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In the midst of the raging controversies over secret surveillance and new healthcare plans, there were some curious and unsettling sightings in the coverage. Individuals once thought to have passed from political existence reappeared to hold forth on the very subjects of their demise.

In ancient times such figures were called druagr or, in Old Norse, revenant. The two most recent revenants were James Clapper and Jonathan Gruber. They are ample proof that no one really dies in Washington; their scandals just fade away.

Clapper on Surveillance Programs

James Clapper is being widely quoted as proof that President Donald TrumpDonald TrumpWash. judge upholds fines for faithless electors Is Trump throwing Ukraine to the Kremlin sharks? Republican state strength will withstand Democrat lawsuits MORE was lying in saying that there was surveillance of Trump Tower carried out by President Barack ObamaBarack ObamaPence dodges on whether he believes Obama wiretapped Trump Tower Graham says he would subpoena for evidence on Trump wiretap claim Republican state strength will withstand Democrat lawsuits MORE. Clapper went public to say categorically that no such surveillance operations occurred. That ended the issue for many in the media. After all, as the former Director of National Intelligence, Clapper would know right?

Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!

When then-National Intelligence Director James Clapper appeared before the Senate, he was asked directly, Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans? Clapper responded, No, sir. Not wittingly.

Note this was not a situation like the controversy over Attorney General Jeff SessionsJeff SessionsArmstrong Williams op-ed: America will have to deal with Putin's Russia long after Trump leaves office Huntsman accepts ambassadorship to Russia: report Put Trump under oath MORE who went beyond a question asked him about how he would respond to any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Sessions voluntarily stated that he had no interaction with Russians in responding but failed to mention two brief meetings with the Russian ambassador.

Sessions insisted that he was thinking of campaign discussions not any meeting with any Russian at any time. In comparison, Clapper denied a direct question about the existence of a program that he was fully aware of and the question itself was all too clear.

"3 reasons to take Trump's wiretapping claims at his word ... for now" https://t.co/L7wIXXQRNB pic.twitter.com/na7j5zTs7B

Clapper later admitted that he did not want to answer the question and said that his testimony was the least untruthful statement he could make. Yet, of course, that would still make it an untrue statement which most people call a lie and lawyers call perjury.

What was particularly disturbing was the portrayal of Clapper and the Obama administration generally as denying that the administration would ever surveil political opponents in such a matter. This is the same administration that hid the massive secret surveillance program and put journalists under surveillance. Clapper himself played the most controversial role in misleading Congress on the existence of the program.

Unless media is looking for the least untruthful answer, Clapper would hardly seem a compelling witness on the existence of surveillance operations. This is not to say that the media was wrong in asking Clapper about the alleged surveillance given his earlier position. However, he has emerged apparently shed of his highly controversial history.

Gruber on Healthcare

With the move to repeal and replace ObamaCare, various media outlets turned to MIT professor Jonathan Gruber who is widely referred to as an architect of Obamacare. Gruber promptly denounced the replacement of the law and warned that it could result in 30 million people losing health insurance coverage. He previously juxtaposed "a strong and coherent health care agenda" of President Obama as opposed to Trump's "garbage salad of right-wing talking points.

Grubers resurrection as an architect of ObamaCare is impressive even by Washington metrics. It was not long ago that no one in the Obama administration appeared to know Grubers name. While a key person in the drafting of ObamaCare (who received $400,000 to work on Obamacare andmade over $2 million from the Department of Health and Human Services), Gruber became persona non grata after he spoke frankly about what was something of a bait-and-switch used to pass Obamacare.

Gruber told an audience at the University of Rhode Island in 2012 that they were able to pass Obamacare because of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter.

In another view from at an October 2013 event at Washington University in St. Louis, Gruber said that passed, because the American people are too stupid to understand the difference. Likewise, in 2009, Gruber denied that they were really trying to reduce costs as opposed to increase coverage saying that Obamacare might not produce lower cost health care for many citizens. This statement was made five months before the passage of the Act but not publicly known until long after passage.

Following these and other remarks, Democratic leaders suddenly began saying Gruber who? Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi expressed a complete lack of knowledge of who Gruber is, was, or will be. The Obama administration denied that he was really all that important after all.

So, with the move to repeal and replace, who surfaces to evaluate the proposals? The man who said that he and others secured passage of ObamaCare in part on the basis of the stupidity of the American citizen. Suddenly he is an architect again and a reliable source.

"GOP's health plan isn't perfect, but tackles ObamaCare's biggest flaws" https://t.co/fMLudX0gUa pic.twitter.com/V03KvGUOkx

What is fascinating is that there are ample reasons to question both the surveillance allegations and the proposals for a new healthcare system. Yet, there is no interest in the rather checkered history of either of these key players from the prior administration.

There are, of course, Republican revenants who seemed to rise Phoenix-like from their political ashes like Gov. Chris Christie or Gov. Rick Perry. Yet, the use of revenants like Clapper and Gruber reflects the limited attention span of modern media coverage.

It is too much to expect that the credibility of a former official would be relevant for a revenant, particularly when they fit a narrative of a story. It is Washingtons version of soap opera characters: major figures can suddenly return to life with a simple change in storyline like being found on a desert island or defrosted in some cryogenic lab.

The Obama administration itself had controversies of the veracity of statements on surveillance and health care. That does not make the statements of Trump or his administration any more true. As the New York Times new ad campaign states, Truth is hard to find. But it is all the more difficult when you are looking in all the wrong places.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University.

The views of contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.

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Discredited Obama-era insiders back from the dead to slam Trump - The Hill (blog)