Who?
UAP Caucus Co-Chairs Rep. Luna & Burchett (& Ogles)
Say what?
“It was a nothing burger,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) tells Ask a Pol.
“There’s no reason any of that stuff was told in a SCIF,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) tells Ask a Pol.
“Other than to get us not to talk about it,” Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) told Ask a Pol.
SCENE: Upon leaving the SCIF, UAP Caucus Co-chairs Luna and Burchett look over at Ask a Pol and NewsNation and maneuver away from them and toward a bank of elevators on the other side.
Ask a Pol’s Matt Laslo jets up two flights of winding stairs to cut Luna and Burchett off — only slowing down to interview Rep. Ogles and predict he’ll beat the UAP Caucus Chairs up to the main floor.
Elevator opens: Luna and Burchett, confused, exit.
Luna: “How do we get outta here?”
Laslo: “Back to your office or [the House] floor?”
Luna: “Back to my office.”
Laslo turns to Ogles.
Laslo: “See? Told you I was gonna beat em up there!”
Laslo points their way out, as they laugh.
Laslo: “Nothing?”
Burchett: “Ask her.”
Luna: “It was literally — it was a nothing burger.”
Laslo: “Really?”
Luna: “Yup.”
Laslo: “So now how do you guys — what's the next step?”
Burchett: “There’s no reason any of that stuff was told in a SCIF.”
Laslo: “Yeah?”
Ogles: “Other than we just can’t talk about it.”
Luna: “Yeah. It was a nothing burger.”
Laslo: “Have any of you been able to look at that Kona Blue? Declassified?”
Burchett: “I just saw it just today, I haven't looked at it.”
Luna: “I have to check it out.”
Laslo: “Do you guys feel like AARO’s delivering on their congressional mandate?’
Luna: “I mean, they showed up, yeah.”
Laslo’s in back closer to Burchett and can’t quite make out what Luna’s saying…
Burchett: “Of disinformation?”
Laslo: “I mean, if you guys funded em, started em two years ago — before some of y'all were here — you guys, ultimately, are their bosses?”
Burchett: “It was tucked into another bill. It wasn’t what we had. I mean, it wasn't in the bill we [woulda] funded.”
Laslo: “What do you make of their Senior Technical Advisory Board?”
Burchett: “I don't think anything of anything.”
Laslo: “Yeah?”
Burchett: “Because it's just. I just don't get a lot of information from them.”
Laslo: “I mean, over on the Senate side, now, we're getting a ton of complaints about incursions over US military bases and nuclear sites.”
Burchett: “We're not getting anything.”
Laslo: “Yeah?”
Burchett: “I'm sorry.”
Laslo: “What’s you make it their report though? Because they think that's definitive.”
Some guy in the Longworth Tunnel does a quick introduction of Miss America — who’s walking the opposite dingy direction in the tunnel — to Rep. Luna, who he says she’s meeting with tomorrow am (so. why’d. you. interrupt. the. congresswoman. fleeing. Ask Pol. questions. now. bro…).
Burchett: “I’m just — once again. Once again, I just feel like the whole thing is disinformation. I mean, it’s so compartmentalize that we're not going to get information and we’re told stuff in the SCIF that shouldn't be classified and it is.”
Laslo: “Do you feel like part of it’s they don’t know?”
Burchett: “Yeah. That’s where the compartmentalization aspect is.”
Laslo: “So that makes them useless?”
Burchett: “I mean, that's federal government in a nutshell.”
Laslo: “Yeah? So now how do you guys for the next public?”
Burchett: “We got to have a president that just says: ‘Release it all.’
Laslo: “Yeah?”
Burchett: “Yeah, that's the only way it's gonna happen.”
Laslo: “I was talking to Rep. Glenn Grothman earlier…”
We ran out of energy…
UAP Caucus Co-Chairs Luna & Burchett (& Ogles) post-SCIF briefing "nothing burger”