He testified to congress that this program helped foil 54 terror plots. Weeks later, he conceded that it was helpful in "only one or two".
We later found out there was basically just one, and it wasn't a terror plot; it was a Somali-born taxi driver living in San Diego who attempted to send $8,500 to a Somali terror group.
But the damage was done. The headlines blared from his initial testimony about the NSA using this program to thwart 50+ terror plots, but there was a fraction of that coverage correcting it.
Clapper's perjury may be more blatant, but Gen. Alexander's is pretty galling too. They both should've been charged.
"In July 1987, North was summoned to testify before televised hearings of a joint congressional committee that was formed to investigate the Iran–Contra scandal. During the hearings, North admitted that he had misled Congress..."
One of the sources explains that when congress investigated the Iran-Contra scandal, it granted Oliver North immunity for what he would say. From one of the Wikipedia sources:
"The most serious obstacle to North's prosecution was the immunity grant extended him by the Select Committees that in 1987 investigated the Iran/contra matter. North's nationally televised testimony under that grant of use immunity, which guaranteed that nothing he told Congress could be used against him in a criminal proceeding, greatly complicated Independent Counsel's investigation and raised serious questions as to whether North could ever be tried."
The witness cannot plead the fifth but they also cannot be prosecuted for anything they say.
And yes 2/3 of a committee is a small number of people.
It’s grifts all the way down!
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/5-people-who-lied-...
If what you do actually matters, then meh, whatever, it's all good.
1: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-baseball-clemens/clemens-...