(NewsNation) — Whistleblower David Grusch is admonishing Congress for what he says is a “total failure” to get more public transparency about what the government knows about unidentified aerial phenomena.
Grusch, a former Air Force intelligence officer, made headlines when he said the U.S. government is covering up a UFO, or unidentified flying object, retrieval program. The United States, Grusch said months ago, is in possession of “quite a number” of “nonhuman exotic origin vehicles that have either landed or crashed.”
Some lawmakers now are pushing for more transparency around UFOs, also known as unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs). They took a step toward that goal by including in the annual defense funding bill a provision requiring disclosure of classified records relating to UAPs but not before stripping out key portions of the measure.
“What we’re witnessing right now is, quite frankly, the greatest legislative failure in American history,” Grusch said Monday on “Elizabeth Vargas Reports.” “Whether you believe my allegations or not, this is a government transparency issue at large.”
Grusch first went public with his allegations in an exclusive NewsNation interview with investigative journalist Ross Coulthart earlier this year. Grusch claimed to know of the crash retrieval program based on information he was told from other intelligence sources with knowledge of the program.
Responding to critics who say he doesn’t have any firsthand knowledge himself, Grusch told NewsNation he has finally received clearance from the Pentagon to disclose more of what he knows, which he plans to do in an op-ed in the coming weeks.
“I will be discussing what I actually do know firsthand, I just could not overtly discuss that at the time, including at the (congressional) hearing because the Pentagon and the IC were sitting on some of my prepublication paperwork at the time,” he said.
As for the UAP measure, he called it a “mixed bag of success.” He credited senators for keeping in a provision that fences off money for illegal special access programs but overall says the watered-down version presented last week doesn’t do enough.
One of the nixed provisions would have created an advisory panel whose members are chosen by the president. This group would have been tasked with sorting through which records would be disclosed. Another aspect of the bill would give the government full possession of all recovered “non-human technology” currently kept by private entities like defense contractors.
Now, the legislation also includes a list of exemptions for disclosing records on UAPs, including ones if the documents could threaten national defense, compromise national intelligence or federal agents, or threaten sources and methods of intel gathering.
Grusch pushed back on concerns that classified information could be leaked if a panel is created.
“Classified information would not leak if the panel was appropriately administrated. There’s other presidential panels very akin to this that have occurred over the last several decades, and none of the information illicitly leaked,” Grusch said. “The panel was supposed to review the classified records and provide the president a recommendation because he is the original classification authority for the executive branch, and he makes that final classification determination. It’s not the panel. They’re just helping advise the president.”
At a congressional hearing this past summer, whistleblowers said under oath that some government agencies have possession of crashed UAPs and that some are being kept with private contractors like Lockheed Martin.
The UAP measure in the defense bill, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., would disclose records on “technologies of unknown origin and non-human intelligence.”
However, Schumer says it doesn’t go nearly as far as he intended it to. The senator blames House Republicans for fighting back against his efforts for more transparency.
“This model’s been a terrific success for decades,” Schumer said. “It should be used again with UAPs, but once again, House Republicans are ready to kill this bipartisan provision.”
The two provisions were taken out after influence from the House Intelligence Committee, NewsNation sources said.
“I’m here to praise and admonish, and I mean, certainly the Senate, thank you for proposed legislation. I’m glad you got some provisions passed,” Grusch said. “But folks in the House, I mean, total failure.”
Now, Grusch says the public needs to put pressure on the president to act himself.
“We need to advocate for the executive branch, the office of the President, through executive action, to instate such a body to advise him on the best course of action now that Congress has failed to legislative appropriately,” Grusch said.
NewsNation reporter Joe Khalil contributed to this report.
