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Experienced Perjurer James Clapper Weighs in on Stone Charges for CNN

© AP Photo / Pablo Martinez MonsivaisDirector of National Intelligence James Clapper.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. - Sputnik International
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When former Donald Trump adviser Roger Stone was arrested Friday morning and charged with making false statements to Congress, networks went hunting for experts to discuss the implications of the indictment. CNN, luckily, had an expert perjurer on its staff to weigh in: ex-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

"I think the White House denials are getting increasingly hollow, and they simply don't pass the giggle test," Clapper told CNN Friday. Stone's Friday indictment by the Office of Special Counsel on seven charges, five of which involve making false statements to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in 2017, makes him the sixth Trump associate to be charged in the Russiagate investigation.

Longtime Donald Trump associate Roger Stone arrives to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2017, in Washington. - Sputnik International
Ex-Trump Adviser Stone Arrested in Mueller Probe - Special Counsel's Office

Back in March 2013, Clapper was then-President Barack Obama's DNI and went before Congress, telling the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that the National Security Agency (NSA) didn't "wittingly" collect data on "millions or hundreds of millions of Americans." That, we know now, thanks to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's enormous divulgence of highly classified information later that year, was a flat-out lie.

Clapper said in a later interview that he had simply "made a mistake" in responding to a question and "didn't lie."

While Clapper wasn't charged with perjury before the five-year statute of limitations ran out, knowledge of his doubletalk is wide. It's highly ironic that CNN would have him, of all people, as an expert giving them comments about Stone being charged with lying to Congress — and the irony wasn't lost on observers, either. One might say it simply doesn't "pass the giggle test."

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