In March, the Director of the Office of National Intelligence, James R. Clapper, testified at a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

He was asked a direct question, and he answered incorrectly. Very incorrectly.

Asked by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) whether the NSA gathered “any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans,” Clapper said “No.”

Wyden didn’t drop the subject. Clapper said the NSA didn’t gather such data “wittingly.” They might “in some cases” inadvertently, unwittingly – accidentally, without even knowing it. Perhaps. But no.

As is now widely known, owing to information leaked by Edward Snowden (former NSA analyst now on the lam in foreign parts), that was false. The NSA does gather data on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans in the form of information about their phone calls.

Since then Clapper’s given clashing explanations of his false – or as he likes to say, “erroneous,” – answer.

On June 21, Clapper apologized to committee chair Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). He did so in a letter of explanation. He says he’s “thought long and hard to re-create what went through my mind at the time.” He “simply didn’t think” of Section 215 of the Patriot Act – he was focused on FISA instead.

Here’s the apology part:

That said, I realized later that Senator Wyden was asking about Section 215 metadata collection, rather than content collection. Thus, my response was clearly erroneous—for which I apologize. While my staff acknowledged the error to Senator Wyden’s staff soon after the hearing, I can now openly correct it because the existence of the metadata collection program has been declassified.

He can now openly correct it. So, before he couldn’t openly correct it. So, even if he understood the question, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—have answered it truthfully. So in spite of all the stuff about how he simply didn’t think of the metadata collection, he would have acted in the same way if he did.

Which is it? An error? Or a lie? Or an error that was good luck, because if he hadn’t made that error he would have had to lie?

Should we believe that he simply didn’t think of it? That when testifying before a Senate committee, and having been told beforehand that he would be asked about it, he spaced out this mammoth intelligence-gathering effort? (Wow, I was thinking about monkeys! They’re so amazing! What were you saying?)

Spencer Ackerman, in The Guardian, does a rundown of things that might make us disbelieve the simply-didn’t-think excuse. Before the hearing, Wyden and his staff had told Clapper they would ask the question. Afterward, Wyden’s staff contacted Clapper’s staff to correct the record. “’The ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] acknowledged that the statement was inaccurate but refused to correct the public record when given the opportunity,’… Wyden spokesman Tom Caiazza said…”

When asked about his answer by Andrea Mitchell of NBC News, he said he gave the “least most untruthful answer” he could. I wonder about the refuse-to-comment option. (Or the I-don’t-like-to-talk-about-it-because-I-get-too-emotional option.)

He lied. Wittingly. He saw that as part of his job. This is acknowledged in his remarks about trying to be the least untruthful that he could.

How does this rate as an apology? As a bad one. Not prompt. Evasive – not taking responsibility. Insincere. No suggestion that he wouldn’t do it again.

Given that he thinks he was correct to lie, why is he trying to make it look like he wasn’t lying, just absentmindedly failing to understand what he was being asked? Why bother with the apology?

So maybe we’ll believe him if he lies again?

Yeah, right. And monkeys from some mysterious source might fly around the hearing room.