WEAPONIZED with Jeremy Corbell & George Knapp - The Empire Strikes Back - The Sliming of David Grusch

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

Veteran intelligence officer and Air Force veteran David Grusch knew there were risks when he decided to blow the whistle on secret - and highly illegal - programs which for decades have hidden evidence of non-human technology recovered from crash sites. Grusch met and interviewed more than 40 people who have seen the evidence first hand. That information has previously been conveyed to Congress in sworn testimony delivered behind closed doors. Grusch had previously been targeted for retribution by higher-ups in the intelligence community, which is why he filed whistleblower complaints with the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, then shared his story with journalists and with a House committee. Last week, insiders provided tips to a reporter about Grusch's previous struggles with PTSD in what appears to be am attempt to besmirch his reputation, but also as a warning to other potential whistleblowers. In this episode, Jeremy and George dig into the sliming of Grusch, why it was done, and what might happen next.  GOT A TIP? Reach out to us at [e-mail]  For breaking news, follow Corbell & Knapp on all social media.  Extras and bonuses from the episode can be found at https://WeaponizedPodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Serve smooth, crave-crably creamy potato salads with mayo. We all know it's not a cookout without craft. The Intercept, a media organization set up to protect whistleblowers, to be a safe haven for whistleblowers, who then adopts a position of humbling. They have none of the other side of the coin. What are you trying to say with this art? There is nothing tactile. There's nothing tangible.

There's nothing valuable other than you trying to smear this person to discredit their testimony under oath at Congress. It's kind of a telling thing who this reporter now is hanging with, you know, birds of a feather. Good job for those of you that want to slime job him. However, it's not going to work. Secrets, coverups, and strange phenomena. and ideas that challenge reality itself. All these mysteries all this time. Are we ever going to get to the bottom of these?

My name is George Knapp. I dig into news stories that others can't or won't. I'm Jeremy Corbell, and for some reason, people tell me things they probably shouldn't. And this is weaponized. This is weaponized. You know, when we launched this project about six months ago, Jeremy, we had this goofy idea that maybe we'd cover things other than that. than UFOs. We'd have fun people, creative people, people we respect and like that we wanted to

hear from. And we'd talk about things other than flying saucers and conspiracies and cover-ups. And the universe has other plans for us. So, you know, we had other ideas what we'd like to do this week. History intervene. So last time our viewers saw us, we were in D.C. We had just come out of this hearing, a historic event in front of Congress where they heard direct testimony from three three key credible witnesses about astonishing events. And in the couple of weeks since then, some dramatic things have happened that we need to talk about. Regarding our friend Dave Grush, can you bring up to date our audience who may not have covered this or followed this in great detail who Dave Brush was and how we know him?

Okay. So I'm emotional. I have a headache, a migraine. A balba's our migraine. And so don't ask me anything too hard. Like Rogan asked, you know, fucking Bob. We had an episode after that, after we got back. And that was about Commander David Fravor.

But now we're going to focus in on David Grush. So with the everything said that I got a migraine right now, here we go. We met David Grush in Huntsville, Alabama. He came up to you out of, at a bar. It's so funny, our greatest moments are like, you know, somebody just comes up to us. Didn't, had heard about Dave, had not met Dave. Dave comes up to you. I happen to be filming. That moment is caught on camera. That is the first moment David Grush talked to anybody outside of the intelligence community or government. Now he has never stepped over a line. But that moment,

I can only imagine what you were experiencing when he tells you, I'm going to tell something. It is bombshell. You don't know me, but we knew about him, but you don't know me. I can only imagine what you're thinking, and I would like to hear that before I proceed to tell the factual events that occurred. So what were you thinking in that moment? So this is the SCU Conference, Scientific Coalition for UIP Studies. They were formed in Huntsville, Alabama, Rocket City, which is a pretty amazing place. It's got an amazing concentration of UAP, UFO people that fly under the radar, as well as defense contractors, NASA, a lot of high-tech stuff there.

So we go to this conference because we had aims to interview somebody else who happens to live in Huntsville. And we had no idea exactly what was going to happen. We knew it would be at the conference. And we were told that somebody might show up and introduce themselves. And the guy who showed up was Dave Grush. And I happened to be sitting there. I think I must have been drinking iced tea at that bar. And Dave Grush walked up and introduced himself and started telling me some things.

And then we spent more time with him away from that event. It got to know him over the course of the next couple of days. Has Dave Grush ever said anything to you that was classified? Has he ever said, showed you anything that was classified? Has he ever talked out of school from what dopser has allowed him to say? If people don't know what a dopser is, it's basically what he is pre-pubbed. He has been able to say, this is what I'm going to talk about. Has he ever George Knapp said to you anything outside of that?

No, he has never crossed a line that I know of. The things that he did convey to us were absolutely astonishing. I mean, gobsmatt is the word for it. And were they true? They are true. They're accurate. They've been proven. They've been verified.

We did the homework to verify it. We checked out other people who have worked with Dave Grush, who verified that he really is this guy. He really did work in the positions that he was, which is why he became the centerpiece of this congressional hearing in D.C. at the end of July. He's the real deal. So not to repeat stuff for our guests,

but to repeat stuff for our audience, wherever you are. We talked about this a little bit what Huntsville is, but I just want to remind everybody, You know, you were like, Jeremy, we're going to go do this interview. Get on a plane. Okay, we've talked about this before. But that was fucking hilarious.

I mean, that's what happened. And we get there, I get my buddy, Nas Harrison. We get there to Huntsville. You kept telling me, Huntsville is important. Huntsville's important. Oh, my God. So now we know. Huntsville is important.

Dave Grush comes up to you. He, like many people, starts telling you a bunch of shit. what was your initial feeling when you met Dave before any other journalist, before anybody else that is what was your feeling? Well, my initial feeling is always one of trepidation because I'm not quite sure. I get approached every day, every single day through emails, texts, phone calls out of the blue, people claiming to have inside information and about 90% of it is complete bullshit. Dave came across as a pretty credible guy, and it was clear he didn't spill all the beans right off the bat, but he let me in a little bit step by step about what he had worked on

and what he had learned. And so we set about to get more information from him without going over a line. I don't want to get thrown in jail. You don't want to either, and we don't want him to be in trouble. And we don't want to hurt national security. Yeah, we don't want to hurt national security. We want to protect people who become sources. and over the months he did become a source to some extent.

Okay, hold on. Has David Grush ever given either of us in any time in history any video or any piece of paper or any informational evidence that is outside of bounds that we have ever put out in any way? He did give me a piece of paper. Okay, so tell that, but videos. Did he ever give us a video?

No. So I see that on social media, people guessing, well, Dave Grush must have leaked this or leaked that to you or me. He didn't. He hasn't leaked anything to either of us. He did share with me a document. Tell us about it. It is basically the outline of his complaint to the Inspector General for the Intelligence

Community. However, there are two documents. One is classified. One is unclassified. Which one did he share with you? The unclassified. Cool. Obviously, which sort of outlined part of what he's been going through.

And obviously, some people were coming after him because. they had surmised that he's about to spill some beans to Congress using correct legal mechanisms to tell Congress what's going on. Things that he had learned in the course of his assignment, he worked for NGA, National Geospatial Spaceal Intelligence Agency, a spook group. NRO, National reconnaissance office, as well as Air Force and other things. Right. He has a career in the Air Force, 14 years. distinguished service, and then he went to intelligence work, and he was assigned by his employer, and GA, to go be a liaison to the UAP task force. The UAP task force was set up. It actually existed

in an informal way before it was given a name by Congress, and it was created to get to the bottom of some of these UFO mysteries that are persistent, to put together a network of people in different agencies, similar to what ATIP was before officially existed. Under your buddy, Jay Stratton, he was tasked with looking at over 2,000 black budget programs and looking for financial evidence of misappropriation or any type of UAP-related, will say, exploitation programs. Right. So Jay Stratton has the UAP task force.

They're trying to get to the bottom of it. They're casting a wide net. Which agencies, which programs have something to do with UAP, UFO stuff, maybe legacy programs, maybe recovered disks, reverse engineering, things of that sort. They wanted to get information. So they gave Dave Grush a specific assignment. Look, you guys have access to special access programs. You have an oversight function for SAPs.

Dig into this. Go after it. Is there something hidden in those SAPs that you can dig up. that the public, that that agency that Congress should know. And Dave went to work and did it. What a fucking better person to do that than Dave fucking grush. And here's why. No one goes to Hank's for his spreadsheets.

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Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75-sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. We've got to know, Dave. We vetted Dave. On day one, we asked him, is there anything in your career that can be used to try to discredit you? And we're going to talk about that in a second. From day one, in ways he knows and ways he doesn't know, we have talked with people that

have worked with him. We have talked people that have managed his work. We have talked with so many individuals that are in his orbit that it's fucking ridiculous. Now, before we get there, let me fill in the second part of that day. So you meet with him. I'm filming. I mean, Niles was filming, but I was there. you have this lean-in conversation.

I remember your reaction after. You're like, I think he's worth talking to. And I'm like, cool, man. So if I was a weapon, George, to you, what kind of weapon would I be? A torpedo that I would shoot at targets and, you know, either take them out or gather them in. And that's what you did. So you spent quite a bit of time with Dave that weekend. And that night, yeah.

And that night, we met for a period. There's a photo that's been released. Colonel John Alexander, long-time friend of mine, took a photo, did not know who Dave was. He just saw. He who took that photo? Yeah, he took the photo at this conference. There's me sitting across from Dr. Travis Taylor. Next to me is Jay Stratton, who is the only man in the U.S. government who worked for

ASAP and ATIP and the UAP Task Force. a key person that we had on this program in episode three, I think, major guy. And then the fourth guy in that booth where we're having a conversation is Dave Grush. John Alexander takes this photo, has no idea who Grush is. He just knows, boy, that's got to be an interesting conversation going on there, and it was. He's the leak. Oh, no. So Jay Stratton is the person who gave this assignment to Dave Grush to go after the SAP's. find out what's going on in these special access programs regarding UFOs.

Are they hiding reverse engineering programs? Do they have somebody has bodies? Are they, did they have crash saucers stashed in a hangar somewhere? Is somebody in the US government funneling money into a program dealing with UFOs that is hidden, hidden from the public, hidden from Congress, maybe tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars that were slated for a legitimate national security program? that are now being used to facilitate this ongoing cover-up. Is it possible?

And Dave went at it with passion because he had the authority to do it. He looked at 2,000 special access programs. Over, you said. More than 2,000. And he found some people who are willing to tell him about it. As we now know, as he told Congress, he has more than 40 witnesses, people with direct hands-on experience,

with crash saucers, with reverse engineering, with non-human biologics, the kinds of things that he told Congress, as astonishing as it may be, these people work in these programs, were willing to tell Dave their story. Dave shared some wide parameters about the kinds of things that he was digging into with us. Whatever's in his adopts or whatever he can say legal without being of fucking arrested. Right. Yeah.

Gave us an indication of the kinds of things that he was looking into and the things that he has now shared with Congress in 11 hours of under oath, closed door testimony, classified situations where he told this very specific information to Congress and through congressional staff. Now, I would point this out. He didn't come to that SCU event at Huntsville by himself. His boss came with him and his boss's boss. It's not they, by that point, by June of 2022, his superiors, NGA knew what he was up to, knew what he had found. And they were all in. They came with them. They wanted to meet the key movers and shakers in the topic. They wanted to hear the discussion that was underway at the conference. They wanted to see what was going on. And so it was not like

Dave was a rogue in his agency operating independently. He had the support of the higher-ups in his agency. They were there too. That is factual. And I'm going to see how far we can go, but just so everybody knows, I've dropped my last about all of this. So I think we can go as far as we can go. And we're going to try to be as clear as people as possible. And I think a way to do that is to talk about what happened later that night. So you call me a torpedo, you kind of call me a harpoon.

I think about myself more like a really specialized weapon system. I'm like, let's go drink whiskey. So I said to Dave and to Gary Nolan, I said, will you meet me at a bar later in the night? And I just want to get to know you a little bit better. Dave and Gary, you've been promising me that you come get a drink. I didn't believe for a fucking second that he would. So we go, of course, like intel officers and whatnot. Like, I'm the only one drinking.

That's cool, you know. Dave is not drinking. No, not that night. Okay, yeah, we'll talk about that. Yeah. Okay, mother-de-so. So that's not important. What's important is that Gary Nolan showed up, and I love you, Gary, Gary, you're awesome.

And he showed up, and we got to finally kind of get down to brass tacks about stuff. And he did. Gary did have a shot of whiskey with me, and that was really cool. We talked for a little while, and then Dave and I, we stepped out back. And, you know, cool, like, you know, back alley kind of stuff. Oh, man, we both love UFOs. Let's talk about this. But what was really important is I said, look, man, I don't know if what you told George is true.

We're constantly being tested and used and trying to be used. So I'm like, here's the deal, man. Right now, right here, we need to get to brass hacks. What is it you're doing? And what is it that why are you coming to us? Why did you come up to George? I'm being a little protective. And I'm like, what is it that I'm going to find about you later?

because I'll find it out tomorrow if I want to. So in that maybe an hour that we're sitting outside, you know, he said, look, this is what I gave George and then he gave it to me. And it was the non-classified IGIC complaint, you know, which is intelligence community, Inspector General, whistleblower complaint through the Presidential Protection Act 19 or whatever. This is the Inspector General that oversees has oversight responsibilities for the entire intelligence community, CIA, NSA, all of them. So there's Dave, and we're talking.

And what I'm trying to figure out is this the typical thing that you and I get, where there's somebody trying to insert themselves into our lives and give us false information, which there are a ton of long-term. All the time. And let's be really clear with people. There are people in our lives that have come into our lives with good information under false pretense that have been in our lives for multiple years, if not longer. So now we know their positions in what they do.

And look, I think maybe us releasing the Mosul orb and the Baghdad phantom has people confused because they don't understand the laws of journalism or they want to obfuscate from the laws of journalism. You are a award-winning journalist. I will now call myself a journalist. So there you go. So we're fucking protected. So here we go. Talk with Dave.

Everything he says, I take with a bag of soul. But I listen. What he told me that night is what he's telling people now, which is like, I am worried about my personal safety. I am about to do something. You don't need to believe me, but I need protection. George Knapp, he's a gangster. He'll be loud.

If something happens, he'll be loud. If you find me to be credible and you find this to be urgent like the ICIG did, you'll make noise. We didn't break the story. We got no dog in that fight. But what we can do is we can be witness to what it is that David Gresh told the public, and we can we talked about the behind the scenes, but we can say, you're going to shout over down, I'm not even going to look you in the eyes.

You tell me, have we vetted who David Gresh is? Do you believe he is who he says he is and what he said, at least he believes? Oh, for sure. Yeah, there's no question. Zero question about that. He is who he says he is. He had the jobs that he has claimed. That has been verified over and over again.

it's one of the reasons he was the central witness at this hearing in front of this House National Security Subcommittee. And there are probably things that someone like him can't tell the public of how he served our country. And I am just going to make an assumption right now that he has done other things to preserve our integrity of our country. And you can take from that what you want. But I can just assume there are some things. So with that said, so there's Dave. He's come forward. He said some explosive things and not just what he said.

It's what he didn't say. So I would like to, as a witness, raise my hand and say, hmm, I believe David Grush. I believe not only that he believes that stuff. I believe it's credible and urgent. And it's not just a belief. It's an informed opinion. And I think you and I have an informed opinion and people should take what he says seriously now. The whole point is to hear.

what he has to say. The shame would be if he's muzzled in any way by intelligence agencies, by bureaucracy, because that is happening right now. And we have a specific example that I think we should talk about because there's some bullshit story

that we met at a Star Trek convention. So we didn't. No. So that Star Trek convention, August 29th. Okay, so let's talk. about that date we met way before that let's talk about that date what happened we had met dave in huntsville alabama at the sCU conference got to know him a little bit continued the

conversation we knew we knew by august he's the real deal every day we continued that conversation a conversation and we knew he's the real deal we knew he was in a unique position in all of american history to have known about some of the things that you and i have pursued for a a lot of years, that it was his job to dig into this stuff, that he in fact did uncover some astonishing information that he wanted to share with Congress. As soon as he got on the radar screen of the people who have been the keepers of the secrets, they started coming after it. So that document that he shared with us in Huntsville, the Inspector General document, it was kind of a test for us. He shared that with us to see how we'd handle it, and we sat on it. I would not have

ever released it without Dave's permission. I didn't do it until he went public a year or so later. And, you know, we were convinced that he's the real deal, that he really did uncover astonishing information in the course of his official job, his official duty, and that he wanted to share it with Congress and eventually with the public. Okay, so let's back up for a second. So you have somebody that says, it was my job and I uncovered misappropriation of funds, which is theft and happens to be about UAP and UFOs. You then give that information to the ICIG. And so everybody knows, intelligence community inspector general happens that his lawyer is the former ICIG,

which is not a bad move if I was being smart. So there you go. So you've got somebody now protecting you. You've got this formal complaint. You are the first official UAP whistleblower before Arrow had whistleblower protections in place. And we're going to get better protections already, but they're not quite there yet. So the guy put his balls on the line on the chopping block to do this. He went to you to make sure that you could at least report the story as you understood it.

However, let's be really specific, which is that you reported way before it was. public that people like I was on stage with you we sat there with commander Fravor and he said I had meetings with very serious people congressional people about the TikTok UFO and you reported that and you're saying it's happening every day and everybody's like okay okay you were right so now we have David Fravor on stage and he's saying so that he has talked to people right congressional people serious people David Grush was set to testify I I will say this in a congressional setting.

And then August 29th, tell us what happened. So recall, we had met him in June at this SCU event. We got to know him a little bit. We continued those conversations over weeks. We checked into him. We checked with our sources. Check with people who knew him who vouched for him. He said he's the real deal.

In August, you and I were invited by your buddy with the Star Wars. Rod Roddenberry. Star Wars. Star Trek, no, that's funny as fuck. That's, no, that's it. That's it. That's forbidden. Okay, so Eugene Roddenberry, son of Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek.

Eugene Roddenberry is a black belt in jujitsu. We trained together since we were children. Shout out to Eugene Roddenberry, Rod Roddenberry. So he says, hey, would you and George come do a UFO talk? And I'm like, yeah, I want to see what this, would you call Star Wars? Star Trek. What is this Star Trek thing? And so I was like, yeah, let's do it.

And so in my talk with Dave, I was like, yo, just come meet us. And we're going to have a buddy sitting by us, you know, who's going to be in the room. But just as a witness so that we know this all happened, this is Joe Merga. Mergia, he always gets so mad. Mergia. He always get mad at me. UFO Joe on Twitter. So he didn't know what was up, but like, you know, he was in the room with us, right?

And so what happened? So we invite him there. We invite him to meet with us. We're meeting just because we're talking at this thing. What happens? Well, we spent a couple of days. Dave, it turns out, is a Star Trek fan like most of us are. I mean, most people in the world are fans of Star Trek to one degree or another.

It was awesome, you know. He didn't dress up as a cling on. He didn't embarrass himself in any way. He wanted to see what it's about. So did I, whether we were speaking or not. So we had a chance we did some presentations. then spent a lot of time with Dave in the hotel room and walking around and talking. He's always very careful in this conversations with us, not to go too far.

I think Joe Mercia, who was there, was trying to figure out who the hell is this guy, and we didn't tell them, really, what was going on. So we had good conversations on that Saturday and Sunday in late August. Dave flies out of Las Vegas on a Sunday night. He reports to work Monday morning and is. met by security guys who walk him out. And he's informed that they have suspended his security clearance. There's an investigation underway.

Serious allegations, he's got to go. He called us, and I have to tell you, I felt pretty guilty about it. As you did, I think, good God, did just be seen with us cause this problem and disrupt his life? Or what? We now know that that is not the case. That is not the case. But also because that would effectively put the fear of people that contacting us,

that if that was the case, if he got some reprisal just by association. However, that's not what happened. That's not what happened. So what you're saying is he went back to the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. Also, we could say NRO separately, but there he is, and he gets walked out. Now, what did they walk him out about? And that's what was so interesting because he already told us that, you know, there's these attempts of reprisal, what did they walk him out about? Do you remember? I have it written down.

Yeah, I have a couple of the things that were on that list. I'm not sure how far we can go with this. I think we can say that the three things that were kind of identified to him, what did they walk him? He told us about it. So among the other things that brought up, I guess got to say, these are such bullshit, little nitpicky bullshit attempts to silence him. And it is very obviously an attempt to silence him and punish him for what he had already shared, the information already shared, as part of his job. Yes. For one, they had a beef about his time card.

So as a contractor, he had submitted invoices for 12,000 or so hours of work he had done for the government. The complaint alleged that there were, I forget, 12 hours or 36 hours. So let's just be real clear. So this is August 29th, 2022. And what it was was a personal conduct charges, right? And trying to figure out what's going on. This is through NGA. And it was essentially that there were 12,000 hours billed to the government as a contractor

over 5.5, 5.5, 5 and a half years. there were 32 hours that they were like specious about, specious about. So they're like, huh? And he's like, oh, do I owe you like a couple grand? Like, what do you mean? Did I forget to do a stub? That was one of the things that was in that formalized attack on him. Yeah, basically four days of work out of five and a half years.

Hey, we're not sure if you billed us correctly for this. Boy, we're going to get you for it. Come on. So additionally, in that, there was. the idea that he shared classified information with people who are not authorized to receive that classified information. And I can definitively say that not only would we protect people that tried to do that, he is so fucking smart.

He would never do that. He didn't do that. And so whatever they were going for on that one, that was the second thing. Now, the third thing was... This is the really good one. This is the good one. going back to PTSD and going out at his mental health. And we talked about this day one.

You, you were the one that said that's what they're going for. They're going to go for that. That thing you just told me. They're going for that. Like I was kind of like, huh? Like I didn't understand it at the time. And now I get it. Dave Grush spent 14 years in the Air Force.

He was in Afghanistan. He had a friend who, his best friend, came back. two of them would talk on a regular basis on the phone. The friend had a conversation with Dave, and as soon as he hung up, killed himself. That's the kind of thing that really sticks with you. Your best friend, your closest friend, who would serve together with you, takes his own life after speaking to you on the phone. Dave was messed up about it.

He was in a deep depression. He started self-medicating. He drank. He was depressed. He was talking suicidal stuff. the kind of things that any normal human being, the kind of reaction that any normal thinking, feeling human being would have. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building.

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So, brass tax. First of all, I have received, and I hope, so Dave, I'm sure we'll watch this, and I want him to know too. I have received dozens and dozens per day since that story came out of veterans who are like, I have PTSD. I have not handled it as well as you. I have not gotten over it.

He has inspired people. When he sat up there in Congress, like PTSD, I don't even want to, like, do I justify? Do I talk about this? I don't think we have to justify that. It's real. It's fucking ridiculous. So here's somebody that has served the country in ways the public can't know,

but has served the country in ways the public can know. And just that alone, if he was active service and feeling and having issues, we would help because he's an asset. We'd help him. But now that he's out, it's like all of a sudden, anything you can do to try to diminish what he said, I don't even want to give it justice, but I'll tell you this. I've had dozens and dozens every day

who have texted me of active and former service members who have just called bullshit. And they're like, so, like, I should post some of those tweets, or some of those messages. So look, yeah, Dave had PTSD, and he fucking dealt with it. Yeah, there were two incidents that got into the public record. Okay. One was in 2014.

One was in 2018. He was very upset, very, very, depressed, drinking too much, suffering classic symptoms of PTSD, and it spilled over. I think his wife told police, he wants to kill himself, he needs help. In the second episode, he was detained, put him in a facility to protect him for 24 hours. Right. You can hold for 72 hours, by the way. So, and by the way, he never lost a clearance. So think about that for a second, right? You have the highest clearance. There is nothing above TSS, C, whatever the fuck. You know, there's nothing above that. Like, he did not lose clearance from NGO. He didn't, or NGA, he did not lose clearance from

NRO. And there's more to the story, which can't be told. But he reported some things that happened to him through an official channel of counterintelligence within NGA. So he has, received all of this kind of fire, the dude never lost his clearance. The dude is, is, and decorated. He is decorated. Is that wrong to say? He's fucking decorated. And this dude has, I'm sorry, like, I'm just like, it makes me so mad. This dude served our country, and this is the treatment he's getting. That's cool. That's cool. Let's report the news. But I mean, on the bigger scale, man, this whole thing that's going on with him is to discredit him. And you're a journalist, old school, 35, 40 fucking years. Tell me about that,

man. Well, you know, when we learned the information about what he'd been through, it was clear that is going to be a weakness to be exploited. It is seen as a weakness. I think it's a strength. He had these very low moments as all of us do in the course of our lives. He was in a bad spot. He got help. He got out of it. He stopped drinking. He got treatment. He was a valued employee by his agency. They kept him on board. He is a different person now. I'm sure at some degree it will always stay with him, but he survived it and made himself a stronger and better person. Now, to have that lowest moment of his life, the kinds of things that other veterans, military veterans, intelligence folks even, who have served in theaters of battle who've undergone tremendously

disturbing personal scenes that so many tens of thousands of other servicemen have dealt with, servicemen and women, to have that particular moment, the lowest moment in his life, exploited and exposed and ridiculed in a media article, is the lowest of the low. It's among the worst slime jobs by a major news organization that I have ever seen. And you predicted it. I did predict it. You literally, if we go back in this show, I believe, on the show, you predicted it, but you predicted it to a bunch of people, to, to John Gutierrez.

We were talking one time. You predicted it. You predicted it to Stratton. You predicted it. I don't know who you predict. You predicted it to everybody. You predicted it on the show. I don't have to be psychic to predict that because that is a standard operating procedure

for somebody. You want to discredit them? You find their weakest moment, their most embarrassing moment, and you exploit it and expose it and embarrass them. and you try to make them pay for speaking truth to power. And more importantly, in the case of Dave Grush, what's happened in the last week is a warning shot across the bow to other whistleblowers who might be on the fence. Should I come forward or not?

This is a direct warning to them. This is what happened to Dave Grush. Are you sure you want to go into this? Is there anyone who has a life that is completely pure that doesn't have a deep, dark secret, hasn't made a bad decision, didn't have a nasty divorce, didn't cheat on their wife never welched on a on a debt or something like that haven't had a low moment in your life is there anyone in the intelligence community in the military in the media in any line of of work that hasn't had those kind of moments and we have directly been told and we've talked with numerous individuals

who are already in process right now so that's a fucking warning shot just so everybody knows you can't stop this. So people have already put themselves on the chopping block and we got calls, you and me from multiple individuals that have told us they're terrified of how David Grush is going to be treated. So good job for those of you that want to slime job him. However, it's not going to work. People are smarter than that. You can't treat your audience and try to punk them and think that you're going to keep their respect. So by the way, just before you go into what you're about, I know you're about to go into it,

it's not going to work. And I can tell you from firsthand experience, it's not going to work. We have people lined up, ready, battle helmets on, everything documented, not going to work. It's not going to work for Dave Grush. He has already testified to Congress. He's made statements in public.

There's a lot more he'd like. like to be able to say in public that he can't. So he's fully committed regardless. He's got a great lawyer, Chuck McCullough, who's going to defend him to the hilt. But I really think that it probably has had an impact on whistleblowers, even people we don't know who've been on the fence about whether to come forward, who have direct hands-on experience with these programs, with the cover-up, who now have to be asking themselves, do I want to go through this? Do I want to have my high school girlfriend interviewed on, on television or on some bullshit internet publication? But let's separate it because there's two ways in which people are coming forward.

No longer am I submitting anybody's to Arrow. I'm not doing it. You called that many episodes ago and I was trying to defend Dr. Kirkpatrick and I was trying to defend that this might be a good process. It's not. So now here we are and I'll tell you this, which is this. it, no matter what, people are going to come forward. And that is already in process.

And I think Chuck McCullough is somebody that so far I believe you can trust. And I think that the canon is loaded, baby. And let's see what happens. Let's talk about the media process a little bit. So we're talking about if people at home have not read this article, it's in something called The Intercept. It's an online publication. Yeah.

I get it. I read their stuff. In fact, I get pretty much every week I get a fundraising request from them where they ask me as a reader to donate money. I don't know what kind of financial shape they're in. I suspect that they're on the ropes. The Intercept was created by and for whistleblowers. It was created in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations. Now, I know a lot of people have mixed feelings about Ed Snowden.

He revealed intelligence people that we know well think he went way too far. I agree with that. He revealed way too much, and maybe he revealed things to the Russians that we don't even know about yet. And I agree with that. But he did a fundamental thing in revealing this massive surveillance program of private citizens that we needed to know about. He did us a favor, and that was the impetus behind the creation of The Intercept.

The Founders of the Intercept left. They left a couple of years ago, and they were disgusted by how things developed. You know, this is supposed to be, it's in their mission state. This place is supposed to be a safe haven for whistleblowers. You got some skullduggery that you've uncovered in government, in the military, somewhere else. You can tell it to the intercept and it's safe. They have screwed up so many times with whistleblowers and people who shared information with them have gone to prison. So now they've sort of flipped the script and instead of being a pro whistleblower safe haven place,

they are going after whistleblowers, at least in the UFO, UAP arena. they go after them and punish them. We saw it a couple of years ago with Lou Elizondo. There was a despicable article that was written. I cannot imagine that they're an editor, ever went through that article and didn't X out giant chunks of it or at least ask for, can we get a more balanced view of it? It went after Lou.

I think it took some wax at me in that piece, as I recall. I can't imagine that it was ever published, but it sort of was a precursor. to what they did to Dave Grush. This article that came out that solely focused on Grush's lowest possible moment. Now look, I think Dave Grush knew it could happen. We both knew it could happen.

I just didn't realize it could be so low. And they did it with records that are available through the state of Virginia, FOIA records, police records from the two incidents that happened. and they put as absolutely the most despicable spin on those incidents that it would be possible. They had none of the other side of the coin. There had none of the explanation that, oh yeah, those incidents did happen. Dave was at a low point.

He got treatment. He got better. His employers support him. The fact that those other NGA higher-ups went with him to SCU, that he was given this incredibly important assignment by his employer. as a liaison to the UAP task force to look into these SAPs, they trusted him, they believed him. They helped him fend off these attacks from other agencies that, by the way, are still ongoing.

There are other shoes to fall. For them to publish this, to embarrass him. And then, I don't know if you've seen this stuff on social media, but... You know, I don't read that shit. I know, you can't. I can't help it because people send it to me, but the journalist involved, somebody I don't know,

who says flat out, he does not believe this UFO stuff. To be candid with you guys, so people can account for where I'm coming from, I don't believe in the UFO stuff. He is hostile to it. He has tricked and trolled his own readers. He put stuff online where he makes fun of his own readers and, ha, ha, ha, look at these goofy UFO people who fell for my trick, insults him. I cannot imagine what is the journalism strategy.

What is the marketing strategy where you, in the... insult and demean your readers, the people who would otherwise support your publication, I don't understand it. If I did that shit, I would be fired in a heartbeat. Why? It is wrong. For you to put out something that is false and misleading, just to get a joke on your readers, it is absolutely antithetical to everything we're supposed do. And to not have a balanced approach, you go into a story and you've already said, I don't believe any of this stuff. I think it's bogus. And I'm going to set out to prove it's bogus. And you pick a guy and you cut his nuts off in public. It is abominable to do this kind of

thing and not have the other part of it. Dave did have those episodes. Those things happened to him. And then he got treatment and he got better. And his employer, stuck by him. That's not included. How can you, so whoever this idiot is, I'm sorry, I'm a little ignorant, I kind of know what you're talking about, but whoever this idiot is, this is not journalism. In your mind, this is not journalism? What is journalism? It's yellow journalism, I think, would be the term, but it's a hit job. It's a slime job. He set out to slime Dave, and he found a way. And the fact is, okay, UFO people were wrong. They assumed it was some kind of of a leak of his medical records from intelligence insiders but it was it was a

classically classically in a definitive sense they didn't provide the records but they did put him on the trail of where to find what i did watch is i did watch uh sagar sagar and crystal on breaking points and what i did see was an expert job of asking questions and allowing somebody to reveal them Because this guy, I saw, he, Sagar said something like, so factually it is true. Like it is true. It was from the intelligence community did leak to you. They told him someone on the inside, probably the same people who filed the complaints and tried to get him fired before.

That didn't work. So someone on that side funneled the information to a guy who was quite willing to go along with it. So were you tipped off by members of the intelligence community? It was both the Defense Department. I mean, again, it's a mosaic. You 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. If you actually had spent any time like you and I have to look into and talk with people that have worked with David Grush over time, it is impossible to come to that conclusion that you came to with an anonymous source is what I heard. I'm somebody trashing them,

which, by the way, I don't believe for one second that anonymous source exists because we have spoken with more people, like Commander Fravers said, I've talked to you and Commander Underwood, they've talked with us more than any other, any agency, any, anybody. It is impossible to come to that conclusion if you are being unbiased. Now, are you, so I don't know this. Are you supposed to be unbiased as a journalist? Is that okay to be a little biased? Yeah, I mean, you know, there is supposedly the objectivity as the standard.

In fact, no one is truly objective. Subjectivity creeps into every decision that journalists make. What story is going to be covered? Who gets to assign it when it's covered? What position for TV? Where is it play in a newscast? How much promotion do we give it? A lot of subject evaluations and factors go into any news story.

You try to be objective, which is impossible. But what you settled for is fairness, being fair. You know, this was not fair. You know, I can understand that Dave did not talk to him, so maybe that lets this reporter off the hook. But Jesus, how in the world does Dave Grush get invited to speak before Congress? How is it that he kept his security clearance even after these same allegations were raised by his enemies in the intelligence community because they wanted to shut him up?

They wanted to shut him up as a whistleblower. They filed this stuff. They delayed his testimony to Congress. They tried to smear his reputation. and that didn't work. So then they fed it to a reporter who smeared it all over the place. So what I took away from Sagar and Crystal's interview

on breaking points is that they had this journalist on and it was like this dance, the guy was doing like, oh, it's a mosaic of sources. No, no, no. Sager fucking nailed in there and he's like, so it's basically true. You got to leak in the IC. In terms of the substance of the tip here,

the accusation, I mean, aren't there, fundamentally correct that, like, you are publishing dirt that was tipped to you by intelligence community? Well, here's the deal. The biggest thing I took away from that piece from Sagar was that you are, what are you trying to say with this article? Like, what are you trying, what information are we supposed to take away, you know, from this article?

And he really nailed it down, which is that there is nothing tactile, there's nothing tangible, there's nothing valuable, other than you trying to smear this person to discreate. their testimony under oath at Congress. Now, for our audience, if David Grush lies under oath at Congress, and this is not debatable, like you can be jailed and prison for lying. I mean, people will do all these gymnastics. No, no, no, no. You don't do that.

But remember, to get him to that point, he has to walk this really fine line of what is classified, what is not. Now, we all want to know is what he says true. But in order to have that opportunity, he can't be muzzled. I will tell you this right now. He's been effectively muzzled for this coming week. He's muzzled. And he's muzzled.

I can't explain why and you know why, but I can't explain why. But they have and who are they? So people invested in not having him talk. Because look, all this is nonsense, right? If it was nonsense, would you have all of this reprisal going on? So they've effectively muzzled him for this week. We'll give it a week. It's not going to last.

It is not going to last. So I'm wondering, is the Air Force involved in this? We've been having open discussions in multiple media platforms in Congress about UFO, UAP, secrecy, reverse engineering, crash retrievals, all that stuff for five years now, for more than five years. You know, it's out there. People are talking about it. Is it possible that there are still operatives within different parts of the government that want to put this genie back in the bottle?

And the answer is yes, it is. And they are active now. And they are not done with Dave Grush. We happen to know who's involved. And the kinds of things that they are pulling, and it's meant to send a message to scare the shit out of anybody else who might want to step forward. Yeah, so let's pull back from right there. We will report that news when we can. But let's just, if allow me to go through four thoughts, my thoughts are really migraining right now, but here's four thoughts.

I love my wife and my dog. Here are my poor thoughts. All right. This is for our audience. If we can agree UFOs are real, that there are machines of unknown origin. So that's, we all have to get there. That is fact, but let's try to get there with consensus reality. Then let's try to agree that there has been reverses.

engineering attempts on these unidentified physical craft by our government. Just I'm there. If you're not there, please try to catch up. Okay. Third, this has been done so illegally. And I know that's a loaded term illegally because there's a lot of people. I was told by an authority figure today that that word has a lot of definition. But I would say illegal or at least secret.

We can agree on that secret because you brought back all the Russia files. It's secret. So now we're at the third phase, which is that, yes, we've been trying to work on these craft and yes, it has been secret. I will say nefarious or illegal. So if we are at those three points together, there's a fourth point, and everybody needs to try to ask this question within themselves, this is the critical question, which is that if UFOs are real,

and if we have been working on them, and if we have kept it secret illegally, this is the fourth. What makes you think, my dad used to say, do not be surprised when people act in character. And he meant by that, if they were doing something then,

the best way to predict the future is what happened in the past. If this has been illegal and secret before, what makes you think this is organized? What makes you think that this is something that they're going to let out whoever the keepers of the secrets are? What makes you think that any means necessary, legal or not legal, will be used to silence and to harm the people trying to talk about it? We have personal experience with that, but I want everybody to get there with our audience is if you understand the first three things, please be aware of the fourth question you should be asking, which is, would anything be different today?

Is this some sort of orchestrated attempt to become clean about UFOs? Is this an orchestrated attempt? Super orchestrated attempt to try to like come clean in any way or even to create a false flag operation. These are not ours. These are not ours because they have existed prior to the Wright brothers taking flight. They have existed prior to our Department of Defense. You know this better than anybody, but I just, we need, this is reality whether or not we

accept it or not. Consensus reality needs to catch up. So there we go. Those are the four points. I'm done. All new drinks are now at McDonald's, with refreshers like the strawberry watermelon refresher and the mango pineapple refresher with popping boba to crafted sodas like the Sprite Berry Blast with berry flavors and cold foam. Who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire? Try them all now at McDonald's. Refreshers contain caffeine. Copyright 2026.

Coca-Cola Company. Sprite is a registered trademark of the Coca-Cola Company. I don't know what's going on with The Intercept. I do read their stuff. There's got a lot of great content in there. It does seem based on the appeals begging for money that maybe they're in financial straits. So maybe the strategy is we don't care what the story is, how valid it is. If it generates readership, we're all on board. I don't know. If that's the calculation they made, it does not seem to be sustainable. When you publish a story that directly mocks and humiliates your readers, not only the guy who's the subject of the story, that cannot continue.

I don't know if it's a desperation thing or what, but a media organization set up to protect whistleblowers, to be a safe haven for whistleblowers, who then adopts a position of pummeling anybody whistleblowering on this particular topic, it is not sustainable. I don't get it. I think it is also it's kind of a telling thing who this reporter now is is hanging with you know birds of a feather. Oh I see what you're saying. The people that he is now who have given him a platform are the same people who gave a platform to those who wanted to bash

Lou Elizondo who made fun of the Bass OSAP program. Yeah. It's a small cadre group group, but they hang together and now they've got a new member. Maybe they were lonely and needed a new friend. I don't know. Your friend and my friend Robbie Williams would have a four-letter word to describe these people that is very British. Just saying, anyway. It's a line we don't want to cross. No, I'm not cross.

Now, Dave Foley did a great podcast about it, though. Anyway, check it out. I'm going to say something right now that I don't think is going to make the cut for this episode. But I do need to get it off my chest, which is that this is fucking theater. that I want people to understand the news segments and this kind of thing I have trusted and and learn to trust producers and we get calls every time to go on the news and I only do it if I have something to say you don't get paid to I heard some people get paid I don't get paid to do news hits I take time out of my life fixing sprinklers and hanging with my wife and my dogs to do

these I think that's really important people understand yeah I go on there because I got fucking something to say. And if I don't, I don't do it. But I'm going to tell somebody I got into a trap. And this is going to air after I get my redemption moment. So I'm cool putting this out. And I don't know if this is going to make the cut because it's super ugly. But the Pierce Morgan show, I heard it's like some big show in Europe.

And I'm like, okay, I'll throw one punch this week, try to drop some truth. Talk with the producer. Super cool guy. I don't want to go into details about him because it'll reveal him. Super cool guy. I said, look, cool, man. Don't play X-Files music. I am not a UFO enthusiast.

I am an investigative journalist, because that's what I actually do. Just don't fuck up those two things. Anything you throw out, I don't want to go into the third thing, but anything you throw at me, I'm cool. Let's rock, baby, right? I come on. I just want to say, man, so it's like theater. It's like everybody's watching this like Wizard of Oz shit. Now, the anchor is super cool.

Like, I got nothing. People got to stop yelling at her about this. Like, she is super cool. Somebody wrote this stuff for her. Oh, my gosh. So you can tell people what that's like. So there's a new, so you actually do investigative journalism and will anchor sometimes, right? Sometimes.

Yeah, not anymore. Right, but you understand. So they're reading off a teleprompter. So this awesome person who is cool is reading off a teleprompter and they play the X-Faz music, they mislabel me. They actually-infoil hat. Might be time to grab your tinfoil hats because they're, the aliens are coming. And apparently a lot of them,

there have been almost 1,000 documented UFO sightings in the UK since January 2021. And they even seem to be targeting certain areas of the UK more than others. Pandemic and there's a war going on and the price of everything is shoe the roof. And aliens suddenly aren't that interesting or worrisome to them anymore.

Well, first of all, that's incorrect. And hello, Nick, nice to see you. That was on the moment. They said tinful of hat, I said, put on your battle helmet. So like, bang, I got so pissed. They even used my bio and put it in front of someone else. Yeah, they gave a great bio for Nick, Pope, who was there,

who had nothing to do with the congressional hearing. Poor Nick had nothing to, he didn't have any idea about it. And, like, we're sitting there. And I'm like, hey, Nick, nice to see you. Because I think we're having a Twilight Zone moment. Not her fault. Not Nick's fault. It is the producer's fault.

Now, I have made peace with that. because they pass things on, but I just really want people to get something clear if we put this in the episode, which is this. I was like, dawn. I am never, ever working

with these producers for that show again. Well, they made a big mistake, and that's going to air before this episode comes out. They're giving me 15 minutes of uninterrupted time. Big mistake.

Just keep your clothes on, all right? Just big mistake. No, I mean, because here's the deal, man. we need to talk with the audience kind of like where everybody's at. But if you set the tone that way, no one's going to, we can't even start at square one. So I just want people to know when you see these things on the news, like sometimes it's legitimate and it's straight. Other times there is nefarious ways to try to make people feel a certain way.

That's what you saw on that. But there's going to be a redemption moment for them, not for me, for them. And hopefully their audience, they can hear a little bit about this topic from the right perspective. I just had to get that off my chest. I was really pissed. You're not going to write any songs or strum a guitar on your 15 minutes, are you? The world's not ready for that. I'm like too serious and angry right now. He's like, I have no sense of humor. Anyway, let's just, just to return back to Dave Grush at Twitter to wrap this up. So we mentioned about the allegations that were leveled. He comes back from

Las Vegas. The next day, they walk him out, you're gone, you're done. Because of these just really pick uni allegations that were made against him. His use of a time card, 32 hours or something out of 10,000, that he had spilled some secrets beyond what he's allowed to say, and then he had mental health issues that hadn't been resolved. There was an adjudication of that. Those three points were considered by an official panel. There was a 147-page document. I wish we could get it. We can't. But that responded to this. them in great detail and the organization that oversaw this and heard the complaints against him ruled unanimously in his favor. That was wiped out. That stuff was gone. Gone. And Chuck McCullough

actually also said that they personally went in person and it was immediately, like they couldn't even provide any, it was such a falsified thing that they had no response. They had, when they fought it, it was like it immediately died on the vine. Yeah. So. So, you know, those allegations were considered bullshit by the U.S. government, by the intelligence community, wiped out. And then they get resurrected by a media organization to slime Dave and embarrass him and to intimidate other potential whistleblowers to come forward. We've been saying it for a long time. On this program and in other forums, the keepers of the secrets, the closer we get to the goodies, the closer the public and Congress get to figuring out what's really going on, Do we have crash saucers?

Are they hidden in a hangar somewhere? Are there bodies? Is there a reverse engineering program? The people who know that stuff, who've hidden it away, who have maybe diverted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to keep this cover up going, are not going to give this stuff up willingly and easily. They will fight tooth and nail to the very end.

And although a lot of people in our audience think we're on the eve of disclosure, boy, all this stuff is coming out. Hold your horses because the folks, who really control things are not given up. And there's a long way to go in this. And, you know, Dave Grush is a hero and he's also a victim in this. And they're not done with them yet. We know that they're not done with them yet and they're not done with maybe us and some other people too. Yeah, we'll get more into that specifically. But also, you know, his wife, his family, you know, his cute dog. Like everybody's like a casualty to this experience. But I respect, I respect David Grush and what he did.

If I ever find out anything he said was a lie, I will immediately turn around and tell people. But I can testify to this moment that everything he said has been absolutely, like over the top, factually perfect in the sense that he is meticulous with detail. So look, do you know that movie called Network? I've heard it once or twice.

Okay. So that movie called Network where the reporter, I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore. Howard Beale. Yeah. Yeah. I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore. Well, I feel the same way.

I hope Dave feels the same way, too. We support to Dave. We're there for you. And also for your fellow whistleblowers who are still on the fence about whether to come forward. And we'll be here, and we're going to cover it more. Yeah, yeah. Time is now and fucking do it.

Yeah. Never has so few, had so much to tell, but could say so little. Following this and weaponized, presentation of Jeremy Corbelle, George Knapp, Dark Course Entertainment, and Cadence 13 Studios. Available now for free, on the Odyssey app, or wherever you get your shows.