The pressure on the Obama administration?s top intelligence official, James Clapper, increased Tuesday when a popular libertarian US senator said he had lied to Congress and suggested he consider his postion.
"The director of national intelligence, in March, did directly lie to Congress, which is against the law," said Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who is considering a 2016 run for president, on CNN Tuesday.
On CNN, Paul came close to saying that Clapper, the director of national intelligence, should step down after Clapper misleadingly told the Senate intelligence committee in March that the National Security Agency did ?not wittingly? collect data on Americans? communications. Paul said Clapper would not serve in any administration led by him.
After the Guardian?s disclosures that the NSA collects and stores for five years the phone records of millions of Americans, Clapper conceded he provided the ?least untruthful? answer he could in a public forum.
A US congressman, Justin Amash, has already urged Clapper to resign. Paul questioned whether Clapper could continue in his post, saying that he could not "imagine how he would regain his credibility, when you lie". The White House is standing by its intelligence director.