big deal.
“Government
officials employ various tactics to avoid actually saying anything at
intelligence hearings, mostly by fogging up the room with references to
national security and with vague generalities,” he writes. “Outright
lying is another matter … You have to wonder about giving a position of
vast responsibility to someone who can beat Mr. Gonzales in dishonesty.”
You have to also wonder how a person like that can be allowed to stay in his job and avoid prosecution.
