GOP requests criminal probe of James Clapper

Seven House Republicans are calling for the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into whether Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied to Congress.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Reps. Darrell Issa (R-CA), James Sensenbrenner Jr (R-WI), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Trey Gowdy (R-SC), Raúl Labrador (R-ID) and Ted Poe (R-TX) said Clapper's "willful lie under oath" fuels distrust in the government and undermines the ability of Congress to do its job. "There are differences of opinion about the propriety of the NSA’s data collection programs," they wrote. "There can be no disagreement, however, on the basic premise that congressional witnesses must answer truthfully.” Shawn Turner, a spokesman for Clapper, said the intelligence director mistakenly understood Sen Ron Wyden's (D-OR) question during the Senate Intelligence hearing in March to be referring to the contents of communications, instead of "metadata" such as phone numbers, call times and call durations.