UFO-curious lawmakers brace for a fight over government secrets

Ellen Mitchell
The Hill
Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:28 UTC

© AP Photo/Nathan Howard

An audience member wears a UFO pin during a House Oversight and Accountability subcommittee hearing on UFOs, Wednesday, July 26, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee says a high-profile hearing on UFOs is just the start of their push for answers.

And they are threatening to use heavier-handed tactics if the Pentagon and intelligence agencies stand in their way.

Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) and Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) want more information on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) — commonly referred to as UFOs — beginning with new laws, a classified hearing and the possible creation of a select committee.

The lawmakers said they are willing to use subpoena power if needed to get the answers they're seeking from the federal government.

"If there's not a cover-up, the government and the Pentagon are sure spending a lot of resources to stop us from studying it," Burchett told The Hill.

He added that they hope House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) can aid them in setting up a select committee to study the issue of UAPs — as well as any government program that addresses them. If they don't get leadership approval, they'll "just start holding field hearings because the public is demanding that we have transparency," Burchett said.

The effort comes after three former military officials earlier this week and under oath gave bombshell testimony on the unexplained aerial objects, telling lawmakers that for years they've been kept in the dark about the mysterious sightings and encounters.

David Grusch, a former Air Force intelligence officer, gave the most shocking testimony when he said he was told of a "multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program," accusing the military of misdirecting funds to keep such operations secret.

The shocking testimony now has committee members questioning how Congress should begin to investigate the witness claims and demand more answers from the executive branch on programs it claims doesn't exist.

Lawmakers hope to start with obtaining additional information and documents that Grusch said he submitted to the Pentagon's inspector general after serving on two Defense Department task forces looking into UAPs.

To get the information from Grusch — who said he was unable to discuss specifics on what he told the Pentagon's watchdog arm — lawmakers want to sit down with the former official in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF) to get additional information from him.

The group has been blocked, however, by officials that have informed them that Grusch doesn't currently have security clearance to discuss the issues in a SCIF, according to Burchett.

Comment: Apparently, no longer being employed by the government, Grusch has been "read out" of all the relevant SAPs, and they are using this as an excuse to block him from sharing any related sensitive information.

"I think we'll get there eventually, it's just frustrating. I'm ready to go and the American public are ready to go," he said.

Luna argued the SCIF with Grusch would help lawmakers better understand the type of legislation they need to write regarding UAPs. She said she supports legislation that would declassify information on the phenomena.

With a growing amount of bipartisan interest for more government transparency surrounding the issue, a need for reporting procedures for UAPs both in the miliary and commercial airspace and "stronger and stricter punishment for those that try to silence whistleblowers," the topic is more important than ever, she said.

There is currently a provision in the Senate's version of the annual defense authorization bill, inserted by Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), that would force federal government agencies to hand over UAP records to a review panel with the power to declassify them. The bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act, was passed by the Senate on Thursday and now must be reconciled with the House's version, so the initiative could still be stripped out.

Burchett also made an attempt to put an amendment into a Federal Aviation Administration bill to improve air travel, passed July 20, that would have required UAP sightings be reported to Congress. The initiative was blocked, which Luna said was an indication that "we clearly have a battle ahead of us."

Another avenue for lawmakers, should they not receive access to a SCIF, would be invoking the Holman rule.

During Wednesday's hearing, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) vowed to do just that, saying that he would "personally volunteer to initiate the Holman rule against any personnel, or any program, or any agency that denies access to Congress."

The Holman rule is a House power through which they can strip the salary of a specific government position, fire civil servants or cut a particular program.

Ogles's pledge came after Grusch told lawmakers that the federal government for decades has secretly funded a "UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program" and that he believes the government is in possession of nonhuman crafts, based on interviews with 40 witnesses.

Moskowitz told The Hill that while it's too early to use the Holman rule — as Congress must first "figure out where these positions exist and then examine whether or not they should be funded" — he hopes that by discussing the rule it will create more transparency with the federal government.

"This is about government transparency. I'm all for protecting national security, but that can't just be a shield to deny the American people the basics of what we know about UAPs," he said.

And Burchett said if lawmakers "start getting stonewalled" by the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, he will have "no hesitation" to invoke the rule.

Luna, meanwhile, said whether lawmakers use the rule depends on the response they receive from various agencies, programs and appointees.

That process could start as soon as September when lawmakers consider the defense appropriations bill on the House floor.

"We know that enormous sums of money are being spent on UAP-related activity, whether it's retrieval/recovery, research and reverse-engineering, or just security for whatever the government is hiding," she told The Hill. "But none of that is on the books, so from a basic governance perspective, Congress needs to know where money is being misappropriated."

Comment: Matt Laslo of Ask a Pol has published some relevant questions and answers with lawmakers. First, here's what Marco Rubio had to say a month ago about Grusch:

Matt Laslo: "Do you have any questions lingering for the whistleblower?"

Marco Rubio: "Um, do I have any questions?"

ML: "Do you think he classifies as a whistleblower?"

MR: "Well, the inspector general has deemed it an urgent and credible threat to the...so that's how it's been referred to us, so I have no reason..."

ML: "Yeah? So you're taking it credibly? Do you want to hear from him and others — behind closed doors? In the open?"

MR: "Well, we've begun that process. Obviously, it's up to the chairman [Mark Warner] to decide what direction to go, but I know we've already begun that process. I think, he's interviewed with staff already, so."

ML: "What do you think of the notion that there are SAPs hidden from Congress?"

MR: "Those claims have been made for years, and that's certainly something we'd be very disturbed by — and that's what the gist of the whistleblower's claim is, that there are programs that should have been notified to Congress that were not. So we're gonna be interested in that no matter what the topic is."

ML: "And that's kinda new compared to others in the past?"

MR: "Well, we've heard those claims in the past. This is the first one that's gone through this process."

ML: "Interesting."

And Senator Gillibrand from last week:

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) exclusively tells Ask a Pol that she's requested a private meeting with Grusch, the former US intelligence official who testified before the US House Oversight Committee last week. And she wants Grusch to sit down with All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) Director Sean Kirkpatrick.

As chair of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats & Capabilities, Gillibrand is leading the Senate investigation into UAPs (or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, according to NASA).

Gillibrand tells Ask a Pol's Matt Laslo, she recently met with [AARO director] Kirkpatrick, and now she wants him to sit down with Grusch.

"I've asked for a meeting, and I've asked for Dr. Kirkpatrick to meet with him too," Gillibrand says.

Besides the private meetings, Gillibrand says she still wants to hear from Grusch in a public hearing. The senator, who also serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, also says to expect another public UAP report from AARO by January or so.

Gillibrand had this to say about the hearing:

"They're very serious allegations that we have to get to the bottom of," Gillibrand said Friday.

Gillibrand spearheaded the formation of an office, called the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office or AARO. The office is charged with investigating over 600 UAP reports, including some of those mentioned by the whistleblowers last week. Some of these investigations, Gillibrand said, resulted in non-extraterrestrial explanations like weather balloons and spy drones. But those still raise significant concerns.

Gillibrand said the Defense Department hasn't responded to her requests for more information and she doesn't know why.

"I don't know,' Gillibrand said. "I don't know why. I don't know if it doesn't exist. I don't know if we're not asking the right questions. I don't know. I just know I have no, I have nothing to confirm those allegations."

Gillibrand said one of her foremost concerns over UAPs is the safety of pilots and other service members.

Rep. Nancy Mace, who asked questions at the hearing (including the one that received an affirmative on the topic of non-human bodies recovered), told Breitbart:

"It's sort of jaw-dropping, and how do you come back from that?" Mace asked, noting that Grusch is a retired military officer who has "very legitimate credentials coming to Congress before us and making these claims."

Mace said Grusch agreed to follow up with her after the hearing to provide a list of future witnesses, "both friendly and hostile, that could corroborate the information that he was bringing forward," she said, noting that much of what he was talking about was classified.

"But at the end of the day, I don't think this is really about little green men. This is about government transparency versus government secrecy," she said, emphasizing it is about the misappropriation of funds, which leads to many other questions.

"How much money is being spent? What's it being spent on? And are our government agencies hiding anything from Congress and therefore hiding it from the American people?" she asked. "The American people deserve the right to know; it's about national security. It's about technology. Is this AI-driven? Have we, as a government, developed our AI to...such an advanced level?"

"I think it's about energy. If you can defy the law, if the laws of physics and gravity are being defined in the way that these pilots have told us as being defied, then who has the power to create that kind of energy? Do we have that technology, or is it our adversaries?" she asked, emphasizing that there are so many "burning questions" following that testimony.

"The American people deserve the right to know" where their money is being invested, Mace said, explaining that she gets extremely frustrated on these issues and has trouble with some government witnesses.

"I sat in the chair as the subcommittee chairman of the Cybersecurity Committee on Oversight on Wednesday, and I literally cursed out my government witness because the guy that I asked to show up refused to show up. He sent one of his underlings, who refused to answer our questions and then laughed at us. Because these guys, these bureaucrats, they never get fired. They never lose their jobs. No one ever goes to jail. They're never held accountable, and they're mocking our institutions," she explained.

"They make a mockery out of your representatives...by just obfuscating and hiding, and they know they can get away with it. Nobody is ever held accountable...It's extraordinarily frustrating. I just call it like I see it. I walk in. I ask questions. I ask tough questions. I just want the truth that even if our government has made mistakes, or messed up, or wasted billions of dollars, we just want to know, and we want to improve the system and be completely transparent and accountable to the American people, but nobody seems to want to do that," Mace added, noting she has spoken to pilots over the years who have seen unexplained things as well.

"If this is really going on, it'll be the biggest story in history, not just U.S. history, but world history," she said, inquiring if these programs exist.

"Why can't Congress be informed about what's really going on in this country?" she asked, adding that it is "deeply frustrating because of all the cover-ups that we see, the corruption, [and] the amount of money that's wasted."

Finally, former U.S. intel chief John Ratcliffe had this to say on Fox News:

"The government has more information than it's sharing," Ratcliffe told anchor Maria Bartiromo. "Unfortunately, the Biden administration made the decision to really not reveal much, and now you have these House Republicans having to have these public hearings to talk about more of this information.

"I will say this, I believe there should be more transparency on this issue — but not full transparency," he added, noting the government's national security duties.

Questioned on whether the federal government was aware of the origins of supposed UAP sightings, he said: "There's a lot of things that are unexplained[...]I've gone to the edge of talking about information that's classified; I can't go over that line."