thehill | The bipartisan group of representatives pushing for public information on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) is having difficulty continuing their effort after a blockbuster committee hearing last month.
The Hill hosted an event Thursday, The Truth Is Out There: UFOs & National Security, which was moderated by congressional reporter Mychael Schnell and featured three of the four members of Congress who have pushed for UAP transparency.
“I hear from people more on this subject than anything else,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said. “Not the Trump indictments, not Hunter Biden. They are talking about the UAP hearing because there’s great interest in this government transparency issue.”
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn) said the group — comprising Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla), Moskowitz and himself — will likely not get another opportunity for a hearing unless Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) designates a select committee on UAPs as they have requested.
That select committee would give subpoena powers to force leaders in the Department of Defense and others to testify and push past the “roadblocks” the group has faced so far in seeing classified material and getting timely responses, Burchett said.
“We’re running into a lot of roadblocks there, and that’s the problem with this whole thing. It just creates more and more conspiracy theories because our federal government is so arrogant and so bloated, and they’ll just run out the clock,” Burchett said. “I’m guilty of this as well, but Americans want their pizzas in 30 minutes or less, and that’s about our dadgum attention span.”
Burchett and Luna haven’t heard back from the Speaker since they made the request, they said. The Hill has reached out to McCarthy’s office for comment.
The hearing last month featured three witnesses who have firsthand knowledge of UAP sightings. Former intelligence officer whistleblower David Grusch claimed the government has recovered “non-human biological pilots” from downed UAPs, which the Pentagon has denied.
In the hearing last month, Grusch said he couldn’t speak on much of his knowledge because it is classified. But the investigating members told The Hill they are being slowed by the Pentagon on getting a classified hearing with Grusch started.
“The excuse that the Department of Defense is using for us not being able to get a SCIF is that Grusch doesn’t have an active [security] clearance. So unless he has active clearance, they’re saying that he can’t divulge that information to us, which, one, I believe is false,” Luna said at The Hill event. “The Department of Defense is literally trying to stonewall us.”
Luna also threatened to use congressional power to lower the salary of specific officials who were getting in the way of the investigation, saying “there’s a select group of people who have become megalomaniacs with information.”
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