Thread by @ddeanjohnson

CONGRESIONAL UPDATE: Contrary to earlier pessimistic assessments, it now appears that the long-stalled Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA), with its UAP-related cargo, will be enacted after all.
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This is the bill to which the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) last June linked a call for an unclassified UAP report in 6 months. The IAA now has been incorporated into a massive end-of-session bill, containing coronavirus-relief provisions, funding for

federal agencies through Sept 2021, etc. This 5,593-page package is referred to as "the omni." Unless something goes badly awry, it should be signed into law within days.

Background: In June, the SSCI approved a directive that the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) produce a unclassified report on UAP (UFOs) with 180 days of enactment. The SSCI directive was included in a public "committee report" on the partly classified IAA.

The IAA is the bill that authorizes funding for, and provides policy directives to, the nation's 17 intelligence agencies. The SSCI's public endorsement of the work of an "Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force" in ONI, and its directive to the DNI, drew widespread interest--

interest enhanced by the 7-16-20 televised remarks of the acting SSCI Chair, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fl.): "There are things flying over your military bases, and you don't know what they are... and they exhibit, potentially, technologies that you don't have at your own disposal..."

Here is ranking SSCI Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), after receiving a classified UAP briefing on 6-20-19: "One of the key takeaways I have is the military and others are taking this issue seriously, which I think in previous generations may not have been the case."

There has been no visible opposition, in Congress, to the SSCI's UAP initiative. But the Intelligence Authorization Act, to which the directive is linked, ran into heavy sailing for completely unrelated reasons.

For months, the IAA was tied to a bigger ship, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), but that linkage was severed earlier this month, due to disagreements among members of the House Intelligence committee -- a development Sen. Rubio called "unfortunate" at the time.

However, in a Dec. 4 update, I wrote that the IAA might still be incorporated into another legislative vehicle, such as an end-of-session omnibus measure ("omni"). That prospect also seemed to dim for a time-- but now that is exactly what is occurring.

The 5593-page end-of-session omni now incorporates (as Division W) an entire compromise IAA bill, hammered out behind closed doors by members of the Senate and House intelligence committees. When it is signed into law, the SSCI's six-month UAP clock can be said to have started.

It is noteworthy that the visible congressional push for more UAP scrutiny and disclosure has been almost entirely on the Senate side. The version of the Intelligence Authorization Act approved by the House Intelligence committee on Oct. 30 (H.R. 7856) did not refer to UAP.

Nor was there any mention of UAP in a "Future of Defense Task Force" report issued by the House Armed Services Committee in September, even though the 8-member Task Force had received a classified UAP briefing from the Navy on 3-11-20.

While enactment of the IAA is mildly good news for those interested in more UAP disclosure, I will reiterate here a point I've made repeatedly: Much will depend on the attitudes that key officials in the new Administration have towards UAP, which is still largely unknown.

On Dec. 3, @SilvaRecord reported that Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough said on Dec. 2 that Senator Kamala Harris (D-Ca.), although an SSCI member, had not participated in any of the UAP-related classified briefings. Harris will become Vice President on Jan. 20, 2021.

In the absence of a very strong push from elected officials and senior political appointees, entrenched bureaucracies often may frustrate prodding from congressional oversight committees. Congress requires Executive Branch agencies to file reports on many things -- but sometimes

bureaucracies comply in a minimalistic fashion. For example, the FY 2020 NDAA mandated a Dept. of Defense report on "efforts to develop and implement guidance to ensure that the risks of inadvertent escalation to nuclear war are considered within the decision-making process."

That is a pretty weighty matter, yes -- avoiding inadvertent nuclear war? Yet, it response to that congressional mandate, the Department of Defense produced merely a five-page report, at a total cost of $3,790.

I will continue to provide periodic updates on UAP-related congressional developments as warranted. Please follow and retweet those with interest. My DMs are open, and I have a gmail address that corresponds to my Twitter handle.
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