David Grusch’s UAP Testimony — will the US see another Church Committee?
After almost a month since David Grusch’s historical testimony, I am left pondering, will the United States see another Church Committee?
Grave new allegations of crimes committed to conceal a secret UAP crash retrieval program is now before Congress. If true, they suggest the lessons of Watergate have gone unheeded. The US may soon see another Church Committee-style inquiry into alleged crimes committed by its intelligence services.
Since my days in secondary school or High School, I have always had a keen interest in history, particularly American history and its politics. Unfortunately, the Irish syllabus did not cover it, so I spent my time learning from TV documentaries, books, and my dad. I remember very clearly in July 1997 when I first visited Independence Hall in Philadelphia, (originally known as the Pennsylvania State House) where on August 2nd, 1776, Congress members affixed their individual signatures to the parchment that became the United States Declaration of Independence.
Fast forward 11 years a four-page document known as the American Constitution, drafted in secret by delegates to the Constitutional Convention, was established and later signed on September 17, 1787; a document which defined the fundamental law of the U.S federal government, including constitutional constraints on executive government powers, a clear statement as to the rights of United States’ citizens.
A younger generation may not know about the notorious Watergate scandal; how Congressional and media investigations revealed disgraceful breaches of the rule of law and the rights of citizens laid down in the US Constitution, namely the unaccountable abuse of executive power by the commission of crimes such as running illegal intelligence operations against American citizens.
The Watergate Scandal was a campaign to spy against and sabotage the Democratic party on behalf of the President Richard Nixon Republican Party re-election committee (aptly named CREEP). Richard Nixon, the 37th president of the United States was implicated in:
1. Attempting to impede an investigation into a politically motivated break-in into the offices of the Democratic National Committee, the opposition party to the Republicans.
2. Abusing his power by using the president’s office to obstruct justice by concealing the identity of several federal employees responsible for the crime.
The Watergate scandal left a shameful legacy and forced Congress to assert its authority and place new controls on abuses of executive power, while also strengthening the oversight of the extremely powerful US intelligence community.
America Post 9/11 — A new Threat Emerges
In present-day post 9/11 America, issues of national security, particularly that of its airspace became a critical priority across its intelligence community, especially emphasising the importance of seamless interagency collaboration and transparency across its various agencies.
Fast forward 16 years, a now famous New York Times Article circa 2017, written by Leslie Kean, revealed for the first time to the US public the Pentagon’s secret Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Program known as the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP). The article raised concerns that information regarding such threats had not been appropriately reported nor shared internally or with the public. Leaked military videos were released, showing what was described as unknown objects of unknown origin displaying anomalous flight capabilities. Later revelations disclosed a wider classified portfolio of incursions over US airspace and Military Training grounds. These objects displayed 5 anomalous observables, categorised by Former Director of AATIP, Mr Luis Elizondo, who coined the term as:
· Positive Lift — Anti Gravity Lift
· Instantaneous Acceleration
· Hypersonic Velocities
· Low observability, or cloaking
· Trans — medium Travel
In July 2022, increases in reported incursions within American air space witnessed by Navy Pilots of anomalous craft forced Congress to establish a dedicated office known as the UAP Taskforce, later the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). The mission of the AARO office was to collect reports and data to establish the origins of these UAP and to identify what they were. Since its inception, the AARO office has received 366 reports from US military personnel operating from across the globe. The official term used by the US Government is now Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, now commonly known as UAP.
America’s Whistle Blower David Grusch
In the wake of the 2017 New York Times story, UAPs have become a contentious subject for the US Department of Defence, especially after years of denial that UAPs were a flight safety risk or a national security threat. In a remarkable backflip in evidence to Congress, senior intelligence officials have more recently admitted that UAPs do pose both a flight safety risk and a potential threat to national security.
To add to this pressure, according to the Pew Research Centre, it is reported that US public confidence and trust in its government is at an all-time low with a decline in 24% since 2021. In the wake of whistle-blower and former intelligence officer David Grusch’s evidence to Congress, there is bipartisan agreement across the Congress that his gravely serious allegations demand rigorous public investigation.
Following a complaint received by the Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General, (ICIG), marked “Urgent and Credible” to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the whistle-blower David Grusch, a former military intelligence officer, testified under oath on Wednesday 26th of July this year in front of the US House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. He alleged he was the victim of reprisals and harassment by his superiors because of his efforts to investigate the legacy crash retrieval and reverse engineering program he had learned of from multiple witnesses. The information that David testified to last month on Capitol Hill can only be described as incredible and extremely serious.
Mr. David Grusch is a decorated combat officer, an Air Force veteran, a veteran of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office. From 2019 to 2021, Mr. Grusch was the representative of the NRO to the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. From late 2021 to July 2022, he was the co-lead for UAP analysis at the NGA and its representative to the task force. He assisted in drafting the National Defence Authorization Act of 2023 which included provisions for reporting of unidentified craft in US airspace, including whistle-blower protections and exemptions to non-disclosure orders and agreements. As a Senior Intelligence Officer Mr. Grusch held a TS/SCI clearance which stands for Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information or Special Access Program. In addition, Mr Grusch was responsible with drafting and delivering the intelligence briefing to the United States President out of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defence for Intelligence & Security (OUSDI). Over the course of three years in his investigatory leadership role Mr Grusch had interviewed 40 direct witnesses working on a “A Program”. They claimed the U.S government has conducted a “multi decade” program which has collected and made attempts to reverse engineer crashed craft and material “not of earth origin”. Mr Grusch testified 26th of July to the truth of these allegations in evidence to the US House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. In addition to these extraordinary claims, Mr Grusch also testified the program had recovered “non-human biologics” from alleged crashed sites in the 1930s.
If he is proved to have lied to Congress, Mr Grusch could be charged with perjury and sentenced to jail. As incredible as Mr Grusch’s claims are, Mr Grusch made it clear that his allegations had already been supported by corroborative first-hand witnesses in evidence to the Intelligence Community Inspector General, who subsequently made the reference to the Congress that Mr Grusch’s evidence was “credible and urgent”.
Prior to the public hearing. Mr Grush testified under oath, sharing secret evidence he collected during his time on the UAPTF to substantiate his claims. This testimony was given in a Congressional Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF), a secure room that is used to share highly sensitive information. The names of first-hand witnesses to the legacy program, the program name(s) and location of the program(s) were all shared confidentially by Mr Grusch to officials’ security cleared to hear his evidence.
Following Mr Grusch’s testimony within the SCIF, the Majority Leader of the United States Senate Chuck Schumer proposed amendments to the National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA) designed to compel all available UAP records and other evidence to be provided forthwith by members of the Intelligence Community, Defence Department, and private corporations, regarding crashed craft and their associated reverse engineering program. This bill gives private holders of non-earth origin or exotic UAP material(s) six months to disclose this information to Congress before action is taken against them.
It is important to note the enormous significance of the prominent role played by the senate majority leader in proposing this extraordinary legislation, despite the longstanding stigma associated with the issue of UAPs. Within this context and the action, he has taken under a topic that is associated with public stigma. The National Defence Authorisation Act bill signals that Mr Schumer was fully briefed on the evidence and transcripts derived by the Senate Intelligence Committee that Mr Grusch had submitted via the SCIF. It is also very significant that within days of the hearing, the White House endorsed Senator Schumer’s amendment for incorporation into the National Defense Appropriations Act for 2024 without challenge. It suggests that there had been extensive consultation between the Senator and the White House before this legislation was proposed.
Sections of Senator Schumer’s NDAA amendment Bill are worth quoting in their entirety because of what they convey about the gravity of the Senator’s concerns about the allegations made by Mr Grusch and other secret witnesses about the existence of an alleged legacy crash retrieval and reverse engineering UAP program improperly withhold from the oversight of Congress. Not only does the Senator’s proposed legislation mandate that all Federal Government records concerning UAPs should carry a ‘presumption of immediate disclosure’ and declare that all records should eventually be disclosed to ‘enable the public to become fully informed about the history of the Federal Government’s knowledge and involvement surrounding UAP’, but it also makes some extraordinarily grave allegations.
For example, the Schumer amendment states, ‘Legislation is necessary because credible evidence and testimony indicates that Federal Government UAP records exist that have not been declassified or subject to mandatory declassification review as set forth’ in a Presidential Executive Order mandating such declassification. It then goes on to say that this declassification did not happen because of an ‘over-broad interpretation of “trans classified foreign nuclear information” …’, an exemption from release available under the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. This clearly and explicitly suggests that an exemption in the Act was misused to conceal information that ought properly to have been released. It is a categorical statement that there is information the public should know that has been illegally withheld.
Moreover, the same amendment states that Freedom of Information laws have been inadequate in achieving disclosure of Government UAP records that are subject to mandatory declassification review, a view many UAP researchers have held for years after receiving dense pages of blacked-out documents.
What clearly is at the heart of Congress’ concerns is the allegation, made by Grusch and by other witnesses in private hearings, that there have been ongoing attempts to subvert the legal oversight of these secret UAP programs by Government officials. His allegations have raised shocking concerns of possible criminal behaviour, including the murder of witnesses and the fraudulent misappropriation of Government funds. Equally disturbing was Mr Grusch’s account of the reprisals made against him for just doing his job; what he termed ‘administrative terrorism’.
Mr Grusch’s allegations also suggested that Government employees had been physically hurt as a result of their contact with the non-human technologies and biologic ‘entities’ secretly held by Government and private aerospace.
When the hearing was closed, it was unanimously agreed by the sitting representatives that they would support the idea of the creation of a select investigatory committee akin to the 1975 church committee. This would include the power to subpoena witnesses and to withhold Government funding from non-compliant officials or programs under the so-called Holman Rule.
More Hearings
With the first public hearing over and with the sensitive information in the hands of the Senate Arms Committee, the process for investigation and validation into Mr Grusch’s claims has inevitably begun. Congress is now in recess for August, and it is still an open question whether there is the political support, especially in the Government controlled Senate, for public hearings of such a sensitive and controversial nature, especially in an imminent Election year. There is also a substantial push-back from the powerful Defense Department and intelligence community lobby, some of who’s in leadership are perhaps not keen to see allegations of criminality and flagrant illegality aired in a public inquisition with the power to force officials to give evidence under oath.
Mr Grusch testified to Congress that his allegations were accepted as ‘credible’ by the Intelligence Community Inspector General and he has also stated that other first-hand witnesses to the legacy crash retrieval program supported his claims under oath in secret hearings before the ICIG. It would be a good first start for any public hearing to call the Inspector General himself to test Mr Grusch’s allegations. If America’s top intelligence community watchdog verifies Mr Grusch’s allegations, then there seems little doubt that Congress will be compelled to hold a full inquisitorial hearing to get to the bottom of these gravely serious allegations.