The brazenness of some very senior Obama administration officials is astounding. First they lie, even while under oath. When confronted with the lies, they first try to avoid admitting it, then when the evidence is overwhelming, they admit it but plead that were taken out of context or ‘misspoke’, then when even that fails to hold up, they admit they lied and apologize.
But then sometime later, when people’s memories have gotten a little hazy, they go back on their apologies and deny that they ever lied in the first place.
Two people who embody this callous disregard for truth are the Director of National Security James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan.
Here’s Clapper recently:
An unapologetic James Clapper bristled at accusations of misconduct in front of a trade group today, announced that he intends to continue serving as national intelligence director through the rest of the Obama presidency, and released a new “National Intelligence Strategy” that includes a “Code of Ethics” that seems disconnected from the reality of intelligence collection as revealed by Edward Snowden.
….“While we’ve made mistakes, to be clear, the IC [intelligence community] never willfully violated the law,” he insisted.
And he complained bitterly of being “accused of lying to Congress.”
Clapper flat-out lied to Sen. Ron Wyden during a Senate hearing in March when he said the NSA does not wittingly “collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.”
Clapper has previously said he “responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful manner by saying no.”
And here’s Brennan recently. As Dan Froomkin says:
CIA Director John Brennan today petulantly denied that he lied in March when he publicly insisted that the CIA had not improperly accessed the computers of Senate staffers investigating the agency’s role in torturing detainees.
Since then, an internal investigation found the CIA had done just that, and Brennan was forced to apologize to Senate intelligence committee members.
Their dishonesty even about their dishonesty is truly breathtaking.
Breathtaking…and yet unsurprising.
You ask a question of the NSA and the CIA, the two biggest spy agencies, and expect them to tell you the
truth? Wow, you really don’t know how those sorts of organizations work. Honesty is not coin in their realm. They value the truth so highly that they keep do not allow it to roam. They keep the truth locked away, and guarded by competing armies of lies.
I guess we’re waiting for the Overton window to open a bit more on this…The tipping point will be, (to quote Donald Rumsfeld), when this lying becomes nationally a ‘known known’… I think everybody ‘knows’ it already so it’s a matter of when as a country we reach the point where we will actually call them on it…
Well, they *don’t* collect data on millions of Americans. Of course, that leaves over three hundred million Americans that they *do* collect data on.
The government is tyrannised by The People, who demand lies, reward liars and -- vindictively -- punish representatives who push their luck with truth. It’s the People driving the corruption, the government plays the hand the People have dealt.
“Every nation deserves the government it has.”