Clapper, the director of national intelligence, cautioned him against it.
Mr. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, approved the release of an unusual public statement on Sept. 28 about the evolving intelligence conclusions.
Mr. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that American spy agencies saw only a "remote chance" in the next two years of a major computer attack on the United States, which he defined as an operation that "would result in long-term, wide-scale disruption of services, such as a regional power outage".
"During Director Clapper's tenure, senior intelligence officials engaged in an deception spree regarding mass surveillance.
And I appreciate director Clapper doing a great job on what was obviously a challenging mission".
Top officials, officials who reported to Director Clapper, repeatedly misled the American people and even lied to them," Wyden said.
"Director Clapper believes that every agency involved in collecting and sharing information prior to the attack took all the appropriate steps," his office said in a statement.
The Justice Department has shown no appetite for investigating Clapper, who, as director of national intelligence, is an institutional partner with the attorney general for internally overseeing NSA surveillance.
After the newspaper reports about the N.S.A. programs, the White House at first left the public response to James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, who denounced the leaks while justifying the programs.
Mr. Clapper, the intelligence director, told Congress in January that the accusation demonstrated that Iranian officials "are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime".
When Senator Ron Wyden (a Democrat from Oregon) asked Director Clapper during an intelligence hearing in March of last year if the NSA was collecting the data of millions of Americans, the director lied under oath and denied the charge.
