RUTHFULLY YOURS

James Clapper has a brand new book to sell, which must be his excuse for forgetting Denis Healey’s First Law of Holes: “When in one, stop digging.”  Yesterday, he appeared on The View and brought a metaphorical shovel with him.  The entire nine-and-a-half-minute segment is embedded below, and it is worth watching if only to observe the bizarre facial expressions he manifested while tap-dancing around the truth of what he and other members of the cabal have been caught doing.

Fortunately for those in a hurry, Doug Ross put together a collage of his contortions that reveal his stress and discomfort – “[l]ooking down, looking away, grimacing, and gesticulating wildly,” in Ross’s description:

It is always possible to grab awkward faces off a video clip, but if you watch the clip below, you will see that Ross has not pulled this kind of trick.  The man repeatedly grimaces and gestures in odd ways as he digs his hole deeper.

In particular, three belly-flops stand out.

Clapper caught himself using the word “spying” to describe what the FBI was doing on the Trump campaign, and as he did so, he tried to put the toothpaste back in the tube as he made his claim that the object of spying was not the campaign, but the Russians:

“They were spying – a term I don’t particularly like – on what the Russians were doing.”

A second laugh-out-loud contention was cribbed from another fantasist.  Recycling a theme floated four days earlier by a former FBI agent turned Yale lecturer, that the spying was really an attempt to help the Trump campaign (which requires ignoring the text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page that spewed hatred), Clapper actually said of Trump, “He should be happy.”  Perhaps his grimace was partially motivated by fear of a lightning bolt striking him as he pushed a whopper like that.

The third belly-flop involved lying about a previous lie.  Bre Payton explains at The Federalist:

Clapper told another lie about his previous lies about the NSA program to spy on American citizens.

Meghan McCain confronted Clapper about a statement he made while testifying before Congress five years ago, when he was asked whether or not the NSA was spying on Americans.

“In 2013 when you were asked about it, you said ‘no,'” McCain said.  “So that is a lie.”

“I made a mistake,” Clapper said.  “I didn’t lie.  I was thinking about something else, another program.”

Clapper then proceeded to prattle on about two different surveillance programs in an attempt to obfuscate his answer.

“I’ve been trotting up the Hill testifying for 25 years,” Clapper said.  “Gee, just for a change of pace, I think I’ll lie on this one question and by the way do it on live television and do it in front of one of my oversight committees.  So I made a mistake, but I didn’t lie.”

Payton helpfully supplies the video evidence that shows this pathetic attempt at justification is just another lie:

In 2013 Sen. Ron Wyden asked Clapper: “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions, or hundreds of millions, of Americans?”

He did not ask Clapper about a specific program.  Wyden simply asked if the NSA was collecting any data at all on millions of Americans, and Clapper said no.  As it turns out, his response was a lie, plain and simple.  Instead of fessing up and admitting that he lied before Congress five years ago, he’s doubling down.

Keep digging, Clapper.