Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) on DoD IRADs after UAP whistleblower David Grusch's July 2023 Hearing
Transcript
So, let me start off this whole UAP discussion by just stating the obvious, which is that people don't trust the government. And why would you? I mean, a lot of our budget is like five defense contractors in a trench coat asking for a trillion dollars. So, you know, when you don't have universal healthcare, but you spend $800 billion a year that can't pass a, you know, an audit, I don't trust it either. That's why I sit on the oversight committee. But all of that is to say, whatever I say, I'm aware that there going to be people probably fighting over it or tr deciding to trust it, deciding not to trust it.
But that's just the general disclaimer that I'll start. Now secondly, one of the questions that I am seeing most often is why now? Why this? Why is this happening right now? And I think there's a lot of different factors, but I can't ignore the first part, which is that there are political reasons. Um, Republicans right now have the majority. And this is not about mudslinging, but Republicans right now have a majority. And that is much deeper than just there are more Republican votes than there are Democratic votes.
Whoever has a majority party controls who's in charge of the hearings. They control what goes to the floor, what gets voted on. The speaker is the majority party, etc. And the story of the Republicans over the last 6 months has been that they have there's been a lot of infighting and they haven't been able to accomplish much. In fact, we just went home early uh because they couldn't finish the agricultural bill which creates a window of opportunity actually.
And all of that intraarty fighting kind of slows down the legislative process even more. Um because if the party in control like really can't agree on things like agriculture and health care and things like that, then what you then the pace of what you normally have hearings on kind of grinds to a halt. You can't really have hearings as many hearings on the normal stuff. So, we're getting increasingly hearings about weird stuff, especially on the oversight committee. Um, so this committee hearing was on the national security subcommittee and um that created a window of opportunity to push through a UAP hearing.
Additionally, there's been some bipartisan efforts around greater disclosure that are starting to kick in. Additionally, another reason why this is happening right now is that this is a story of organizing. Um, I don't know what to tell you. People may want to be cynical about that, but truly there are a lot of people in this country who are very interested in this topic and there has been increasing pressure that and organizing that transcends uh party lines and that has resulted in the inclusion of several UAP disclosure requirements that Congress included in past defense authorizations. ions.
And so there have actually been task forces that were mandated by Congress in recent years. And there there's more legislation this year. Uh and there have also been mandated disclosure that has really been the first of its kind in a long time, which is why that mandated public and congressional reporting results in more. Sorry, my phone was dying, so I had to move. Anyways, so the other question I'm getting asked a lot is, "What do you think?" And if I just put on my investigator hat, which is the hat that we all put on on the oversight committee, it is part of our article 2 responsibilities under the constitution.
Uh witness testimony is important. You cannot rely on witness testimony alone, but it is very often a helpful starting point because it is completely different when a person decides to say something to the media or say something in public versus what they say under oath. When a person is willing to go under oath and w and risk perjuring themselves or risk being held in contempt of Congress, it's a very serious thing and so you have to take the things that they say seriously. That being said, there have been instances where a person may have said something under oath and they were mistaken. Now, it doesn't mean that they were lying.
Um, it could have been truly what they thought was the truth. Now, I'm not speaking to any of the witnesses that we heard from this week. I'm just talking about investigative principles. Now, that being said, taking something under oath and if someone levies a very serious accusation that potentially has to do with wrongdoing or something going on, it can be grounds to investigate further. Which is why it again is very important to listen to the specific words that a person chooses to say under oath versus the words that they use when not under oath.
Right? it it you have to pay attention to specifically what is said under oath. So anyways, what do I think? Do I think UAPs are real? Are UAPs real? UAP stands for unidentified anomalous or aerial phenomena? But people say anomalous cuz now it's water or air. Do I believe that there are phenomena that have been identified by pilots both you know either commercial military etc um that have gone unidentified? Sure. Yeah. I think so.
I think that's fair to say. We heard some from from some pretty credible witnesses. One is a commander who has verified video that is unidentified. So by definition um there are phenomena that have gone unidentified. There are plenty of UAP incidents which have been identified.
Um but there are some that have been unidentified. Now do I think those are aliens? That's a different question. Here's what I do think. I do think there's something going on. I do think that and I know that in the past I have we've dragged defense contractors before the committee and I have questioned them.
I'll see if I can like put a link or something, but and I have questioned them and I have found and we have found as a committee defense contractors hiding things and one line of question questioning that I had that was also part of a larger investigation on the committee resulted in tens of millions of dollars over I think it was like $16 million just from one smaller contractor alone. uh over $10 million getting returned to the public because of corrupt practices. So, we have truly documented incidents of defense contractors being shady. And if you ask me, that was one of the themes that at least I found to be sticking out a lot during the hearing was the presence of defense contractors. One of the witnesses called out Boeing as a contractor specifically.
Um, another witness uh specifically called out abuse of the IRAD program and misuse of the appropriations uh process, which is basically Congress says we spend this money on this thing for this purpose and sometimes people shift that money around in a way that's not exactly authorized. That to me is actionable. that to me is a thread that can be pulled. Um the other stuff is harder, right? But if there's something being covered, we should look at. Moreover, what I also think is that it cuts to a core question of our democracy.
We spend $800 billion on our defense budget alone. And mind you, that's not all the money that we're spending on military or defense, etc. Like that's the low number because there are subbudgets and other things, etc. It adds up. So we have $800 billion that we spend on defense.
Do you know how much of our $800 billion in defense goes to defense contractors, private companies, of our whole defense budget? Half. 50% almost $400 billion goes to private companies out of the US defense budget to companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin and all of that. All of that. And how many audits has the Pentagon passed? Zero. And there have been people that have been trying to draw attention to this.
Um, I'll link one below that was on 60 Minutes trying to sound the alarm about the corruption and greed of the defense contractor industry in this country. And so, you know, do I think something is going on? Yes. There were specific defense contractors named. There were programs that were being abused that were named. And do I think there are grounds to pull on that thread further? Yes, I do.
And I think that it should be pulled further. Um, do I know what it is? No. Um, am I going to be a hater? No. But I'm always interested in corruption and coverups. Like, that's my thing.
Other people are more specialized in the other parts, you know? So, those are my thoughts on it. And for everyone who might say whatever, like this doesn't matter. We need to worry about rent and healthcare. First of all, hear you. Second of all, um I actually think these issues are connected because one of the reasons we're always told why the richest country, one of the excuses that we're told why the richest country on earth can't have universal health care is because we can't afford it.
Right? Well, we know that's a croc of nonsense because we're spending trillions of dollars over years on military budgets that can't pass an audit and half of which go to a bunch of private companies that are price gouging the public and engaged in corrupt activity. We know that that's true because we've uncovered it in the past. And um we need to be spending those public funds on education, infrastructure, healthcare, housing, etc.