Documents / Hearing transcript
This is the printed transcript of a September 9, 2025 hearing held by the U.S. House Oversight Committee's Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, chaired by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna. The witnesses were Jeffrey Nuccetelli, Alexandro Wiggins, George Knapp, Dylan Borland and Joe Spielberger. They described UAP incursions at Vandenberg Air Force Base from 2003 to 2005 and a tic-tac-shaped object seen from USS Jackson in 2023. Members criticized AARO and called for whistleblower protections and the UAP Disclosure Act.
23 whistleblower protections. We recognize the invaluable public serv- ice that brave whistleblowers play in coming forward, again, taking all of these risks that we have heard about just to speak the truth, to get important information out in the public consciousness, but they can only do so when we have safe and secure channels for re- porting, when there is trust in the independence of agency watch- dogs like inspectors general, like the Office of Special Counsel, like the Merit Systems Protection Board, that play critical roles in in- vestigating whistleblower disclosures and enforcing the protections of whistleblowers. All of that is essential to allow whistleblowers to keep coming forward and playing these incredibly important public roles. Ms. CROCKETT. Thank you so much. Let me just say this. People look at Congress, especially now, and they see a lack of unity. They do not see the ability for us to come together, really, on much of anything. I will say that I do applaud the Chairwoman and the work of this Committee because, for once, I feel like we are focus- ing on governing, which should be about transparency. The reality is that we cause more harm than good when we allow a lack of transparency to fester. It allows for all types of conspiracy theories instead of us actually making the investments that we need to make to get the information and actually provide it to the American people. The reason that I wanted to focus on making sure that we an- swer some questions specifically around the protections of those that are willing to come forward is because the only way that we can make this government actually work for all of us is if, no mat- ter where you are in this Federal Government, you feel as if you are safe when you come forward with information of any issue. And so, I do want to thank you for all of your stories. The reality is that we only get 5 minutes, and the vast majority of everything that you have to say cannot be contextualized within 5 minutes. But I know that my colleagues are going to get to kind of pulling some more of that out. But again, I really just want to thank you for your courage in this moment, and thank you for your service to our country. Mrs. LUNA. I now recognize Mr. Burchett from Tennessee for 5 minutes. Mr. BURCHETT. Thank you, Chairlady, and thank you, Ranking Member Crockett. I see a lot of friends out there, and I see a couple enemies, so I will remember that. It is a pleasure being here. I want to remind people too, this thing is an ongoing deal. We are not going to get this overnight. We have been fighting this battle, some of you all, for 30 years and maybe longer. I hope we just keep focused on what we are trying to get to as total disclosure. We get a little wrapped up in a lot of things, but the government has something, and they need to turn it over to us. We pay their dadgum salary, you pay our salary, and you ought to get more out of us than you do, and that is what disgusts me about this whole thing. I think they are just trying to run the clock out on us, really. They will poke us a little, and they will make jokes to us and try to pull us off the target, but I think we know where we are at, and that is why they are firing at us, because we are over the target.
Hearing transcript, from the govinfo collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 54 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.