Rep. Burlison Welcomes Former U.S. Air Force Officer David Grusch as Special Advisor

This press release, issued on 2025-03-27 from Washington D.C. USA,¹⁷ announces the appointment of David Grusch as a Special Advisor to Eric Burlison,¹ a Republican member of United States Congress representing Missouri’s 7th district.² The document states that Grusch, described as a decorated former United States Air Force officer and senior civilian intelligence official,³ will contribute his expertise to Burlison’s efforts to promote transparency regarding Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) and other matters on the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets.⁴

The release summarises Grusch’s professional background. He served 14 years in the United States Air Force, reaching the rank of Major,⁷ and completed a combat tour in Afghanistan supporting counter-illicit finance, drug, and arms-trafficking operations alongside the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).⁸ Following his military service, Grusch worked as a senior intelligence officer at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO),⁹ and from 2019 to 2021 formally represented the NRO on the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force (UAPTF).¹⁰

The document recounts the sequence of disclosures that preceded the appointment. In 2022, while posted to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), Grusch filed a federal whistleblower complaint with the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG);¹¹ that complaint — now published as the David Grusch 2022 whistleblower complaint to the Intelligence Community Inspector General — was found to be credible and urgent for reporting to the Congressional intelligence committees.¹² In 2023, Grusch gave sworn testimony before the House Oversight & Accountability Committee, a record of which is held in the David Grusch 2023 Congressional testimony on UAP.⁵ In that testimony he alleged that elements of the US government had thwarted Congressional oversight and withheld information from proper Executive Branch officials,¹³ and further alleged that elements of the US government had illegally concealed programmes tied to the recovery and reverse engineering of craft of non-human origin.¹⁴

The release includes a statement attributed to Burlison characterising Grusch as someone who risked his career to expose critical information.⁶ It also carries a statement attributed to Grusch expressing his intention to help United States Congress restore full oversight and to enable the legislative branch to investigate and hold accountable those who he alleged had broken the law and lied to Congress, the Executive Office of the President, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and the Department of Justice.¹⁶ Grusch also stated that he joined Burlison and his team to push for government transparency.¹⁵