Retaliation
David Grusch and the high price of speaking out.
I promise this isn’t about UFOs.
It’s about retaliation.
It’s also about the continued stigma surrounding PTSD and the ways in which some pay lip service to helping those suffering from mental health struggles while also being more than happy to use those struggles to throw them under the bus when convenient. It’s about the ways in which the most personal details of one’s life can be weaponized against them to suit a political agenda.
It’s about opportunism and a gleeful disregard for a man’s life.
Yesterday, The Intercept published a piece, written by Ken Klippenstein, entitled “UFO Whistleblower Kept Security Clearance After Psychiatric Detention.” The story details two incidents, one from 2014 and one from 2018, in which a drunken David Grusch, a key witness at the recent congressional UFO hearings, expressed drunken suicidal thoughts to his wife. After the second incident, Grusch was “committed to a mental health facility.” Despite this, Grusch retained his security clearances.
In a statement to Ross Coulthart, a journalist who spoke with Grusch for a startling NewsNation interview, Grusch said, “It has come to my attention that The Intercept intends to publish an article about two incidents in 2014 and 2018 that highlights previous personal struggles I had with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).”
Grusch has previously stated that he dealt with PTSD after a friend with whom he served in Afghanistan committed suicide.
While the narrative thrust of the piece is ostensibly about Grusch’s security clearance, it also includes a sustained attack on the congressional hearing in which Grusch and two decorated naval aviators testified. Steven Aftergood, a government critic says, “The recent UFO hearing is an embarrassment to everyone involved” and “The embarrassment of the House hearings stems not so much from the issue itself but from the failure to distinguish what is real from what is fantasy.”
The intent of the article is clear: to demean and undermine Grusch. In doing so, it attempts to discredibt his sworn testimony and, by extension, the larger topic of UFOs.
Are Grusch’s struggles with PTSD fair game?
Did his alcohol abuse and suicidal thoughts five years ago impact his job performance? Did they create a condition in which he constructed an elaborate fantasy? Did those struggles make him more susceptible to lying under oath? Should his testimony, and the accompanying (non-public) evidence which he provided to the Inspectors General and Congress be discounted or disregarded as a result of these revelations?
Klippenstein’s article makes no direct assertions of the kind, but strongly implies that Grusch is a man not to be trusted, a man unable to distinguish “what is real from fantasy.”
So, are those who suffer from PTSD untrustworthy?
While people with the condition often find others less trustworthy, I’m unaware of anything which suggests that sufferers are prone to the kinds of elaborate lies and deceptions that would be required for Grusch to fool multiple Inspectors General, members of Congress and their staffs, co-workers who spoke well of him on the record, and multiple journalists.
Instead, according to the US Department of Veteran’s Affairs, symptoms of PTSD more often look like this:
· Substance abuse. Taking a lot of drugs or alcohol to feel better is called substance abuse.
· Avoiding others.
· Staying always on guard.
· Avoiding reminders of the trauma.
· Anger and violent behavior.
· Dangerous behavior.
· Working too much.
From what little we know about Grusch’s personal life, he clearly demonstrated several of these behaviors, including substance abuse, anger, and excessive work. Did he also concoct a bizarre and sophisticated fiction about UFOs? I suppose it’s possible. But why would somebody go to such great lengths and risk imprisonment for that purpose? The article doesn’t hazard a guess, preferring to let the reader draw their own sinister conclusions.
Reaction to the article from the UFO community was, predictably, outrage.
George Knapp, himself a journalist and one of Grusch’s high-profile supporters wrote: “The attempted slime job on Dave Grusch is too late to stop his testimony, but is a serious warning to anyone else who might step forward. It tells potential witnesses that every aspect of their lives will be fair game.”
Kelly Chase, host of the UFO Rabbit Hole Podcast wrote: “In its obscene, unamerican, and wildly irresponsible reporting on whistleblower David Grusch, @theintercept and @kenklippenstein entirely fail to offer any kind of plausible, scientifically backed connection between a diagnosis of PTSD and the kind of complex and persistent delusional disorder that would be required to explain Grusch’s allegations.”
For his part, Klippenstein seemed to delight in the attention his article generated, writing in a now deleted tweet: “Jump in loser we’re triggering UFO nerds.” Is this ethical behavior from a journalist who just released highly personal police records of a person recovering from PTSD?
Personally, I believe Klippenstein had every right to secure the records through a FOIA request, as he did, and to publish whatever story he chose to write. I also think the story was intended to be, as Knapp wrote, “a smear job.” The question is: why?
What is the journalistic value of this story? Is it to question whether Grusch should have been allowed to keep his security clearance after these incidents? If so, why not confine the story to that question instead of also editorializing about the nature of his allegations? Or was the story intended to denigrate the substance of his allegations? If so, why not focus on his specific testimony? Klippenstein does not address any of Grusch’s specific allegations in the piece, although his belittling attitude towards them is clear.
Who directed Klippenstein to seek out these records, and why? Ken said he was tipped off by members of the intelligence community and law enforcement. What was their agenda? Why was Klippenstein happy to be used to further that agenda? I’m not alleging anything nefarious, by the way, only making the point that if you agree to be somebody’s stenographer, you should probably understand why you’re being tasked with the assignment.
David Grusch testified that his work on behalf of the US government generated significant personal and professional retaliation. If The Intercept article accomplished anything, it only further supported that claim. Strange behavior from a publication which states: “At the Intercept, we are strongly committed to publishing stories based on sensitive material when it is newsworthy and serves the public interest. One of our founding principles is that whistleblowing is vital to holding powerful institutions accountable.”
Unfortunately, it’s hard to see how this story serves whistleblowers, and while the public may be interested in somebody’s mental health struggles, I’m not sure how this salacious reporting serves the public interest.
As someone who worked as a subcontractor to the federal government from 2005 - 2017, I interacted with many federal workers and executives at all levels of clearance. There were conversations over the years about what was required to get clearances. One person shared he had taken hallucinogenic drugs throughout college. When interviewed for an IC job he shared the fact. He still has a high-level clearance at the CIA.
What are the big red flags for getting high-level clearance? I was told financial issues that might lead an individual to be subject to accepting money from a nefarious source. Lying. If you are honest about where you failed or fail most agencies view the applicant in a positive light.
I did hear rumblings that if someone had affairs outside of committed relationships, clearances would be stripped. Case in point, General Petraeus at the CIA. Again, it appears honesty in personal relationships is paramount.
When I was in DC, a high-ranking Pentagon military official was stripped of his rank, dismissed, and lost his pension after a 3-year undercover investigation confirmed he was having an affair outside marriage with a woman who had connections to a major military contractor. Taboo. I saw the written indictment with names redacted. Wow. He had been warned twice to sever relations with the woman. He just couldn't do it. So, he lost everything he had worked for. Men. They should think with the brain brain. Right?
So honesty in actions and solid money management count above all else,
not substance abuse unless it interferes with the job, not depression or PTSD since the fallout from Viet Nam vets.
You are too young to remember Senator Eagleton in the early 70s. He was considered for the VP position in the McGovern run for President. The GOP released private medical information on Eagleton's depression treatment. Eagleton was forced to withdraw. It was an awful smear campaign.
Americans know that Abraham Lincoln suffered from melancholia his entire adult life when there were no antidepressants or psychiatrists. He was honest about his struggles. He was one of the best Presidents this country has ever had.
Media and politics are ruthless in their desire to destroy. We are sick people where there are no rules. No boundaries. Not just in America. It's a species-wide problem.
I've supported Ken's work in the past. But your question: "Who directed Klippenstein to seek out these records, and why?" has been plaguing me in part because I've been researching intelligence agency tactics through the years and the "tip" to a journalist noted for his skill with FOIAs looks like a classic manipulation tactic. Which a guy like Ken would tell me I'm a paranoid UFO nerd for thinking, I'm sure. I'm also the son of a man who worked in military intelligence and a journalist who built my career on scooping the entire New York media establishment. I know the art of digging up shit too, and it's hard work, and in the past that was why I respected Ken and his work.
On a personal level, this whole thing gets under my skin because using someone's mental health against them this way strikes me as cruel—a move designed to publicly humiliate them, and as far as I know at the moment, whatever flaws Grusch has, he doesn't deserve *this*. Add in Ken tweaking people who don't share his arch skepticism of, well, everything—and it looks less like a guy doing his job and reporting a story that *may* be in the public interest and more like reporting with a healthy dose of trolling thrown in.