The Intelligence Community Inspector General found his complaint “credible and urgent” in July 2022. According to Grusch, a summary was immediately submitted to the Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines; the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Do we know precisely what “credible and urgent” actually means here? E.g., I can well imagine that “complaint comes from a high-ranking officer” is enough to qualify as “credible” and “complaint is of behaviour that would be extremely bad if true” is enough to qualify as “urgent”. The point is that these may well be terms of art that don’t carry any implication very close to “it is likely that the most incendiary bits of what’s alleged are true”.
See here for more information on what the process actually involves. You need provide information (“the right information to the right people”) that backs up what you’re saying. You can’t just make a claim and then they go “oh cool, we’ll check that out.” No, it’s much more like getting an indictment from a grand jury, you have to provide enough compelling evidence that you should be protected by this process and these statutes.
Additionally, the ICIG is allowed to see any and all classified information. The ICIG actually saw the classified stuff that David Grusch has and used that to determine their findings of “credible and urgent.”
This is literally just like when Alex Vindman came forward back in 2019. He didn’t just come out and say “yeah, they did some bad stuff, I think, yeah, I heard about it or something.” No, he was actually on the phone call.
So no source independent of the TheDebrief article? In this case, I would not use “according to the TheDebrief according to Grusch the ICIG...” article and “the ICIG...” the same way.
If we are doubtful of Grusch story, the fact that according to Grusch the ICIG found his claims “credible and urgent” provides us with little data.
Hopefully, congressman and journalists will ask the ICIG so we have independent evidence of that.
I don’t think it’s Grusch merely claiming that he went to the ICIG. I think it’s the reporters stating it.
And they did do a bunch of fact-checking (part 2) on the things they put out in the article. The fact-checking was done by The Debrief in addition to (and separately from) the fact-checking the reporters did themselves.
I don’t see why that part of the article should not be taken at face value. It would be incredibly stupid for any reasonable journalist or publication to print something like that that would be so easily disproved later down the line.
From part 2 linked above:
CP: You mentioned the Inspector General’s complaint. I know we’ll get a little more detail on that later. But towards that end, they write in the article here, “Although locations, program names, and other specific data remain classified, the Inspector General and intelligence committee staff were provided with these details. Several current members of the program spoke to the Inspector General’s office and corroborated the information Grusch had provided for the classified complaint.” Am I reading that correctly? That means people, “several current members of the program?” Meaning people that are directly involved with the supposed, alleged crash retrieval program spoke to the IGs office and corroborated his information?
TM: That’s correct. And that was another detail that was independently corroborated through individuals who would have been part of that process of the depositions and kind of interviewed in Congress and with the Inspector General’s office. There’s very tight-lipped information. But I was told, and it was corroborated, that additional eyewitnesses provided information in support, corroborating Grusch’s claims to General Counsel and to the Inspector General.
CP: Great. Great. That’s exactly what I was hoping to hear. All right, next fact here. “Grusch is represented by Charles McCullough III, senior partner of the Compass Rose Legal Group in Washington and the original Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2011. At that time, McCullough reported directly to the then-Director of National Intelligence, James R. Clapper, and oversaw intelligence officers responsible for audits, inspections, and investigations.” Obviously, those are all public pieces of information. But are those things that you guys took the time to confirm?
TM: Yeah. I mean, Leslie and Ralph had that information from the attorney and everything. They had already confirmed with the attorney. Representative. Yeah. He just needed to advocate. But it is significant. In this case, if you want to piece an answer out of this, I’ll just say that I think that that was one of the highlights from where you saw this is legal representation…it’s somebody who’s very experienced in this arena and a very serious individual. All of this points to being a very serious matter and not some silly and some kind of goofy thing, even though people might have this idea of crashed UFOs and green men in their minds. The real facts of the case are being taken and treated very seriously.
CP: As a follow-up to that, are there consequences if he falsified the information he provided in his Inspector General complaint?
TM: Yes, absolutely. I mean, you know, obviously, the classified complaint is classified, and we haven’t seen that. But as a formality with any type of IG complaint, a person will be asked to not only provide their written affidavit complaint, so what came from the attorney, but they’ll also be asked to fill out a handwritten, “red tape” type procedure. And we do sign that form where it very clearly marked that you’re stating everything that you’re saying to be true. And if it’s not, or you’re intentionally lying, there are legal consequences. You’re lying to the federal government. And so, it’s as significant if not more than, say, filing a false police report, something like that. There are legal consequences for lying.
CP: So between his private closed-door sessions with congressional intelligence committees, which you just addressed, which involve legal jeopardy if he’s falsifying claims there, there’s also legal jeopardy if he’s falsifying claims to the IG. So if he is falsifying all of this, he’s set himself up for some serious pain from multiple locations.
The Independent is also reporting on this, if you want another source that now claims this unequivocally.
From The Debrief article. Oh, and if you mean for the Alex Vindman claim, here’s a direct link to the ICIG report from 2019.
Edit: The Independent is now also reporting on this. As is The Guardian.
Do we know precisely what “credible and urgent” actually means here? E.g., I can well imagine that “complaint comes from a high-ranking officer” is enough to qualify as “credible” and “complaint is of behaviour that would be extremely bad if true” is enough to qualify as “urgent”. The point is that these may well be terms of art that don’t carry any implication very close to “it is likely that the most incendiary bits of what’s alleged are true”.
See here for more information on what the process actually involves. You need provide information (“the right information to the right people”) that backs up what you’re saying. You can’t just make a claim and then they go “oh cool, we’ll check that out.” No, it’s much more like getting an indictment from a grand jury, you have to provide enough compelling evidence that you should be protected by this process and these statutes.
Additionally, the ICIG is allowed to see any and all classified information. The ICIG actually saw the classified stuff that David Grusch has and used that to determine their findings of “credible and urgent.”
This is literally just like when Alex Vindman came forward back in 2019. He didn’t just come out and say “yeah, they did some bad stuff, I think, yeah, I heard about it or something.” No, he was actually on the phone call.
So no source independent of the TheDebrief article? In this case, I would not use “according to the TheDebrief according to Grusch the ICIG...” article and “the ICIG...” the same way.
If we are doubtful of Grusch story, the fact that according to Grusch the ICIG found his claims “credible and urgent” provides us with little data.
Hopefully, congressman and journalists will ask the ICIG so we have independent evidence of that.
I don’t think it’s Grusch merely claiming that he went to the ICIG. I think it’s the reporters stating it.
And they did do a bunch of fact-checking (part 2) on the things they put out in the article. The fact-checking was done by The Debrief in addition to (and separately from) the fact-checking the reporters did themselves.
I don’t see why that part of the article should not be taken at face value. It would be incredibly stupid for any reasonable journalist or publication to print something like that that would be so easily disproved later down the line.
From part 2 linked above:
The Independent is also reporting on this, if you want another source that now claims this unequivocally.
The paragraph you quoted contain “according to Grusch”. Generally, it’s unclear to me how easily the ICIG’s view can be accessed by journalists.
Yes, the source from The Independent/Guardian is good.