EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Burchett hopes to hold public UAP hearing in July

Burchett also dismisses the Pentagon’s UAP program as “a joke.”

If Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) gets his way, the US House of Representatives will hold public hearings on unidentified anomalous phenomena (or UAPs, which were formerly UFOs) when lawmakers return from their current two-week July 4th recess and before lawmakers leave Washington for their month-long August recess. 

“Hopefully here in the next few, next couple of weeks, we ought to get a date for you,” Burchett told me while walking across the Capitol grounds last week. 

Oversight Committee Chair James Comer tapped Burchett and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) to head up the House of Representatives’ investigation into whistleblower David Grusch’s explosive claim that the federal government is keeping Congress in the dark on its UAP program. 

The Tennessee Republican wants to hear from Grusch himself. Though he’s also pushing Pentagon officials to redact and publicly release UAP records. 

“Cuz they’ve already got information that we’d like to see. When we have a whistleblower saying they’ve collected—that they have bodies, they have craft. And I’d like to hear his testimony,” Burchett said. 

Still, Burchett remains dubious of the Pentagon officials charged with heading up the government's UAP program. 

“I wanna get people who actually have knowledge of it. You know, the Pentagon has put these guys in charge of it, and they can’t even spell UFO and it’s a joke. They’re just hosing the public, and what the Pentagon is ultimately gonna do is ask for funds. And all I want is unredacted files,” Burchett said. 

In the Senate, Kirsten Gillibrand says—as we reported yesterday—she’s also planning to hold UAP hearings with the whistleblower and others, though she’s leaving it up to Grusch to decide if they’re classified or public. Burchett says he’d boycott the hearings if they’re classified.

Below is a transcript of my latest interview with Burchett for paid subscribers. It’s available to all a week from publication.  

Matt Laslo: “Now to the good topic: UAPs.”

Tim Burchett: “Yes, sir.”

ML: “I was just talking to [House Oversight Committee Chair James] Comer, and he told me to talk to you and [Rep. Anna Paulina] Luna.”

TB: “Yeah.” 

TB: “We hope to get to the truth.” 

ML: “Heard you talking about it with Steve Bannon.”  

TB: “I wanna get people who actually have knowledge of it. You know, the Pentagon has put these guys in charge of it, and they can’t even spell UFO. And it’s a joke. They’re just hosing the public, and what the Pentagon is ultimately gonna do is ask for funds. And all I want is unredacted files.”

ML: “Oh, interesting.”

TB: “Cuz they’ve already got information that we’d like to see. When we have a whistleblower saying they’ve collected—that they have bodies, they have craft. And I’d like to hear his testimony.”

ML: “Yeah, what do you make of that article? His claims? Gillibrand told me she wants to offer him the opportunity to have a classified or a public hearing.”

TB: “Well, that’s the trouble of classified briefings, they bring all the information in there, and then they—it becomes classified, and nobody can talk about it and it’s just leaks and rumors. And that’s a trick that they play on us up here all the time, they get you in a classified setting, and then you can’t legally talk about it.”

ML: “What do you make of his biggest claim—besides craft—is that the government has these SAPs that it’s hiding from you?”

TB: “Yeah, I totally believe that. And they won’t release the Kennedy files, and everybody involved with the assassination of John F. Kennedy is dead. And so, yeah, we gotta—it’s just information and it’s power and it’s greed. And you got all those things wrapped up into one issue.”

ML: “If they do have hidden SAPs from you all, how do you guys get that?”

TB: “I don’t know. That's a good question.”   

ML: “Right?”

TB: “I don’t know. We gotta get somebody on the inside that will [talk]. Somebody’s gonna have to walk out with something that’s definite proof.”

ML: “Any timeline that you have when you guys come back from the Fourth [of July recess]?”

TB: “We’re gonna get a, hopefully here in the next few, next couple of weeks, we ought to get a date for you.”

ML: “You’d like to have it before August?”

TB: “Yes, sir.” 

ML: “Cool, appreciate ya, sir.” 

TB: “Thanks.” 

ML: “Have a good one!”