2023-12-11 - NewsNation Appearance

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Interviewer (00:00):

David, we just heard that two key provisions were killed from this defense bill that basically water down the requirement to make public Any information about spacecraft, about alien remains. I take it you're disappointed.

David Grusch (00:14):

Yes. Yeah. Thank you for having me on today. And what we're witnessing right now is quite frankly, the greatest legislative failure in American history. You had a very strong amendment for government transparency on this issue. Whether you believe my allegations or not, this is a government transparency issue at large and the legislation was modeled off of previous government transparency issues. I mean, so we had a mixed bag of success, right? If we believe the conference report that was submitted last week, section 1687, which effectively fences off money to illegal special access programs, something that Marco Rubio, Mark Warner and his staff on the senate select for committee for intelligence champions that did make it through conference. And I do congratulate the senators that pushed hard to make sure that that was not removed during conference to help further this effort. It

Interviewer (01:15):

Leaves the door open for anything that is national security. We get to keep secret

David Grusch (01:21):

A hundred percent and that's why we were going to have a neutral nine person panel and all that was enumerated in the Schumer Rounds amendment earlier this year. And that was not written in a vacuum that was written with other individuals bringing them information as well.

Interviewer (01:40):

Alright. Were you hoping to be on that panel, that nine person panel that would make those decisions on what had to stay secret and what could be made public?

David Grusch (01:49):

Certainly it's not my place to be on the panel. I certainly offered through certain staff up to the White House. I would be happy to participate. I mean, I'm happy to get coffee for God's sakes, but you do know I was actually behind the scenes interviewing former under secretaries, former general officers, Nobel Laureate type folks that would fill those specific billets on the URRB, which is the disclosure panel that was described in the Schumer Amendments. So there are certainly people of high repute that were willing to serve on that panel to do their best to provide the president a recommendation on what he should disclose. And now that the panel is not signed into public law on the legislative branch side, we need to advocate for the executive branch, the office of the president through executive action to in state such a body to advise him on the best course of action Now that Congress has failed to legislate appropriately, and I'm here to praise and admonish, I mean certainly the Senate, thank you for proposing that legislation. I'm glad you got some provisions passed, but folks in the house, total failure is one of the biggest failures probably in the history of Congress.

Interviewer (03:11):

Yeah. You've had strong words for representatives Mike Turner of Ohio and Mike Rogers of Alabama, both of whom helped kill those two key provisions. They're arguing classified information could leak and that would be dangerous to the United States of America. What's your answer to that?

David Grusch (03:29):

Well 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 that information elicitly leaked. The panel was supposed to review the classified records and provide the president a recommendation because he's the original classification authority OCA for the executive branch, and he makes that final classification determination. It's not the panel, they're just helping advise the president. So there's no reason for anything to leak, no national security equities to be compromised if conducted in a professional manner. Yeah. I

Interviewer (04:09):

Was struck by something that Democratic representative Jared Moscowitz of Florida recently said. He said, the reason why I got involved as we started asking questions, legitimate questions, the pushback we got is what interests me. He said, every time we pulled the thread and we stumbled on something, it seemed we would get stonewalled. In other words, if there's nothing to hide, why is everybody putting up such an effort to stonewall and keep things secret and say you can't be privy to that information? That's what actually got him on board on this effort to get transparency

David Grusch (04:46):

A hundred percent. And representative Nancy Mace requested through the Office of Secretary Defense front office in early August to get me cleared to brief at the special access program level to the House Armed Services Committee. And as of this taping right now, I still have not been approved for access to even talk to the Armed Services Committee. Even though Representative Mace, her staff and other members such as Matt Gaetz and others have advocated for me to get those one-time clearances since I'm no longer read into some of those programs and the Pentagon has sat on it.

Interviewer (05:23):

People who saw your big interview that aired here on News Nation and who watched your congressional testimony, people who might not buy everything you're saying, who are skeptics have said over and over again, he has no firsthand knowledge. He is just telling what someone else told him or telling what he read. How do you respond to people who say, because you don't have any firsthand knowledge, maybe we shouldn't believe you?

David Grusch (05:52):

Well, I couldn't be very upfront about my firsthand knowledge until recently. I some other security approvals through the pre-publication and security review process, and I did have some firsthand knowledge of some specific parts of the program. I'm currently drafting an op-ed that I'm going to release in a few weeks and I'll be discussing what I actually do know firsthand. I just could not overtly discuss it at the time, including at the hearing because the Pentagon and the IC were sitting on some of my pre-publication and review paperwork at the time. So I could not acknowledge that

Interviewer (06:27):

When you say you have firsthand knowledge, you actually saw something yourself.

David Grusch (06:33):

Well, the deeper description of what I know has been redacted. They proposed a redaction in a pre-publication and security review response a few days ago, and they're telling me to withhold legally some of the firsthand knowledge I have, but I'm allowed to generally discuss that I was read into a UP related program directly by the US governments.

Interviewer (06:57):

So I want to ask you about the fact that after you went public, both here on News Nation and in front of Congress, you got some backlash. You had a lot of attacks on you, including your medical records, which seemed to have appeared somehow on an online website talking about an incident in your past, which you frankly had already talked about to Ross Col Hart and his special on you for News Nation. How did your medical information wind up on that website?

David Grusch (07:29):

Yeah, about a week after the hearing, there was a hit piece on me out of the intercept, and the journalist, although I wouldn't call this guy a journalist, sounds like he's just an immature troll to be quite honest with you. He went on the Hills Talk show, if you will, a few days after the article dropped and he said that they were multiple DD and IC personnel that verbally tipped him off on where to look to get some records on a previous mental health evaluation that I had almost six years ago. So he himself admitted that the DD and IC verbally tipped him off on, I think it's breaking points, the show that the Hill Publication, he literally admitted that on camera. You can look it up, that he was tipped off by insiders about a few days after the hearing and he admits it to himself. So I find that very troubling and I encourage the DOD inspector general whistleblower reprisal investigation staff to look into that. You basically have probable security officers because who would know this kind of information providing a journalists private health information. Right.

Interviewer (08:46):

Why do you think they did that? Was this some sort of attempt to silence you? Oh

David Grusch (08:51):

Yeah. It's intimidation. It's like kill the messenger, not the message. I mean, these are tactics that other whistleblowers have had to endure that have come forward in a similar fashion as myself.

Interviewer (09:04):

David, it was great to talk to you. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Yeah, I hope you'll come back.

David Grusch (09:10):

Yeah, no, thanks for having me on.

Interviewer (09:13):

Actually, he will come back tomorrow night. We will have part two of my interview with David Gresh tomorrow, and he takes on his critics with the gloves off.