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SMEAR JOB?- Journo Pressed On UFO Whistleblower Report | Breaking Points | Otter.ai

SMEAR JOB?- Journo Pressed On UFO Whistleblower Report | Breaking Points

Mick West18min

Saagar Enjeti

00:00

accusations are flying as journalists can clip and seen as published a new report for the intercept saying UFO whistleblower Dave grush, who recently testified before the House Oversight Committee, was at one point referred to a mental health institution following to 911 calls from his wife. And what grush says is a PTSD related alcoholic incident grush and his associates initially accused the intelligence community of leaking nonpublic health records to clip Enstein, who has since revealed he in fact retained access to this information by Freedom of Information Act requests, resulting dramas got both sides, they're accusing the other of not telling the truth to the public about the situation. So we've got Ken ClipPin himself in the studio now, join us defending his story. It's good to see you again. Thanks for joining us. Thanks

Krystal Ball

00:40

for coming in again.

Unknown Speaker

00:41

Great to be back with you guys. All right, Ken.

Saagar Enjeti

00:42

So let's get into the nitty gritty, I guess of the story itself. Let's start broad strokes. What is the story about

Speaker 1

00:49

what is it well, so he's kind of the star witness of the, you know, subcommittee that's looking at the UFO allegations, not just him, but there are two pilots as well. And so in the reporting on it, I noticed a phrase popping up again, again, a decorated war hero, definitely more here decorated warrior, and I'm not disputing that he is when I hear that it's kind of like, okay, well, where's the, where's the critique? Like, where's the negative side? Or where's the, like vetting, and I didn't see any of that by any of the media. So I thought, well, I'm going to go and look and see what I can find. And so I know people both in DOD and the intelligence community, and I did a call for tips to try to broaden Yes, so the picture that really just came from a mosaic of different sources that give me ideas of what was going on. We can talk about that more. But really, my motive was just it didn't feel like anybody was vetting this guy.

Krystal Ball

01:33

So lay out the specifics of the story and what you found through your FOIA request.

Speaker 1

01:39

So under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, you can request police records, they're called called detailed records, Kads, obscure things that aren't kind of like the typical police report that journalists tend to ask for it. Maybe that's how they didn't know it existed. I have some practice with a friend. I've been doing this a long time. So when I got these back, it was two different incidents reported by his wife and previous wife in which he had gone in the second case, that was in 2018. I think he had gone into a described as like an angry drunken rage where he was suicidal, asked his wife to kill him. She called police said that the guns were locked up. And then he was placed in a mental facility where after after he was assessed, and then released, I think, a day later got it.

Saagar Enjeti

02:27

And this happen 2014 2018 Both. Okay. So there's been a lot of back and forth Grosh accused you of getting these things leaked by the intelligence community, you reveal to came from Funimation for Information Act. You did a Twitter space last night, you indicated you were tipped off by this. So were you tipped off by members of the intelligence community.

Speaker 1

02:46

It was both the Defense Department I mean, again, it's a mosaic, you'll talk to as many people as you can, because you don't want to be dependent on any one individual who might have a grudge or whatever it is. But yes, I did talk to both DOD, people and intelligence. So

Saagar Enjeti

02:56

in terms of the substance of the tip here, the accusation, I mean, aren't they fundamentally correct that, like, you are publishing dirt that was tipped to you by intelligence community?

Speaker 1

03:05

Well, the thing is, when I put up my call for tips, I said, if you have anything positive or negative, because at the end of the day, like, I don't want it, you know, he's a human being, I don't to be candid with you guys. So people can account for where I'm coming from, I don't believe in the UFO stuff. I think he's incorrect about it. However, I don't want to just punch at him, I would have included anything positive that I had gotten, unfortunately, I didn't get anything. Now, that doesn't mean that he doesn't have, you know, redeeming qualities everybody does, even me. So, but I just didn't happen to hear any of that. And so I had to go with what you know, I was told in to give you guys a sense to you all, I can speak to the characteristics of the sources, because I understand why people are concerned about that, because most of the reporting that you read is planted, when you go to the New York Times, most of those stories are planted by committee chairs by the White House, whatever it is, that's not how I roll. I know, I tend to talk to mid level people, people kind of like Grush, GS-14s GS-15s, people who are experienced but didn't quite have the political chops generally, to make it to the top. So those are the types of people that I was talking to just full disclosure, if you want to ask anything else about ???, I'm happy to share it. But yeah,

Krystal Ball

04:04

so I mean, basically, you're being accused of like, this is a smear job, you're trying to undermine his credibility. What did you see as the value of this information? Do you think that the fact that he has a PTSD diagnosis makes him more likely to lie make things up and less credible in general?

Speaker 1

04:21

No, absolutely not PTSD. But you know, in the police reports, his wife called them an alcoholic and said that this happened repeatedly. That I think is a concern. I think that if someone's an alcoholic, yeah, that should be factored into your assessment of what their credibility is. But right, but if

Saagar Enjeti

04:33

it's alcohol related to PTSD, I mean, let's be serious here. I mean, he sworn testimony, he admits he had problem PTSD. He says it was I mean, I'm assuming he's related to these alcoholic incidents. He got treatment for your own reporting. And all of the incidents he's now testified to sworn testimony as well as the whistleblowers post treatment. So I'm just trying to understand like, what is the value of this information being put forward and to be clear, you didn't do anything wrong? You're doing your job. We get crazy tips from people all the time here. So I have no issue with the Freedom of Information Act, even if you did report it, even if you didn't get it from the intel community, I guess it comes down to like the framing and the substance of like, what are we supposed to do with this information?

Speaker 1

05:13

Well, I include in the story, example of the dozens of White House staffers who had their clearances revoked for smoking weed, including in states where it was legal, right places where it's legal, so like, this is part of the clearance process. And so again, this whole focus on PTSD, if it makes them not credible, that was never something I said, that was a focus that he made trying to get ahead of the story in the statement that he put out, my interest was always the alcoholism. And I mean, I guess just to I feel as though there's some kind of grandstanding around this stuff, because the reality is, if you're going to, say, get a medical procedure, go see a surgeon you find out he's an alcoholic, that's probably gonna factor in your deciding somewhat. Right, right.

Saagar Enjeti

05:52

Well, I mean, is he an active alcoholic? Do you know that we know that from the report? His wife said he was okay. In 2018. Yes, but we don't know anything since.

Krystal Ball

06:00

Right? Can you speak a little bit to because part of the piece you talked about how, you know, in those instances, you had White House staffers fired that there's this, you know, very onerous procedure to get and maintain your security clearances. In this instance, you know, they they knew about these police interactions and what had happened with regard to his, his wife at the time, they knew about the allegations of alcohol abuse, all of this stuff. And yet he was able to maintain his clearances. Do you read something nefarious into that? Or is that an indication in his direction that listen, they knew everything, and they still thought that I was trustworthy enough to maintain these very high level Secret clearance. That's

Speaker 1

06:37

what he said. And I think there's something to that. But there's also something of a boys club. I don't mean in a in a gender way. I mean, like a senior level, people tend to look out for each other. I quoted someone is saying that, and that was the general frustration of multiple people that I talked to, was feeling like they described this guy as unreliable. And they were frustrated that this stuff that they knew about was not being accounted for in this district. They were seeing the descriptions I was describing before, decorated here, a decorated hero. They didn't feel like that was the whole story.

Saagar Enjeti

07:05

I guess what I'm confused by is you're telling me this, but you don't quote any of these people in the story, everything, the only facts that you can really test you in the story of FOIA in turn, and obviously the tip and again, zero issue with that. But don't you think that's the actual relevant part? I mean, why aren't you quoting people on background, people who work for him? He said, He's unreliable. You're, you're saying it here? I think that's fine. I mean, obviously, sure. It's a public forum, but the way that it's being read, I have to be honest with you, I respect your work. But you know, the assemblage of the facts here. It does kind of read his smear job. You're basically like he had a PTSD and said or Mogi. He says PTS indiscipline, he had to alcoholics, your quote to people basically say, you know, he's he's full of it. You only quote one expert who says that the UFO hearing is a travesty. And I mean, one of the things I really don't understand is, you we've we How many conversations we had about Pentagon spinning us, we are credulously citing the explanation in the 1990s explanation on Roswell and credulously, quoting like Susan go, who's the Pentagon spokesperson who said that he's full of it. I mean, why should we believe these people? Do you understand what I'm saying these sort of facts and your story taking this

Speaker 1

08:07

guy's a liar that I think that's a good instinct. Yeah, want to side with the institutions. But I think you also don't want to reflexively oppose them. I'm not saying that. Yeah, I think that, you know, I have that tendency to. But again, these are not monoliths, the DOD. I'm not talking to public affairs officer, I'm not talking about senior executives, I generally try to go out and get a sense of like the mid level kind of like rank and file people, because I think they tend to tell a more honest story. You talk to the political and it's just, I agree with you,

Saagar Enjeti

08:31

I think you're doing the right thing. And you always and I've always been, I've said no body of work, but I'm like, Why aren't any of these people quoted that? Why aren't you calling these people? Essentially,

Speaker 1

08:37

the reason that I did the FOIA was because they're kind of described as unreliable. I'm thinking, Well, do I want to just use this sort of innuendo? Can I try to substantiate it? And if you look at the FOIA requests, you can forget my foyer, I think I posted it to you did, I asked for a whole range of things. So this idea that I was being pointed at one specific event, that's just not true. People were describing things to me sounds like there's certain themes, I go on Nexus which journalists have and so you can find their home address. Home address was not furnished to me. And then you can just fall for and I did it for like, seven years. And so that was what came back. So there's no sort of like, so I guess my answer your question, I'm not trying to be evasive. Like I did talk to intelligence and DOD, people. But the way in which that influences the reporting is a little bit more subtle than I think that the discourse gives credit to, it's not like they're pointing you at one specific event. That gives you a sense, and then you use that to go and use other methods to try to

Krystal Ball

09:25

substantiate I don't want to belabor the point, but just so I'm clear in my head of kind of the timeline, you got the you were seeing the coverage of this hearing? Yes, you took issue with the fact that, you know, a lot he made extraordinary claims, right. And they're they're secondhand claims. I mean, he hasn't produced publicly any evidence outside of his own testimony, which was being backed up by his personal reputation credit, really, you're frustrated by the fact that there doesn't seem to be a vet on the other side, and then you reach out to your sources or the guys that help us understand the toll of the

Krystal Ball

09:55

above.

Speaker 1

09:56

So there are people that I know in DOD and in air force that I figured probably know this guy. So I started asking him, they're telling me he's unreliable. And I think, Okay, well, how can I find more, because people have bits and pieces, it's not really enough to run with. So then I do a call out for tips. And in the tweet, I said, if you have positive or negative, because I don't, to the extent that there's always going to be a bias towards negative because I always, when I used to work at target as a cashier, I remember the suggestion box and I thought, Man, this is all going to be negative comments, there's gonna be a single positive suggestion. So that, you know, just read our YouTube section. So there's, there's gonna be, you know, there's gonna be that bias. But it's like, to the extent that I can, I'm trying to cast as wide of a net as I can to get different. So that's not just reflective of the circle that I have. And the friends that I have. And the people that reached out, they told me largely similar, like in theme stuff that the people that I knew

Saagar Enjeti

10:43

were saying, right, and I mean, I guess the problem, though, is like kind of saying this selection bias here. And one of the things crushes OLED is that he was retaliated against, and he's being actively retaliated against by the Intel.

Speaker 1

10:53

And there's strong evidence for that. Right. Okay, you can read His word for that, as well.

Saagar Enjeti

10:56

But don't how do you know that you're not part of that, that that right, that the people who are reaching out to you aren't basically like, Yeah, I mean, look, they're basically violating their job by talking to you in the first place and pointing to towards the direction, let's be honest, I mean, he's correct. And then that this is probably made known to his authorities, they probably took a look at his file, and they gave you a call whenever they saw your number, nothing wrong with that you did nothing. They're the ones who are doing it. But I mean, do not feel though, as you're part of a little bit of a campaign here that's shredded

Speaker 1

11:23

again. That's why That's why I try in my reporting, to find them, as opposed to them, like coming to me independently, you know, in there. And again, these things are complicated. These are not monoliths. There's the Senior Executive Class, his appointees, those guys are the demons that you really want to watch out for. And so, I mean, the people that I talked to clearly didn't like him, and they didn't believe them about the UFO stuff. And so insofar as that is motive, that's true. Sure. No, I want to be very frank about Yeah, right. But it's a little different than like, a Biden administration appointee being like, this is embarrassing. We have to destroy this guy. It's so so the concerns are fair, but I just want to point out that it's different.

Krystal Ball

11:57

So do you think that he's lying? Do you think he was misled? Do you think that, you know, there's some sort of motive for him to come? Because, you know, with whistleblowers, this comes at great personal risk, great, I'm sure this is not a fun experience for him. I'm sure it's not fun to have these things in the press in this type of personal scrutiny in some of the worst moments of his life dragged out in front of the public. So what sort of motive would he have for not being honest, interact with the public?

Speaker 1

12:26

I mean, around these issues, it's probably just embarrassing. I don't necessarily even fault them for not being more forthcoming about I've blamed that

Krystal Ball

12:33

I'm talking about why would he come forward with inaccurate claims to start with the sort of things that he testified to? What was he standing, there's

Speaker 1

12:41

a range of claims he makes, and I think a lot of them are probably true, where we depart is when he says that it's space aliens or that you've recovered. But but the idea I know from my sources, and I think parts of this republic, there is a UAV recovery crash recovery program. There is constantly retaliation against whistleblowers. I know that because I work with them. And there's data on this, it happens when you report to the inspector general, there's a target on your back. So I totally take him at his word on that. And his lawyer was a former Inspector General, the IC very respected person. I know people that know him. All I've heard was good things. So the whole retaliation thing, I assume that's true. They don't like people going to Congress and reporting things. Now. What, you know, again, where we depart is the specifics. I also think it's true that there is a UAV crash recovery program. I just think, just because you don't know and can't recognize what the technology is, that doesn't necessarily mean. It's extraterrestrial. Right. But

Saagar Enjeti

13:31

why don't you present evidence to that fact that I mean, how do you believe it? Like you say, you don't believe him? I mean, listen, I don't know whether I believe him or not. I, to me, it's just extraordinary. Whenever you're like, you're before Congress, you're telling this under sworn testimony, I'm like, Okay, well, I want to hear it from the other guy. John Kirkpatrick says, it's not true to me. That's great. We got two people under sworn testimony, they say it's not true. Why don't you put forward a story then being like, yeah, he's wrong, you know, the people are lying. Or, you know, I mean, I used to do this for a living a good quote, These people won't be like Rush colleagues say he's a liar. Grace colleagues say that he's completely not true. I mean, this is this is where I just don't understand. Well, I'm in a difficult

Speaker 1

14:03

position, because it's like, yeah, I don't want to, I mean, again, I disagree with him. But it's like, I don't want to, I want to rely on stuff that is really easy to substantiate for documents and his wife to current wife, not just ex wife, if I'm just going off of stuff that people don't like him said, verbally, it's, it feels kind of like a smear, you know, like, kind of unfair. And so it's like, I get where you're coming from, but it's like, put yourself in my shoes. Like, how would you navigate these kind of vague descriptions? You know?

Saagar Enjeti

14:30

Yeah. You know, I don't know, to be honest with you. I guess the so I'll come back to this on alcoholism point you keep talking about Yeah, I mean, so is it not a mental health issue, then, like is disqualifying in your mind? Being out? I mean, first of all, we don't know if he's alcoholic is why right. You know, people say he says he's recovered from PTSD. So he's recovering PTSD, as best friend killed himself, Gordon M. I know for a fact served in Afghanistan. These are pretty traumatic events. Millions of veterans kind of suffered the same thing. So I mean, are you saying that's disqualifying for the entire store? We'd like that. That's what I think a lot of people are upset about.

Speaker 1

15:02

Um, yeah. I don't think it necessarily is disqualifying. I think it might be. I mean, that's kind of why I put it out. People can look at it and decide what they think. I certainly don't want to have like, it's crazy to have a blanket rule. Anyone who has a substance abuse issue should not be that's clearly you're

Saagar Enjeti

15:15

right. This man is asking us to believe something. He's asking us to believe undertone testament, crucially, as you said, his reputation is what he said, it's a totally legit question. I'm more like, well, what are we supposed to believe here? And once? I mean, I,

Speaker 1

15:29

you know, I just got it's more. I mean, people want to paint not saying you're dealing with this broad brush of it's false. It's in their specific components to his claim. There's lots of parts to his claims. And you know, his own lawyer who I mentioned before, that law firm that's representing him, has said that the reporting around the contents of his disclosures has been inaccurate. And I've never seen a lawyer do that in relation to you know, stuff about a client. And so I think there's clearly something that's a little bit off here. And as to you know, people disagree about what what those details might be, but it's it's a spectrum of claims that he's making. Okay.

Krystal Ball

16:04

Last question, for me, at least for you kind of is are you working on additional? Are there additional reporting pieces you're flushing out right now? What should we be expecting?

Speaker 1

16:13

Yes, I'm interested in industries interest in these kinds of things, because you talked about the Pentagon's interests, which those are reasonable questions to ask, like, what are Kansans? Why are they telling them these things, but there's a whole nother Interest Group, which is aerospace, which has its own set of interests in making the public thinks certain things about not just UFOs but aerospace phenomena in general. And so my hope is that that in a lot of these representatives in Congress that staff the committee's get money from from these aerospace right firms.

Saagar Enjeti

16:41

So are you saying that this is like a cya by the defense contractors? I'm just trying to know what your

Speaker 1

16:47

I mean, so crystal asked me before I had to guess I bet he believes that I bet it's sincere. People tend to believe what they're saying they tend to Greece. And and, you know, I mean, he it's not untrue. He was a decorated war hero. That's not, you know, so I, I assume, I assume he believes what he's saying. I'm not someone I hate this word, grifter. People throw this word around so loosely. You know, it's like how do you know someone's heart and you can't know anything? So

Saagar Enjeti

17:14

I think it's fine to present the facts. Like I said, I mean, I'm just reading this story, and you're like, you only quote two people Jack Murphy and then this other guy. You're citing Roswell, credulously, no offense, but like, that's crazy. That's like citing the JFK record and saying that that's the definitive norm here. I mean, when I'm reading this, all I'm supposed to take away is like, alright, you know, alcoholic, PTSD, guys got mental health to experts. You didn't present the other side. So do you see why people took an issue with it? I understand.

Speaker 1

17:38

Yeah, to some extent, I'm in a position where it's like, yeah, everyone is doing the decorated war hero, all this stuff. It's kind of like, well, now my job is I have to try to give people stuff they haven't gotten. Okay. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I just tried to, you can talk. Maybe they bad. But that's right. I'm trying to give you an insight of my thought process. Okay, as well. I

Saagar Enjeti

17:55

think people can take away from this what they will. And at the very least, I think it helped me understand kind of where you're coming from a lot of other people, like I said, Have questions people watch the show, and I appreciate you coming on. I know, it's not the easiest thing to take questions like this. So thank you. We appreciate it. My pleasure, guys. Thanks, Ken.

Krystal Ball

18:07

Good to see you.

Saagar Enjeti

18:08

We'll see you guys later.

Krystal Ball

18:09

Hey, guys, if you liked that video, go to breaking points.com become a premium subscriber and help us build the best independent media organization on the planet. That's right.

Saagar Enjeti

18:16

We're subscriber funded, we're building something new. We want to replace these failing mainstream media organizations.

Krystal Ball

18:21

So again, to subscribe it's breaking points.com

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