Director of National Intelligence James Clapper didn't lie under oath when he wrongfully told Congress in 2013 that the government doesn't "wittingly" collect personal information on Americans; he simply forgot about the program, according to Clapper's attorney.
"This was not an untruth or a falsehood. This was just a mistake on his part," Robert Litt, the general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said during an Advisory Committee on Transparency meeting on Friday, The Hill reported. "We all make mistakes."
During the 2013 Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked Clapper if the NSA collected "any type of data at all on millions of Americans."
Clapper - the man tasked with serving as principal advisor to President Obama on intelligence issues related to national security - responded, "No sir. There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect, but not wittingly."
A few months later, former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden proved Clapper wrong when he leaked documents showing that the NSA does in fact wittingly collect millions of Americans' phone records under a program the government claims is authorized by Section 215 of the Patriot Act.
After Snowden revealed the program, government officials claimed the program was so vital to the country's security that Snowden put the country in danger by revealing it, yet it apparently wasn't important enough for Clapper to remember it even existed.
Wyden had even provided Clapper the questions a day before his testimony, but Litt said on Friday that Clapper didn't have a chance to prepare an answer for Wyden and forgot about the surveillance program when put on the spot in the Senate.
"We were notified the day before that Sen. Wyden was going to ask this question and the director of national intelligence did not get a chance to review it," Litt said.
"He was hit unaware by the question," Litt continued. "After this hearing I went to him and I said, 'Gee you were wrong on this.' And it was perfectly clear that he had absolutely forgotten the existence of the 215 program."
Although, in an interview with NBC's Andrea Mitchell a few months after his testimony, Clapper said that "I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful manner, by saying no."
He added that his answer was "too cute by half" and may have been due to semantics. "There are honest differences on the semantics when someone says 'collection' to me, that has a specific meaning, which may have a different meaning to [Wyden]."
"To me collection of U.S. Persons data would mean taking the books off the shelf, opening it up and reading it," Clapper said.
Litt said on Friday that Clapper was actually thinking about a different program authorized under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which the NSA uses to collect large amounts of Internet data from foreigners, reported The Hill. That law specifically prohibits the collection of Americans' data, unless it is by accident.
