Family Fulkerson

MORE ZIG-ZAGS BY UFO WHISTLEBLOWER DAVID GRUSCH I. Grusch and his ICIG interview transcripts Former Department of Defense senior intelligence official Chris Mellon said to Sean Kirkpatrick, then the director of the Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), in a June 13, 2023 Signal message contained in FOIA release 24-F-0266, obtained by @theblackvault, inserted below: "I spoke w Dave [Grusch, at Kirkpatrick's request] and his first question was, 'Why hadn't AARO gotten all the info from the IC IG [Inspector General of the Intelligence Community]? It is all there and fully documented to include confirmation [on] the [alien technology] program is real from active, cleared insiders.['"] On June 13, 2023, Kirkpatrick texted back to Mellon, "DOJ [Department of Justice] has to release it since it's part of a criminal investigation. They haven't yet. He [Grusch] needs to come tell us separate from his criminal complaint." By email on April 19, 2024, I asked Sean Kirkpatrick a series of questions seeking to understand what the Department of Justice had to do with any of this. He replied to me on April 20, 2024: " Mr. Mellon and I were referring to both of Mr. Grusch’s IG complaints, which fall under DoJ rules and authorities. In order for AARO to have received any of his 'evidence' the IG would have to release it, which would require Mr. Grusch to authorize. He did not. There is no other investigation." This answer surprised me, so I then asked Kirkpatrick, "Do I understand correctly that to this day, AARO has not received the detailed alien-reverse-engineering allegations that Grusch says he provided first to the ICIG, and then to the two Intelligence committees in 2022; and that the ICIG would have been willing to release those transcripts to AARO if David Grusch had authorized it; but that Grusch refused to authorize the release of the transcripts to AARO or failed to respond when asked to authorize such release?" To this, Kirkpatrick responded on April 21, 2024: "Yes that is correct. I conveyed to his attorney in a phone call that all he has to do is authorize release of the [ICIG] transcripts. That did not happen." In a further response to me on April 22, 2024, Kirkpatrick said, "Both the ICIG and DoDIG have been supporting AARO insofar as whistleblower protections legally allow them." David Grusch said on May 3, 2024 (written statement to @NewsNation, reproduced below): "To be clear, AARO does not have access to the information I provided to the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) and the Congressional Intelligence Committees under the PPD-19 whistleblowing process." My comments on the above: In the FOIA release 24-F-0266, obtained by John Greenewald, we saw that first Grusch challenged Kirkpatrick (via Mellon) as to why Kirkpatrick had not examined the ICIG interview transcripts-- yet now we learn that subsequently, Grusch failed to authorize the release of those same transcripts to AARO, after AARO explicitly asked that he do so. Regrettably, this appears to be another example in an emerging pattern of zig-zags and substantially misleading public statements on certain matters by Grusch. In light of the communications that were occurring as early as June 2023 between Grusch and AARO, some of which now are spread on the public record thanks to the work of John Greenewald, I believe that Grusch engendered a misleading impression in the public mind regarding AARO's interest in hearing his testimony. Grusch's October 31, 2023 statement to NewsNation--calling Sean Kirkpatrick a liar for saying that AARO had repeatedly reached out to Grusch-- was misleading; Kirkpatrick was entirely truthful in the specific statement to which Grusch was reacting. Misleading in the same way, in my opinion, is the second sentence of Grusch's May 3, 2024 statement to NewsNation (reproduced below). We should also recall Grusch's words to Congresswoman Anna Paula Luna (R-FL) during the July 26, 2023 UAP hearing before the National Security Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, when Grusch said, "I had a classified conversation [with Sean Kirkpatrick] in April 2022 before he took over AARO in July 2022 and I provided him some concerns I had....I was happy to give sage counsel to him on where to look when he took the helm of AARO." From that exchange, no viewer would have gotten the impression that Grusch would be unwilling to share his classified testimony with AARO. Grusch might have good reasons for not later participating in a classified interview with AARO. But Grusch's stated reasons for not participating in a classified interview with AAFO have been contrived and implausible. By enactment of Public Law 117-263, Congress has empowered AARO with authority to receive information at any level of classification. This does not mean that AARO immediately "knows" everything. Nor does it mean that AARO has so far effectively employed its full statutory powers or fulfilled some of its most important statutory mandates-- I believe that it has not, but that is a discussion for another day. It was not necessary, and in fact would have been really lousy legislative draftsmanship, for Congress to add a list of agencies and program types to which AARO's plenary authority to receive classified information would apply. Such an approach would have created or invited creation of loopholes. Aside from the plain letter of the law, in my opinion it is very implausible that Grusch would place himself in any LEGAL jeopardy by participating in an classified interview with AARO, after having received entreaties and formal assurances from high-level officials of the Pentagon and Intelligence Community, urging him to do so, which certainly has now been amply documented. From the Department of Justice manual for criminal prosecutions: "Entrapment is a complete defense to a criminal charge, on the theory that 'Government agents may not originate a criminal design, implant in an innocent person's mind the disposition to commit a criminal act, and then induce commission of the crime so that the Government may prosecute.' Jacobson v. United States, 503 U.S. 540, 548 (1992). A valid entrapment defense has two related elements: (1) government inducement of the crime, and (2) the defendant's lack of predisposition to engage in the criminal conduct." Some commentators will object, "How dare you dispute Grusch's attorney?" But I have seen no document written by or interview with any attorney representing Grusch that speaks at all to the question of whether Grusch should be interviewed by AARO, or under what conditions. Nobody claims that Grusch is legally obligated to submit to an interview with AARO, or that AARO has any authority to compel Grusch's testimony. If a lawyer's client does not wish to do something that he is not legally required to do, that lawyer might provide his client with ideas for optical justifications for what the client has already decided to do--but that is something very different from asserting that the client would be placing himself in legal jeopardy by complying with the formal requests of high-ranking government officials. Sean Kirkpatrick told me on April 20, 2024: "I don’t want to speculate on motivations, but clearly, as documented, we gave every written authorization, assurance, and pointed to the law as written authorizing AARO to get him in to review his 'evidence.' We had OGC [Office of General Counsel, Department of Defense] provide an official Pentagon read of the law to Mr. Grusch’s lawyer through the Congress. We also provided further ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] assurances. In the face of all of that, he has still not come in. I even spoke with his attorney directly. Given all of those efforts, I would say that any commentators suggesting legal prudence, are perhaps blind to the truth and are continuing to pedal misinformation." ***** II. Is the ICIG currently investigating alien-tech claims? As I previously reported on this platform, Sean Kirkpatrick told me on April 22, 2024: "To my knowledge, neither the ICIG [Inspector General of the Intelligence Community] nor DoDIG [Department of Defense Inspector General] are separately investigating those claims of a government-orchestrated extraterrestrial reverse engineering program. That was and is AARO’s responsibility as covered by the historical review legislative language from NDAA FY23. Both the ICIG and DoDIG have been supporting AARO insofar as whistleblower protections legally allow them." My comments on the above: For my part, I do not claim to know whether the ICIG is continuing to investigate any of the alien-tech allegations that were made by Grusch in his interviews with the ICIG-- the visible clues conflict. But I do find it curious that some advocates on UFO Twitter seem to be taking the position that the director of the Pentagon/IC office who was specifically empowered and tasked by Congress to probe alien-tech allegations (among other things) could not possibly know whether the ICIG is also engaged in an alien-tech investigation-- yet they are confident that they DO know, or at least that the UFO-friendly writers on whom they rely (who hold no clearances at all, nor any congressionally endowed authorities) DO know. Yes, I know about the remarks by Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) to @MattLaslo, on October 24, 2023, about the Intelligence committee standing aside while allowing the ICIG process to be completed. But I noted also Rubio's comments on a later date, February 8, 2024, when Laslo asked, "Are we gonna hear from those people ["whistleblowers"] within the Senate?” To which Rubio responded: "There's a whistleblower complaint filed by one of them, and, ultimately, I mean, we haven't spent a tremendous amount of time on it lately but I was hoping that’s what AARO would do." That sounds to me like Rubio assumed that AARO would be checking out Grusch's allegations-- and now we know how that has gone. If the ICIG and AARO staff actually were independently investigating some of the same alien-tech stories, presumably ICIG staff would have approached some of the same people who have been interviewed by AARO, or who are contacted by AARO. It also seems that word of some such ongoing contacts by ICIG investigators would get around. Is there any evidence that is happening? Has any UFO "whistleblower" gone on the record with a credible report that ICIG investigators have knocked on his door recently-- say, within the past year? And by the way, despite the certitude of some advocates, I have not yet seen any public claim by Grusch himself, or by any attorney representing him, asserting that they know that the ICIG is currently pursuing an active investigation of Grusch's alien-tech claims. Nor does Grusch make such a claim in his May 3 statement to NewsNation-- instead, Grusch said only, "I trust in the investigative and law enforcement/criminal referral authorities ICIG has independent of DoD oversight." Because I am writing a longer article on some of these matters, I submitted a number of related questions to the David Grusch "media team" on April 19, 2024, to which I have as yet received no response. Before my longer article is published, I will again submit questions to Grusch. I hope that Grusch will not fall into the pattern, too often found among UFO celebrities, of declining to engage with anyone who is not willing to receive what he says in a purely stenographic or sounding-board mode, or to uncritically amplify even implausible claims. ***** III. Grusch and Senator Gillibrand In an essay that appeared in The Debrief on April 12, 2024, former defense intelligence official Chris Mellon characterized the conclusions of the recently released AARO historical report (Volume I) as the expression of "a mid-level official or organization," and suggested that if the government actually had clear evidence of extraterrestrial visitation, the revelation of that information to the public could only be expected to come from a much higher level: "Only the President, or an independent Congressional investigation, could reasonably be expected to reveal such a profound and transformative issue. If Congress wants to be confident it knows the truth, it needs to conduct its own independent investigation." I am all for competent investigations conducted by properly empowered authorities with substantial resources at their command. In this regard, not all members of Congress or congressional entities are on an equal footing. Thanks to the efforts of tireless journalist @MattLaslo, we learned this week that David Grusch declined to meet with Senator Kirstin Gillibrand (D-NY) under the terms that she apparently proposed. Of the members of Congress who have shown substantial interest in UAP in recent years, Gillibrand currently holds highest authorities, aside from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Gillibrand chairs the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and she also sits on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. She has been the prime sponsor of multiple UAP-related provisions that have been enacted, including a two recently enacted provisions to de-fund UAP-related special-access programs that are not properly notified to designated members of Congress (found in Public Law 118-31). Laslo asked Gillibrand, "Have you met with David Grusch yet?" Gillibrand replied, "No. We invited him to come, and I was supposed to meet with him and Dr. Kirkpatrick together. But they ultimately declined that meeting." "Interesting," responded Laslo. "Yeah," responded Gillibrand. Regarding UFO "whistleblowers," Gillibrand told Laslo, "But I can't assess them unless AARO can talk to them, because AARO knows what they know and what they've seen and what they've been shown." I queried Kirkpatrick about the attempted Gillibrand-Kirkpatrick-Grusch meeting. He replied by email on May 3, 2024: "The meeting was cancelled by Mr. Grusch and his attorney. That was the 'they' Senator Gillibrand referred to. Both she and I conferred together to try and arrange the meeting through her office. That was yet another attempt for us to get Mr Grusch to come in. I do not have a reason why they declined and canceled." He later elaborated: "[This occurred] Fall 2023, likely October/November. We didn’t document it because it was being actively handled through Sen Gillibrand’s office and I was working it with her right up until I retired, hopeful he would come in. I wasn’t going to get ahead of her. It was up to her when we would acknowledge we were trying to negotiate with them." It may be that Grusch has some pertinent information that Gillibrand is not cleared to hear, but both the senator and Grusch have access to legal counsel sufficient to avoid any violation of security protocols. ***** IV. Enough for Now I think that non-prosaic UFOs exist. I don't know if the government has technology of non-human origin squirreled away somewhere, but if they do, I think we ought to know about it. Yet preferring for something to be true, and then hearing unsubstantiated stories from people who say that thing is true, does not necessarily mean that the thing is true. Indeed, we should be especially cautious about too readily accepting unsubstantiated stories about things that we would prefer to be true. Nor should we accept or reject a claim based on an individual's style or swagger. Hero worship is a poor substitute for the tedious business of examining evidence. I am working on an article dealing with some of these matters in greater detail, and will publish it one of these days. If you want to receive it by email as soon as it comes out, sign up on my website (Google "douglas dean johnson" + Mirador). It is free, your email address will not be used for any commercial purpose, and you can remove your name at any time. Some of the other material on that website provides case studies in why it is advisable to be cautious in these matters. h/t @MattLaslo h/t @AskaPol_UAPs h/t @theblackvault h/t @ChrisKMellon h/t @debriefmedia h/t @NewsNation h/t @stephgwhiteside