Republican members of Congress called on attorney general Eric Holder to open an investigation into the leader of the US intelligence community.
In a letter issued the day after a White House surveillance review placed new political pressure on the National Security Agency, seven members of the House judiciary committee said that James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, ought to face consequences for untruthfully telling the Senate that the NSA was “not wittingly” collecting data on Americans.
Witnesses cannot be allowed to lie to Congress,” wrote representatives James Sensenbrenner, Darrell Issa, Trent Franks, Raul Labrador, Ted Poe, Trey Gowdy and Blake Farenthold, citing Clapper’s willful lie under oath.
During testimony in March that has become infamous, Clapper told Senator Ron Wyden, a member of the intelligence committee, that the NSA was not intercepting data on millions of Americans.
After the revelations from whistle-blower Edward Snowden, Clapper eventually apologized to the Senate panel, citing a momentary memory failure.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/19/republicans-consequences-james-clapper-testimony?google_editors_picks=true