[AndrewKemendo]

>putting their reputation and career (and maybe safety) on the line

They aren't because there is literally no new data, none. This isn't like Manning etc... where there was a materiel leak of classified data. So what would they be charged/fired for? Nothing. It's so much lazier, the claim is that being prevented access is somehow a proof of a coverup. All of the claims of harm were long before any of the publicity here.

All of the "whistleblowers" in these cases were not on any kind of career trajectory that this would have put in danger or even still serving in those roles.

They were all regular joes with uneventful military careers. They didn't bring new data to light like other whistleblowers - it's all rumors and speculation in this case, and literally a handful of shitty FLIR videos in others.

I'm baffled at the lack of epistemic consistency across truth claims. Nobody would accept this level of speculation for anything actually related to reality yet here we are wasting time on this. I've hurt myself today by being involved here at all. Totally irrational.

[likeabbas]

> They were all regular joes with uneventful military careers

Grusch was a GS15 NGA officer that was read into over 2000 special access programs and prepared/delivered the presidential daily briefing in 2021. He’s quite literally one of the most credentialed intelligence officers in the US.

Dave Fravor was second in command of the USS Nimitz and is recognized as one of the top fighter pilots to come out of Top Gun.

[AndrewKemendo]

>Grusch was a GS15 NGA officer that was read into over 2000 special access programs and prepared/delivered the presidential daily briefing in 2021. He’s quite literally one of the most credentialed intelligence officers in the US.

This is way more common than you think it is and again, not special.

I prepped multiple PDBs from 2012-2015 while at DIA and then again while on the JS/J2 staff. Delivering a segment of the PDB is indeed noteworthy, but again, not particularly rare or an indication that you're somehow especially great or special.

This is the reality of the IC ... things that SEEM special to you are boring regular everyday events for us. Few people in the DoD/IC are exceptional and I can promise you that this guy wasn't one of them

[likeabbas]

What was your rank? How many SAPs were you read into?

Having Top Secret SCI clearance does not give you immediate access to every SAP you request to be read into. Most people are not read into more that a dozen SAPs.

I’ll also point out that if Grusch was an unexceptional IC officer, the pentagon would easily be able to discredit him as such. To date, the pentagon has not attempted to say anything about Grusch’s credibility. Many reporters have stated on the record that Grusch is very well regarded as a high level intelligence official.

What evidence do you have that this guy was not an exceptional officer, other than maybe you yourself were not exceptional?

[AndrewKemendo]

I answered all this elsewhere

My record is public so you can verify by yourself

[LargeTomato]

I don't know you. I don't know how to look up your "record". Why obfuscate? If you came onto HN to spread awareness then help us understand. Otherwise you've come here to brag and you are not helpful.

[likeabbas]

I’m not looking up some random online comment’s credentials to try to prove their own point. Your comment doesn’t stand on its own and if you’re not willing to clarify your credentials further then your argument is moot.

[sixstringtheory]

Why wouldn’t you just go on to apply all the same criteria to whatever response they would provide to you? Looks like they made the right decision not to engage with your demands.

[hindsightbias]

> Most people are not read into more that a dozen SAPs.

What’s your rank? How many did you have access to? Citations please.

> Many reporters

Given the fundamental disregard HN has towards the MSM, this would be an appeal to authority.

When I was a sophmore the CIA recruiter said he knew coops who had done pdbs. I guess he was disreputable.

[DropInIn]

So.... argument from authority?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

[voxic11]

What was your rank? How many SAPs were you read into?

[jschveibinz]

I knew a guy who made “flag badge” that sat at his desk, smoked cigarettes, read the newspaper and drank tea for at least half of his workday. So I agree with your assessment.

[mmcwilliams]

Does someone being a credentialed US intelligence official make their public statements more or less trustworthy than the average person?

[likeabbas]

Certainly to me, especially given he’s testified under oath to multiple congressional committees and the ICIG. He’s made some outrageous accusations that absolutely need to be investigated. Either he’s lying and we have crazy people in very high levels of government, or he’s not and we need to get this information into the public domain.

[wombatpm]

The existence of National Security Advisor General Mike Flynn would seem to support the thesis that we have crazy people who lie at the highest levels of government.

[likeabbas]

Don’t you think congress should investigate these crazy people then?

[smolder]

I wouldn't trust Congress to do a good job investigating practically anything. They have their share of crazies and chronic liars.

[mmcwilliams]

I understand the context, but what I'm asking is; do US intelligence officers make completely truthful statements as a public as a practice? Or is their expertise rather in acquiring, analyzing and compartmentalizing information.

[likeabbas]

> do US intelligence officers make completely truthful statements as a public as a practice?

No. Intel (especially counter intel) officers are, trained to give information to convince someone of a certain context. Whether that information is true depends on the situation.

But it’s certainly not common for anyone to lie under oath, especially when they are testifying that specific people and corporations are involved in illegal operations. He’s opened himself up to not only perjury, but also lawsuits of false accusations. I don’t think the billion dollar defense contractors would have any trouble suing David Grusch if he’s lying.

[tsimionescu]

I think there is a pretty good record of high-level intelligence officials lying to Congress under oath, and a similar history of no consequences whatsoever when the lie was later revealed. WMDs in Irak and the inexistence of the PRISM program were both testified about in Congress, and later turned out to be lies. Which high-level intelligence officials were ever even investigated for perjury?

[blincoln]

> Either he’s lying and we have crazy people in very high levels of government, or he’s not and we need to get this information into the public domain.

There are some other possibilities. My main theory for what Grusch specifically is talking about is that intelligence agencies probably deliberately sprinkle different fake programs into the lists that different people are given access to, so that when information leaks, they can track who is doing the leaking.

Someone probably had a little too much fun creating fake documentation of alien corpses and crashed spacecraft instead of something less world-changing, and some of the folks who ended up being assigned material from that set felt like that was getting into territory that the public really did deserve to know about, because it would change everything if it were true.

It would not only explain the entire Grusch side of this discussion, but the reactions it's gotten from different branches of government. Everyone who knew about the leak-detection mechanism would be tight-lipped because they wouldn't want to disclose its existence. So it would look like an attempted coverup, but it would be a coverup of a security mechanism, not space aliens.

I actually found the story more believable until some of the specific testimony today. A red cube with sides as long as a football field? Where would Boeing even hide such a thing from other countries' spy satellites? Three-dimensional shadows of hyperdimensional objects? That's a really neat idea, but I think it fails the test of Occam's Razor in this case.

Military pilots encountering strange phenomena is a separate bucket, IMO. The US military has some of the best pilots and equipment in the world. I trust that if a bunch of them say they saw something strange, especially with visual, radar, and thermal evidence, there was something strange out there. But OTOH, I think it's an enormous stretch to attribute it to space aliens. It's probably a mixture of rare natural phenomena, classified/experimental aircraft of one sort or another, and mundane objects behaving very oddly when they're far outside their normal context.

When I used to work in a skyscraper, I once looked out the window and saw what looked like some sort of tear in spacetime dancing around the sky. Absolutely black, but with a chaotic silhouette that would smoothly ripple, then suddenly jerk into a new shape. I watched it for several minutes, and it kept going. Eventually it got close enough for me to see that it was just a black garbage bag that had somehow ended up in the right air current to be whisked around almost endlessly. I never did see it land, or even get close to the ground.

I'd love for Grusch's story to be true, but at this point I'll believe it when I see it.

[likeabbas]

He’s testified under oath to the ICIG who found his claims “urgent and credible” ( which are legal terms. Credible meaning he’s corroborated some claims, and urgent meaning the ICIG had to forward the claims to the intelligence committees in both chambers of congress.

So with your idea, the ICIG is in on it too?

[blincoln]

In the scenario I'm suggesting, if I understand you correctly, the ICIG talked to the same people that Grusch had. Those people said something to the effect of "yes, I have seen intelligence documents and other evidence that described alien spacecraft and biological material." I.e. Grusch and the people he talked to believe what they're saying because of documents intentionally made to appear legitimate.

A well-designed hypothetical leak-detection mechanism would include literally everyone in the organization, except maybe the most senior leadership. So even if the ICIG knew of its existence, if the system were designed well, they would have no way of knowing which documents were false.

If the ICIG were aware of the existence of the system, they'd also have to keep it secret, which would mean that even if they suspected Grusch was referring to intentionally false documents, they'd have to handle it as though the documents were genuine and forward it on to Congress just like you're describing, right?

I suspect what will happen is that the intelligence committees will meet with the involved parties in a SCIF. Someone will explain that the documents were intentionally false information. The committees will verify this discreetly. After that, I could see three main approaches for handling the situation:

* The committees make a vague statement that they've investigated the claims and there's actually nothing to worry about after all. They'll have Grusch support that claim, but not discuss specifics.

* Same as previous, but with the inclusion of some sort of excuse for the misunderstanding, like the Project Azorian "mining manganese nodules on the ocean floor".

* They'll decide that the amount of detail Grusch has disclosed publicly is too great to convincingly sweep under the rug, and decide to come clean about the leak-detection mechanism.

If they go with either of the first two, it will fuel decades of conspiracy theories about how the government covered up their secret captured alien spacecraft once again, but that's nothing new.

If I'm right about this kind of mechanism, the people running it might even encourage such things to create a pool of far-fetched lore in the fringes of the public. That way, they could randomly sprinkle in false documents related to those things specifically to catch people likely to leak fringe-related material early in their careers, before they're given access to really sensitive information.

[flarg]

We had a crazy President

[AndrewKemendo]

Neither in my experience - hence you should take my position with salt and do your own research

[likeabbas]

How many times have you or any other intelligence official you know lied under oath to the ICIG or congress?

[mmcwilliams]

Former CIA Director Leon Panetta seems to believe that his agency has done it several times[0].

[0] http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/08/cia.congress/

[likeabbas]

Grusch has made the allegations that specific people and defense contractors are involved in illegal operations and are illegally withholding information from congress. So if you don’t think he will be tried for perjury as that article might claim, he can certainly be sued for false accusations. These are heavy allegations that go beyond just the standard lie

[alephnerd]

GS15 is not that impressive. Don't get me wrong - it's a good rank and the pay is decent by DMV standards, but like there are thousands of people with GS15 ranks. Now if he was an SES level that might be more intriguing...

[JohnBooty]

    They aren't because there is literally no new data, none

Grusch cannot legally divulge classified information publicly. Nobody can. Instant jail time- see Manning, etc. So no, obviously, we couldn't possibly have seen data or proof today.

He can, however, discuss it with Congress and the whistleblower program in a secure setting and has done so (as he mentioned many dozens of times under oath today) and is willing to do so further.

    truth claims

I think I see the disconnect here.

I don't see (credible) people claiming that anything was proven to be the "truth" today. Yet that seems to be what you're railing about. Well, hey, I agree with you a hundred percent about that. Nothing proved.

However, for reasons reiterated dozens of times here, his claims are very significant. If they are not true then he has duped a lot of members of Congress. Considering some of the congresspeople I saw up there today, it's not exactly the intellectual A-Team. But still.

[dmvdoug]

> Grusch cannot legally divulge classified information publicly. Nobody can.

Congresspeople can. They can stand up and read classified information into the record. They can’t be prosecuted for it, because of the Speech and Debate Clause.

[JohnBooty]

How often is that done?

I'm overwhelmingly in favor of transparency and disclosure, but there are pretty big national current security concerns here.

[dlgeek]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Gravel#Vietnam_War,_the_d...

[beezlewax]

What are those concerns exactly?

[dmvdoug]

It's vanishingly rare, of course. Part of the problem is how does Congress get classified information from the Executive Branch? The latter has to turn it over. Cooperation between the two is necessary. If Congressfolk routinely read classified information into the record, cooperation would vanish. If Congressperson Blip made it a habit to run to the floor everytime s/he received anything with classification markings, Congressperson Blip would find that supply drying up faster than rain in a desert.

But it is an ultimate recourse Congresspeople have, should they come into possession of classified information they are afraid will be deposited into the memory hole, like Senator Gravel did with the Pentagon Papers.

[shepardrtc]

> > putting their reputation and career (and maybe safety) on the line

> They aren't...

> Totally irrational.

Ok you just proved why they're putting their reputation and career on the line... people calling it irrational.

[AndrewKemendo]

Sorry, to be clear my point is that

1. They have no reputations to put on the line

2. They didn't do anything risky

This isn't like we're talking about the AF Chief of Staff or some major leader in a field. So there's nothing to put on the line, they were nobodies before this and once it dies off they will be nobodies again.

Said differently, this whole debacle will make them MORE famous and employable than they were previously. So the overall impact on their life is that they get more fame and attention for effectively no risk. People seeking fame and attention don't generally care what kind.

[likeabbas]

1. Grusch gave up his career in the intelligence community to whistleblow on this. He had everything to lose.

2. Grusch has testified under oath to the ICIG, both intelligence committees, and now to the house oversight committee. If he’s locking, they could lock him away indefinitely.

Your entire argument is moot and you are looking for any excuse to discredit what’s being said. If you think he’s lying, ask your congressmen to investigate his claims and jail him if he’s lying.

[thewildginger]

Thank you. Grusch was 4 years away from a full retirement and like 2 from early retirement when he resigned and became a whistleblower.

[amanaplanacanal]

Does anybody ever go to jail for lying to Congress?

[likeabbas]

He’s made accusations against specific people and corporations saying they’ve been involved in illegal activities and withholding information from congress. People do go to jail for false accusations of this order