Rand Paul: DNI Clapper 'Just Decided to Lie'

Appearing on The Mike Church Show on Sirius XM Patriot 125, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) said that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had lost all credibility on the National Security Agency’s snooping on American citizens. “You know, in March of this year, the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper came to the Senate and he was asked directly by Senator Wyden, are you collecting data on American citizens, and he said no,” Paul related. “And interestingly, he’d been prepped for the questions. Senator Wyden’s office called him in advance and said, ‘We’re going to ask you are you collecting data on Americans.’ So it’s not like he fumbled around and gave a wrong answer, he just decided to lie.”

Paul said that Clapper said that he fibbed because it was classified material. Paul pointed out that “once you start lying you lose your credibility … I’m distrustful of them, and I think that’s sad.”

Paul concluded of the NSA’s spying power, “It’s an amazing and enormous power, and I don’t want that power used against innocent American citizens.”

Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).