One of the biggest champions of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/ufo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UFO</a> transparency in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/congress" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Congress</a> has reservations about the much-hyped disclosure legislation from Senate Majority Leader <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/chuck-schumer">Chuck Schumer</a> (D-NY) that is now being considered as part of the conference process to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the next National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
Of particular concern, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) told The Daily Wire on Friday, is how the <a href="https://www.democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/schumer-rounds-introduce-new-legislation-to-declassify-government-records-related-to-unidentified-anomalous-phenomena-and-ufos_modeled-after-jfk-assassination-records-collection-act--as-an-amendment-to-ndaa">bipartisan Senate amendment</a> known as the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) Disclosure Act of 2023 is modeled after the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">JFK Records Act of 1992</a> — which was passed almost 30 years after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated and culminated earlier this year with the completion of a National Archives review that made most <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/30/politics/jfk-assassination-documents-national-archives-review/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">but not all</a> of the records public.
&#8220;Here we are, 60 years later, and we still don&#8217;t know anything,&#8221; Burchett said, alluding to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/former-secret-service-agent-who-witnessed-jfk-assassination-raises-questions-about-magic-bullet-theory-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lingering questions about Kennedy&#8217;s death</a>. &#8220;So are we going to create another bureaucracy? I just want transparency. If it deals with UFOs or UAPs, turn it loose. Quit hiding it. Let&#8217;s go.&#8221;
The UAP Disclosure Act, which Schumer <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/schumer-moves-to-force-disclosure-of-ufo-secrets" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unveiled</a> this summer with Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity for the Armed Services Committee, would give heads of government offices 300 days to organize records in their possession and give them to a review board, members of which would be nominated by the president and approved by the Senate, to determine whether certain documents should remain classified. Similar to the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-pledges-to-release-all-jfk-assassination-files-if-re-elected">JFK Records Act</a>, the president will have the ultimate authority to postpone disclosure of UAP records if there is an &#8220;identifiable harm&#8221; to national security, but otherwise calls for their release &#8220;not later than the date that is 25 years after the date of the first creation&#8221; of the documents by the originating government entities.
When it comes to the review board, the amendment dictates that nominees cannot have attachments to any legacy programs that may work with unknown technologies or non-human intelligence and it requires an eclectic membership that includes at least one current or former national security official, one current or former foreign service official, one scientist or engineer, one economist, one professional historian, and one sociologist.
Burchett, who launched <a href="https://burchett.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-burchett-launches-uap-caucus-leads-letter-intelligence-community-inspector" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the House UAP Caucus</a> this year amid growing speculation about what the government may be hiding about UFOs, questioned why such a specific makeup for the review board is drawn out in the legislation.
&#8220;Why are these people on there? And you know as well as I do when they do these things — and it wasn&#8217;t Chuck Schumer that wrote it, obviously; it’s a staffer with input from somebody from the outside. Do they have somebody already in mind? And are they already committed to one train of thought or the other? I just don&#8217;t like this,&#8221; he said. Pressed on whether he feared candidates may be &#8220;bought off,&#8221; Burchett suggested that &#8220;compromised&#8221; would be a better term. He also posited that &#8220;lawyers have got enough loopholes in there&#8221; that would protect anyone in the military industrial complex who may be involved in secret UAP programs.
There may be a remedy already in play.
Burchett <a href="https://twitter.com/RepTimBurchett/status/1679211450831630339" target="_blank" rel="noopener">offered</a> a one-and-a-half page amendment to the House version of the NDAA that would force Department of Defense (DoD) officials to <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2023/07/14/defense-bill-amendments-target-increased-ufo-transparency-for-public/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">declassify records</a> related to publicly known sightings of UAPs in 180 days. He and fellow House lawmakers who are pushing for an end to UFO secrecy hope it gets passed along with Schumer&#8217;s much longer (64 pages) legislation.
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&#8220;I think if you have both of them in place, then the information that comes out of the DoD will also be a check, if you will, on the agency that would be collecting information from all the other agencies before it served you,&#8221; Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) told The Daily Wire. &#8220;And that way you could, if one agency said, &#8216;No, we don&#8217;t have information,&#8217; that would be one thing. But if one agency has certain information at all, we can just compare that or question or query agencies, if that makes sense.&#8221;
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), another member of the House <a href="https://burchett.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-burchett-launches-uap-caucus-leads-letter-intelligence-community-inspector" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UAP Caucus</a>, said in an interview, &#8220;Burchett&#8217;s amendment is pretty straightforward &#8212; and obviously, if either of them passed, it&#8217;s a step forward in the right direction, right? But our main concerns with the Schumer amendment was that there&#8217;s this waiting period similar to what happened with JFK, and we just feel that with the amount of pushback in addition to the request for funds that we&#8217;re constantly getting, it&#8217;s really important for transparency that we know what&#8217;s happening and that the American people do as well.&#8221;
Intermixed in the debate over disclosure have been claims <a href="https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/ufo/david-grusch-on-joe-rogan-experience/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">expressed</a> by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/lawmakers-expect-to-get-classified-briefings-on-ufos" target="_blank" rel="noopener">whistleblower David Grusch</a>, a former U.S. intelligence and military official who claims the government is covering up a UFO retrieval program and wrongfully keeping Congress in the dark, and <a href="https://www.liberationtimes.com/home/black-friday-republican-leadership-takes-axe-to-ufo-transparency-legislation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reports</a> by the Liberation Times that some in House leadership have been resistant to the UAP transparency push and may try to weaken some provisions — including one in Schumer&#8217;s UAP amendment that concerns the use of eminent domain by the federal government to seize materials from private citizens or entities.
One member who repeatedly gets mentioned as an opponent to the UAP legislation is Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. But Turner <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeKhalilTV/status/1729941909097824287" target="_blank" rel="noopener">denied to NewsNation</a> on Wednesday that he was &#8220;holding up&#8221; the Senate amendment, even though he opined that it is a &#8220;poorly drafted piece of legislation,&#8221; and insisted that no members of the &#8220;pro-alien caucus&#8221; in the House had spoken to him about any issues regarding UFOs.
When asked by The Daily Wire on Friday if the UAP Caucus had spoken to Turner, Burchett said, &#8220;From what I understand, we have since then.&#8221; Burchett also noted that he had talked with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and &#8220;got him to commit to transparency.&#8221;
The Tennessee Republican also issued a message of caution to people who are cheering on the UAP Caucus, saying, &#8220;If they get the Schumer bill on, all the UFO people are going to cheer, and then they&#8217;re not going to get anything out of it. And then they&#8217;re going to come back and say, &#8216;Hey, what happened?&#8217; It&#8217;s just not going to happen.&#8221; Burchett added later, &#8220;I don&#8217;t have a lot of positive vibes on any of this. The same old stuff over and over and over again. I know these UFO people are excited, and I&#8217;m happy for them. But I just know the reality.&#8221;
Still, members of the UAP Caucus say they would be happy with any step forward on transparency, and that effort extends beyond just legislation. Luna said that she anticipates another hearing, though likely not until next year. Burlison said the &#8220;next big step&#8221; for the caucus is to view Grusch&#8217;s <a href="https://twitter.com/realannapaulina/status/1720652194490270037" target="_blank" rel="noopener">inspector general report</a> in a secure setting now that they have permission.
Members also indicated they still would <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gop-reps-see-new-opportunity-for-ufo-select-committee-request-with-speaker-mike-johnson" target="_blank" rel="noopener">like to see a select committee</a>, which could give them more power to gather evidence, as well as need-to-know authorizations, but Burchett said on Friday that he has yet to speak to Johnson about that particular issue. Yet another member of the UAP Caucus, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), told The Daily Wire that a select panel would be valuable because it could bring in &#8220;folks from other committees that may either have an interest or lend some area of expertise that would work best on a committee like that. I think it&#8217;s the way forward.&#8221;
As for what drives the UAP caucus, the answers seem to vary. During a press conference this week in which members talked about how their investigative efforts have faced pushback from the U.S. intelligence community and the military, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) said that people trying to stop disclosure <a href="https://twitter.com/RepMoskowitz/status/1730337510100730301" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8220;piques the interest.&#8221;</a> Ogles affirmed to The Daily Wire that he&#8217;s been particularly vocal about national security, specifically reports of mysterious craft spotted around nuclear facilities and the prospect of a foreign adversary operating in U.S. airspace. Burchett bemoaned how the government&#8217;s tendency to issue denials when it comes to UFOs does not square with the &#8220;tens of millions of dollars researching something&#8221; that the feds claim &#8220;doesn&#8217;t exist.&#8221;
And when it comes to what lawmakers have gleaned from whistleblowers so far in their investigation, Burchett said he has been apprised of some out-of-this-world stuff. &#8220;Yeah, they are craft that no one, either foreign or domestic, has,&#8221; he told The Daily Wire. Asked about if he&#8217;s seen photos of images, Burchett added, &#8220;Absolutely. And they defy all — some of them defy logic, any kind of logic, in our realm of thinking. But again, if something can travel at those incredible speeds and survive. The human body can&#8217;t survive that. Those Gs, it would just liquefy you, literally. It&#8217;s kind of creepy really.&#8221;

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN)

‘Another Bureaucracy?’ Top House UFO Investigator Cautions Disclosure Legislation May Be A Dud; Offers Additional Pathway

'Another Bureaucracy?' Top House UFO Investigator Cautions Disclosure Legislation May Be A Dud; Offers Additional Pathway

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<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/u-s-house-of-representatives" target="_blank" rel="noopener">House</a> members say they want to try again to get approval for a select committee on unidentified anomalous phenomena, or <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/ufo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UAP</a>, now that the chamber has a new speaker.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) told The Daily Wire on Thursday that he&#8217;s already spoken with Speaker <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/mike-johnson" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mike Johnson</a> (R-LA) to gauge support for his endeavor to get <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/congress" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Congress</a> more access to secret UAP information.
&#8220;He seems very receptive,&#8221; Burchett said in an interview. When asked if he thinks Johnson might be open to a select committee, he replied, &#8220;I do &#8212; because he’s not beholden to the defense contractors.&#8221; When pressed on whether he would ask for a select committee, Burchett noted that he has already done so informally, but would need to make the request officially.
Another lawmaker, Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO), told The Daily Wire he also wants to press Johnson for a select committee and he would like to see Burchett as chairman of the panel.
&#8220;Give him the authority, let him chase this rabbit,&#8221; Burlison said of Burchett. &#8220;And I think that, at the end of the day, there&#8217;s a lot of money being spent, a lot of tax dollars being spent, and the American people and members of Congress know what is going on.&#8221;
Burlison explained that a select committee would give members a &#8220;need-to-know&#8221; authority on UAP. &#8220;Because right now, a lot of the intelligence is only available to individuals who are on committees that &#8216;need to know.&#8217; And those committees are not focused on this topic at all. And so, if we create a committee that has a purpose for this, it&#8217;s hard to deny us that we should not have access to the information,&#8221; he added.
A request for a select committee would be the second one this year.
Burchett <a href="https://twitter.com/RepTimBurchett/status/1684956861898919936" target="_blank" rel="noopener">joined</a> with a bipartisan group of fellow House members in late July, formally requesting a select UAP committee right after the bombshell testimony of retired Air Force Maj. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ufo-whistleblower-claims-firsthand-access-to-things-he-cant-talk-about-publicly">David Grusch</a>, a former U.S. intelligence and military official <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/former-defense-official-shares-claims-of-off-world-technology-expects-new-revelations-at-ufo-hearing">who claims</a> the government is covering up a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/ufo">UFO</a> retrieval program and wrongfully keeping Congress in the dark. Grusch left members wanting to know more as he cautioned there was only so much that could be said outside of a classified setting.
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The <a href="https://twitter.com/RepTimBurchett/status/1684956861898919936" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> from Burchett and his colleagues, which specifically asked that their proposed select committee be given subpoena power, was addressed to Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who served as speaker at the time. Burchett <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/uap-caucus-denied-select-committee-disclosure-act-being-debated-in-house" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told The Daily Wire</a> in September that the request had been denied. Since that time, the House voted to remove McCarthy as speaker. Johnson was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/house-elects-mike-johnson-as-speaker" target="_blank" rel="noopener">picked</a> as the new speaker on Wednesday.
Before The Daily Wire spoke to them on Thursday, Burchett and Burlison, as well as other members of the House Oversight Committee, attended a classified briefing on Capitol Hill with representatives of the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General (DOD OIG) — one of two government watchdogs Grusch had approached with classified information and claims of retaliation related to his disclosures.
Some lawmakers walked away from the SCIF (sensitive compartmented information facility) lamenting how they learned nothing new. Reps. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and Anna Paulin Luna (R-FL) told reporters they were told that they <a href="https://twitter.com/DCNewsPhotog/status/1717568794363584891" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lacked</a> the proper clearance to get certain information. This &#8220;defeats the purpose&#8221; of government oversight, Luna said.
&#8220;Nothing unexpected, and nothing new to report,&#8221; Burchett told The Daily Wire. &#8220;I mean, these guys, their offices are so compartmentalized. It&#8217;s like looking down the barrel of a .22 rifle — and they&#8217;re not lying, but they are so compartmentalized.&#8221;
In a <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeKhalilTV/status/1717580303651201300" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> posted to X by NewsNation&#8217;s Joe Khalil, the DOD OIG said, &#8220;The Department of Defense Office of Inspector General is not responsible for determining the classification of the information in our oversight work, nor do we determine the level of security clearances for congressional leaders,&#8221; adding, &#8220;The DoD OIG is committed to being as transparent and communicative as possible with our congressional leaders, and welcome and further opportunity to discuss our body of work.&#8221;
Because the briefing was classified, members were restricted in what they could divulge.
Burlison told The Daily Wire that the briefing did not alter his &#8220;perspective&#8221; on the UAP issue, but did emphasize that he thinks &#8220;we need to get more information&#8221; on the topic.
Asked if &#8220;some degree of answers were provided based on what was alleged,&#8221; Burlison replied, &#8220;Some degree &#8212; but, and it&#8217;s really frustrating because I can&#8217;t say what was said, but I&#8217;ll just say, my viewpoint about the UAP phenomenon has not changed. My worldview of what we&#8217;re seeing, what we&#8217;re experiencing, is that it&#8217;s likely U.S. experimental, whether it&#8217;s from the private sector or being done through a black operation within the Department of Defense or Energy.&#8221;
He also commented: &#8220;I&#8217;ll just say this: UFOs are not keeping me up at night. They weren&#8217;t before, and after this meeting, they weren&#8217;t. They aren&#8217;t now. I told a constituent that what keeps me up at night is the national debt, the war in Ukraine, and the war in Israel, and the potential for World War III. And so there&#8217;s nothing that shattered my worldview today.&#8221;
The other inspector general with whom Grusch had engaged as a whistleblower was Intelligence Community Inspector General Thomas Monheim. <a href="https://thedebrief.org/intelligence-officials-say-u-s-has-retrieved-non-human-craft/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Debrief</a> reported in June that Monheim found Grusch&#8217;s claims to be &#8220;credible and urgent&#8221; in July 2022 and a whistleblower reprisal investigation was opened. The report also noted that Grusch got in contact with staffers for the congressional intelligence committees, but Grusch reportedly indicated that he was limited in what he could share because staffers lacked the proper clearances and authority.
In a recent letter to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/uap-caucus-denied-select-committee-disclosure-act-being-debated-in-house">the UAP Caucus</a>, Monheim said his office “has not conducted any audit, inspection, evaluation, or review of alleged UAP programs within the responsibility and authority of the DNI [Director of National Intelligence] that would enable this office to provide a fulsome response to your questions.” Monheim is now <a href="https://twitter.com/reptimburchett/status/1715053620574474633" target="_blank" rel="noopener">expected</a> to meet with members of Congress for a UAP-focused classified briefing in mid-November.
At least one House lawmaker isn&#8217;t getting his hopes up just yet.
&#8220;I don&#8217;t expect anything from this,&#8221; Burchett told The Daily Wire. &#8220;Until we get some private government contractor who&#8217;s ticked off about something, that&#8217;s dealing with some of this stuff, [who] comes forward. A lot of it&#8217;s farmed out to them because it&#8217;s un-FOIA-able. We&#8217;re never going to get anywhere — just going to be our word against theirs. And people in Congress don&#8217;t have the guts to take them on because the defense contractors grease this place incredibly well.&#8221;

Rep. Tim Burchett

GOP Reps See New Opportunity For UFO Select Committee Request With Speaker Mike Johnson

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Daniel Chaitin and Frank Camp

‘Another Bureaucracy?’ Top House UFO Investigator Cautions Disclosure Legislation May Be A Dud; Offers Additional Pathway

GOP Reps See New Opportunity For UFO Select Committee Request With Speaker Mike Johnson