Lawmakers mad as congressional UFO briefing gives few details – because they're classified
Democrats and Republicans are miffed after they were denied answers to some of their questions in a Defense Department briefing Thursday.
The classified briefing took place in the Capitol's sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF), where Republican Reps. Eric Burlison (MO) and Tim Burchett (TN) joined Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz (FL) in saying that their questions couldn't be answered.
The hearing was about the ongoing investigation into unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP), previously known as UFOs.
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Burchett said "60 percent of the Pentagon's assets are unaccounted for," revealed Raw Story reporter Matt Laslo – but was unable to find out more.
News Nation's Joe Khalil quoted the Democrats saying Defense Department briefers told them they, "Didn’t have proper/high enough clearance to hear the answers to some of the questions they inquired about."
Meanwhile, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) told reporters the meeting was "pointless" and "nothing new," Joe Murgia said.
That seems to fly in the face of Burlison's comments, saying, "Someone has found some sort of propulsion."
Burchett, however, standing next to Burlison, agreed with Luna, and said he learned "absolutely nothing. The federal government learned how to do this during the Second World War at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Manhattan Project. Thousands of people working on an atomic bomb and less than 12 actually knew what it was. It was kept secret.
"I mean these guys are just the classic — I mean they're a stovepipe man. They just got their little bit of information and it doesn't go and that's how they keep this — you can say it's disinformation, you can say whatever. You know, if I hear one more time, 'I don't know what I don't know.' It's another layer of the onion."
He went on to complain that the briefers were those who didn't know the answers, but he refused to give up in his search for details about the DOD program. The good thing, he said, is that people on both sides of the aisle want answers.
"They all left frustrated," he continued. "They're patriotic Americans. They're doing their job, but the confines of their job limit them on what they can say to us because they just don't know. The way they do it is they keep it so limited that you can go swear under oath and take a lie detector test and they're telling the truth as they know it."
When asked about the classification issue, he said it was like "whack-a-mole."
The next steps, he said, are to hold another hearing, likely resulting in more frustration.
"The Department of Defense of Inspector General is not responsible for determining the classification of the information in our oversight work," the DOD said in a statement, "nor do we determine the level of security clearances for congressional leaders. The DoD OIG is committed to being as transparent and communicative as possible with our congressional leaders, and welcome any further opportunity to discuss our body of work."
See a clip of the Republican officials below or at the link here.
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