This past week in Disclosure:
June 18 – 10 Senators press administration regarding over-classification and classification reforms
A bipartisan group of ten U.S. senators, including Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA), sent Federal Chief Information Officer Clare Martorana a letter requesting an update on the implementation of classification reforms enacted in December 2023.
"The government systematically overclassifies too much information at great cost to both public trust and national security," the group wrote. "At the same time, the government often fails to protect the nation's most important secrets."
June 21 – Fox News covers alleged threats to UAP whistleblowers
In a recent article, Fox News covered the alleged threats UAP whistleblowers have received.
"Lou [Elizondo] is a dear friend of mine, and I take any threat against anybody seriously, especially against friends and somebody that has given so much to this country and to this issue [UAPs]. So, I'm very much aware of it, and I'm very much alarmed. I'm pursuing every avenue I can to get to the bottom of it." – Rep. Burchett speaking with Fox.
June 21 – Sen. Gillibrand doubles down on her desire to have any secret SAPs shared with Congress
In a conversation with Askapol, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (KG) seemed unaware of any current efforts to revive the UAPDA in the Senate (although she also seemed not to remember having been one of its original sponsors back in 2023...), but reiterated her efforts related to having all SAPs disclosed to Congress.
KG: “I have no basis to know one way or the other. I just know the provisions that I've tried to include would try to guarantee that we know about all SAPs. For example, I don't know if there are presidential SAPs.”
ML: “Interesting.”
KG: “Meaning, I don't know if there's legal structure, under our framework, for presidents to put Special Access Programs for president eyes only. And if that exists, then I don't know about it. But I don't think that should exist based on balance of powers and based on the fact that Congress is responsible for allocating money.”
ML: “Do you think your amendment would weed that out?”
KG: “That’s what I'm trying to do.”
ML: “Yeah? Interesting, because over in the House, the UAP Caucus, they were just pressing the Secretary of Energy on kind of their role with this.”
KG: “I don't know if there's Department of Energy SAPs that we don't know about. But again, I don't have oversight of the Department of Energy. I have oversight over the Department of Defense and Intel. So I can follow up on that and ask my colleagues who are on the right committee, Energy and Commerce, if they've ever looked into it.”
ML: “Because that's so interesting for me to hear Senators be like, ‘Yeah, I don't know.’”
KG: “Well we aren’t read in. If there are any programs, we are not read in. That's all I can say.”
June 22 – Senator Rounds provides an update on the UAPDA
Speaking with Askapol, Sen. Rounds (one of the architects of the original UAP Disclosure Act of 2023 language) confirmed that efforts are still underway to move forward with the originally proposed language.
Askapol: “Any update on the tweaks in your UAPDA amendment with [Sen. Chuck] Schumer?”
Rounds: “No, not a whole lot of anything there, just simply continuing to move forward and we’ll see where it goes.”
Askapol: “Because that wasn’t really debated at all. That issue, in the House NDAA this year. Do you think there’s an appetite for it over here?”
Rounds: “I think we just got to clarify what our goals on it are, and I think we can work through them. You know, bottom line is nobody is trying to release information on classified programs that would help our adversaries [...] But, I think more openness in terms of what we can talk about can help clarify that maybe there is nothing to be afraid of out there.”
Things to look out for in the near future:
July/August
- According to Senator Gillibrand – a public hearing in line with AARO's latest report can be expected soon, saying –"I’m hoping July, and if not then September. But I’m trying to do July.”
- Speaking with Askapol, Reps. Luna and Burchett indicated that the next UAP hearing is likely to come after the August recess.
- Lue Elizondo has indicated his much-awaited book will be published in August 2024. Elizondo was the former director of the now defunct Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) – a program associated with the release of the Pentagon UFO videos.
Beyond/currently unknown
- Following the UAP hearing on the 26th of July, Members of Congress have called for a select committee with subpoena authority, to “go about the task of collecting information from the Pentagon and elsewhere” on unidentified flying objects. There have been conflicting messages from various Members of Congress on whether this is likely to happen anytime soon. Note – a select subcommittee was formally requested on March 13th.
- Reps. Moskowitz, Luna, and Burchett have repeatedly stated their intent to hold field hearings to overcome stonewalling from the Pentagon and military establishment "I think we [Congress] should try to get into one of these places [housing UAP evidence]...and if they won't let us in I think we should have a field hearing right outside the building...and the military will have to explain why that is." – Rep. Moskowitz (D) It is currently unknown when exactly we might expect that to occur, however as of Jan 12 – Rep. Luna confirmed: "I feel confident that we have enough evidence to move forward with our first field hearing. We will be announcing details soon."
- Several journalists have indicated that first-hand witnesses of the alleged UAP legacy programs are in the process of providing testimony/evidence to the relevant authorities (e.g. the IC IG) and/or are on the verge of making public statements in the near future (Example 1, example 2, example 3, example 4)
- David Grusch has received additional clearances through DOPSR to discuss some of his (alleged) first-hand knowledge of Legacy programs. He has mentioned he may be covering more of this information in an upcoming Op-Ed
- Some commentators have speculated that the architects of the UAPDA (e.g. Sens. Schumer/Rounds et al) are working diligently behind the scenes to continue furthering serious legislative UAP transparency efforts
Skimmed through this post but need a quick refresher on how we got to this point? Check out this handy Disclosure Timeline to get up to speed.
