Seven Republican members of Congress called on attorney general Eric Holder on Thursday to open an investigation into the leader of the US intelligence community.

In a letter issued the day after a White House surveillance review placed new political pressure on the National Security Agency, the seven members of the House judiciary committee said that James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, ought to face consequences for untruthfully telling the Senate that the NSA was “not wittingly” collecting data on Americans.

“Congressional oversight depends on truthful testimony – witnesses cannot be allowed to lie to Congress,” wrote representatives James Sensenbrenner, Darrell Issa, Trent Franks, Raul Labrador, Ted Poe, Trey Gowdy and Blake Farenthold, citing “Director Clapper’s willful lie under oath.”

During testimony in March that has become infamous, Clapper told Senator Ron Wyden, a member of the intelligence committee, that the NSA was not intercepting data on millions of Americans.

After the revelations from whistleblower Edward Snowden, Clapper eventually apologized to the Senate panel, citing a momentary memory failure – although he initially said he gave the “least untruthful” answer he could publicly provide.

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. The White House has consistently defended Clapper against calls for his job.

Both the director of national intelligence and the NSA are currently attempting to navigate what they concede are inevitable curtailments of US surveillance authorities. In public remarks and congressional testimony, they are seeking to retain as much ability to conduct bulk surveillance as possible, a task made more complicated after Wednesday’s report from a White House advisory panel that suggested several curtailments of NSA powers.

The letter’s authors include surveillance skeptics like Sensenbrenner as well as those who voted against an earlier curtailment of NSA authorities, like Franks and Issa, the chairman of the House oversight committee.

“There can be no disagreement, however, on the basic premise that congressional witnesses must answer truthfully,” read the letter, which requested a reply by 10 January.