It's Not Lying

It's Just the Least Untruthful He Could Be

The White House on Tuesday came to the defense of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, after a senator blasted the intelligence official for failing to give "straight answers" on the government surveillance of Americans.

President Obama "certainly believes that Director Clapper has been straight and direct in the answers he's given" Congress, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Tuesday, adding that Clapper has been "aggressive in providing as much information as possible to the American people, to the press."

Clapper has come under fire for the testimony he gave before the Senate Intelligence Committee in March, when Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked him, "Does the [National Security Agency] collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"

Clapper responded unequivocally, "No, sir. Not wittingly. There are cases where they could, inadvertently perhaps, collect -- but not wittingly."

That contradicts the recent revelations about the NSA's collection of all of Verizon's U.S. phone records.