They wouldn't be allowed to lie to Congress if Congress didn't allow them to lie, and Congress wouldn't allow them to lie if the American people expressed a clear desire for their elected government to reign the appointed organs back in. That's what the protests are for.

There is a lot of institutional momentum in the US to keep doing bad things, including a crushing blanket of a media that cares a lot more about pop culture than anything else. But it is nice to not fear much for writing this.

What would you consider expressing a clear desire to look like? The two examples that come to mind for me, the TEA party and Occupy Wall Street, both got shut down with extreme prejudice and enthusiastic support from half the electorate.

Occupy and the Tea party weren't issues, they were groups. Groups are subject to many dangers, internally and externally, that have little to do with their goals. "Put our representatives back in charge," could be carried to Washington by anybody from a billionaire to Bernie Sanders.

> They wouldn't be allowed to lie to Congress if Congress didn't allow them to lie

That seems like a pretty radical position to take - I'd bet that Congress has a rule in place saying "you can't lie to us".

How are you justifying that as a stance? What more do you want Congress to do? And how will that be different from trial by media?

>What more do you want Congress to do?

Congress could investigate, or keep talking about it, or push for something to be done to negatively impact the parties that did it, or anything really. Even the slightest deviation from the present course of "don't say out loud that it happened and hope everyone forgets," would be a welcome show of some backbone.

>And how will that be different from trial by media?

Look at history to see the many things Congress can do when someone tries to pull something on them. They have options, they just aren't taking any.

> But if the directors of these US agencies can lie to Congress[0]

Are China's counterparts held accountable by China's people? And no, China's communist party is not China's people.