The system for coordinating organ donations and transplants in the United States is broken, according to experts who have testified over the course of many years to Congress. In this episode, hear their testimony about what is wrong with the current system and then we’ll examine the bill that aims to fix the problems. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: [email protected] Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or [email protected] Use your bank’s online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources August 3, 2022. Senate Finance Committee. Lenny Bernstein and Todd C. Frankel. August 3, 2022. The Washington Post. February 10, 2020. Senate Finance Committee. The Bill Audio Sources July 20, 2023 Senate Committee on Finance, Subcommittee on Health Care Witnesses: LaQuayia Goldring, Patient Molly J. McCarthy, Vice Chair & Region 6 Patient Affairs Committee Representative, Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) Matthew Wadsworth, President and CEO, Life Connection of Ohio Raymond J. Lynch, MD, MS, FACS, Professor of Surgery and Director of Transplantation Quality and Outcomes, Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center Donna R. Cryer, JD, Founder and CEO, Global Liver Institute Clips 30:40 Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR): HRSA, the Health Resources Agency, is on track to begin the contract process this fall and we're just going to be working here to complement their effort. 36:30 Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA): In 2005, I started the investigation of the deadly failures of UNOS, the monopoly tasked with managing the US organ donation system. Since then, more than 200,000 patients have needlessly died on the organ waiting list. There's a reason that I call UNOS the fox guarding the hen house. For nearly two decades, UNOS has concealed serious problems [at] the nation's organ procurement organizations, known as OPOs, instead of working to uncover and correct the corruption. This human tragedy is even more horrific because many of these deaths were preventable. They were the result of [a] corrupt, unaccountable monopoly that operates more like a cartel than a public servant. 44:45 LaQuayia Goldring: As a toddler, at the age of three, I was diagnosed with a rare kidney cancer that took the function of my left kidney. And when I was 17, I went back into complete renal failure and I received a first kidney transplant at that time. Unfortunately, in 2015, I went back into kidney failure. And at that time, I wasn't ready for another transplant, but I didn't have a choice but to go back on dialysis. I've been waiting nine agonizing years for a transplant, dependent upon a dialysis machine five days a week, just to be able to live. I was told that I would receive a kidney transplant within three to five years. But yet I am still waiting. I am undergoing monthly surgeries just to be able to get my dialysis access to work so that I can continue to live until I get a transplant. The UNOS waitlist is not like one to 100, where everybody thinks you get a number. I'm never notified on where I stand on the list or when I will get the call. I have to depend on an algorithm to make the decision of what my fate will be. 47:55 LaQuayia Goldring: Just a few weeks ago, a donor family reached out to me to be a directed kidney donor, meaning they chose me specifically for a kidney transplant. But unfortunately, due to the errors in the UNOS technology, I was listed as inactive and this was a clerical error. And all that they told me was this was a clerical error, and they could not figure out why I was inactive. But when it came down to it, I'm actually active on the transplant list. 51:45 Molly McCarthy: The Federal monopoly contractor managing the organ donation system, UNOS, is an unmitigated failure. And its leadership spends more time attacking critics than it does taking steps to fix the system. I've seen this firsthand in my five years as a patient volunteer with the OPTN and three years ago, I stepped into the role of Vice Chair of the Patient Affairs Committee, or PAC. 53:45 Molly McCarthy: Further, I have been called by a board member telling me to stop focusing on system outage and downtime of the UNOS tech system. He told me that having downtime wasn't a big deal at all, "the donors are dead anyway." That comment speaks volumes to me about the lack of empathy and respect UNOS has for donor families. 55:00 Molly McCarthy: Congress needs to break up the UNOS monopoly by passing 1668, ensuring that HHS uses its authority to replace UNOS as its contractor. 1:00:15 Matt Wadsworth: Break up the OPTN contract and allow for competition. 1:00:40 Matt Wadsworth: I commend this committee for introducing legislation to finally break up this monopoly and I stand ready to work with you in any way possible to ensure that this bill passes. It's the only way this industry will be able to save more patients' lives. 1:02:10 Dr. Raymond Lynch: I want to differentiate between organ donation, which is the altruistic decision of the donor patient and their family, and organ procurement, which is the clinical care provided by OPO staff. This is what turns the gift of donation into the usable organs for transplant. Organ procurement is a clinical specialty. It's the last medical care that many patients will ever receive. It's reimbursed by the federal government and it's administered by OPOs that are each the only provider in the territory to which they hold federal contracts. Right now patient care delivered by OPOs is some of the least visible in American healthcare. I can't tell you how many patients were evaluated by OPO workers in the US in 2022. I can't tell you how many patients were examined, or how many families were given information about donation, or how many times an OPO worker even showed up to a hospital to do this clinical duty. This lack of information about what OPO providers actually do for patients is a root cause of the variability in rates of organ procurement around the country. My research has shown that what we call OPO performance is a measurable restriction on the supply of organs that results in the unnecessary deaths of patients with organ failure. For example, if the lowest performing OPOs from around the country had just reached the national median over a recent seven year period, there would have been 4957 more organ donors, yielding an estimated 11,707 additional organs for transplant. Because many OPOs operate in a low quality data environment and without appropriate oversight, almost 5,000 patients did not get adequate organ procurement care, and nearly 12,000 other patients did not receive life saving transplants. 1:03:55 Dr. Raymond Lynch: OPO clinical work is currently not visible, it's not benchmarkable, and it's not able to be adequately evaluated, analyzed, or compared. However, much of the hidden data about how OPOs provide care to patients is known to one entity and that entity is UNOS. 1:05:20 Dr. Raymond Lynch: We need a new network of highly skilled specialist organizations, each attending to areas of expertise in the management of the OPTN contract. 1:21:15 Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN): When we look at OPTN, and look at the Securing Organ Procurement Act, the bill would strip the nonprofit requirement for the manager of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, which would open the door for profiting from organ procurement and donation. And to me, this is something that I think many people really fear, especially people that are on a waitlist. And so what I would like for you to do is to address that and address those concerns. And why or why not you think the Act has it right. Dr. Raymond Lynch: Thank you, Senator. I think it's unfortunate that people would be afraid of that and it needs to be changed. Many of the patients that you referenced are waitlisted at for-profit hospitals. For-profit is a part of American healthcare. And I can tell you that our not-for-profit entity doesn't work. And there are for-profit hospitals and for-profit transplant centers that do work. So patients don't need to be afraid of that. They do need to be afraid of the status quo. 1:28:30 Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD): Ms. Cryer, do you have any views as to why it's much lower percentage chances for a racial minority to be able to have a transplant? Donna Cryer: Yes. And it really does come down to UNOS not doing its job of overseeing the organ procurement organizations. We know from many studies that black and brown communities donate organs in the same percentage they are the population. So it is not a problem of willingness to donate. It is a problem, as Miss Goldring was starting to discuss, about UNOS not ensuring that OPOs go out into the communities, develop relationships far before that horrible decision is needed to [be] made to donate the organs of a family member. 1:56:45 Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): And among the many reforms the legislation would support HRSA's proposal to break up the OPTN monopoly contract into multiple smaller contracts, which would allow some competition and allow the best vendors in the business to manage different parts of the transplant network operation. That means hiring IT experts to do the IT. It means hiring logistics experts to do logistics, and so on. 1:57:15 Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): UNOS does not want to lose control, so they're pushing to have the government limit eligibility only to nonprofit vendors that have worked in the past on organ donation, meaning, for instance, that the IT company that is hired to run OPTNs computers systems would have had to have worked on an organ transplant network in the past and be a nonprofit. So Ms. McCarthy, the requirement UNOS wants would seem to make it so that only one organization could apply for the new contract: UNOS. 1:58:35 Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): Right now, Congress has an opportunity to root out corruption in this system, but if we don't act before the current contract expires we won't have another shot for years. August 3, 2022 Senate Committee on Finance Witnesses: Brian Shepard, CEO, United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) Diane Brockmeier, RN, President and CEO, Mid-America Transplant Barry Friedman, RN, Executive Director, AdventHealth Transplant Institute Calvin Henry, Region 3 Patient Affairs Committee Representative, Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) Jayme Locke, M.D., MPH, Director, Division of Transplantation, Heersink School of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham Clips 36:15 Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR): A 1984 law created the first computerized system to match sick patients with the organs they need. It was named the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. Someone needed to manage that system for the whole country, so the government sought to contract an organization to run it. UNOS was the only bidder for that first contract in 1986. The contract has come up for bid seven other times, UNOS has won all seven. Today, the network UNOS overseas is made up of nearly 400 members, including 252 transplant centers, and 57 regional organizations known as Organ Procurement Organizations, or OPOs. Each OPO is a defined geographic service network. Families sitting in a hospital room thinking about donating a loved one's organs does not have a choice of OPOs. 37:40 Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR): Between 2010 and 2020, more than 1,100 complaints were filed by patients and families, staff, transplant centers, and others. The nature of these complaints runs the gamut. For example, in a number of cases, OPOs had failed to complete critical mandatory tests for matters like blood types, diseases, and infection. Our investigation found one patient died after being transplanted with lungs that a South Carolina OPO marked with the wrong blood type. Similar blood type errors happened elsewhere and patients developed serious illness. Some had to have organs removed after transplant. Another patient was told he would likely die within three years after an OPO in Ohio supplied him with a heart from a donor who had died of a malignant brain tumor. UNOS did not pursue any disciplinary action. In a case from Florida, another patient contracted cancer from transplanted organs and the OPO sat on the evidence for months. In total, our investigation found that between 2008 and 2015, and 249 transplant recipients developed a disease from transplanted organs. More than a quarter of them died. 38:55 Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR): Delivering organs has been another source of life threatening errors. We found 53 such complaints between 2010 and 2020, as well as evidence that this was just the tip of the iceberg. In some cases, couriers missed a flight. In others, the organs were abandoned at airports. Some organs were never picked up. Many of these failures resulted in organs being discarded. 39:20 Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR): It's reasonable to assume that many more errors are going unreported. Why? Because filing official complaints with UNOS appears to accomplish zero productive oversight or reform. Organ transplant professionals repeatedly told the Finance Committee that the complaint process was, and I quote here, "a black hole." Complaints went in, UNOS went quiet. In interviews with the Committee UNOS leaders have dragged their feet, dodged tough questions, and shifted responsibility onto others. investigations and disciplinary measures rarely amount to much more than a slap on the wrist. Only one time -- just once -- has UNOS recommended that an OPO lose their certification. 55:05 Diane Brockmeier: We must update the archaic technology system at UNOS. As OPOs, we are required to work with UNOS technology DonorNet every day. DonorNet is outdated, difficult to us,e and often slow to function when every minute counts. Manual entry subjects it to error and OPO and Transplant Center staff are not empowered with the right information when time is critical. I did serve in leadership roles on the OPO Committee from 2017 to 2022. Committee members and industry leaders voiced repeated requests to improve DonorNet. The consistent response was UNOS IT did not have the bandwidth to address this work. The limitations of the UNOS technology are delaying and denying transplants to patients that are dying on the waitlist. Poor technology impacts the disturbingly high kidney discard rate in the United States, where one in four kidneys never make it to a patient for transplantation. Critical time is lost due to the inefficiency of DonorNet, wasting time on offers that will not be accepted. Of course an available organ should be offered to the patient in this sequence. However, far too much of the matching, particularly on older donors and organs that are difficult to place, are left to the individual OPOs and transplant centers to find each other despite, rather than facilitated by, UNOS technology. Mid-America Transplant intentionally identifies surgeons who accept kidneys that have been repeatedly turned down many times. These are life saving options for those patients. In May of 2022, one of these patients was number 18,193 on the list. Relying on DonorNet alone, that kidney would never had been placed and the chance to save a life would have been wasted. 55:20 Diane Brockmeier: UNOS lacks urgency and accountability around identifying and remediating this preventable loss of organs, and they are not required to publicly report adverse events when patients are harmed, organs are lost, or the quality of patient care is deemed unsafe. UNOS does not require clinical training, licensure, or certification standards for OPO staff delivering critical patient care. In this environment, who's looking out for the patient? Who's being held accountable for poor patient care? No OPO has ever actually been decertified, regardless of its performance or its safety record. 57:55 Diane Brockmeier: When an OPO goes out of sequence to place an organ that would otherwise be thrown away, UNOS requires an explanation; however, when organs are recovered and discarded, you must remain silent. 58:05 Diane Brockmeier: We must remove conflicts to ensure effective governance. From 2018 to 2020, I served as a board member for the OPTN. Serving on the board of the OPTN automatically assigns membership to the UNOS board. My board experience revealed that at times UNOS actions are not aligned with its fundamental vision of a life saving transplant for everyone in need. How can you fairly represent the country's interest and a contractor's interest at the same time? 58:35 Diane Brockmeier: Board members are often kept in the dark about critical matters and are marginalized, particularly if they express views that differ from UNOS leadership. Preparatory small group calls are conducted prior to board meetings to explore voting intentions, and if the board member was not aligned with the opinion of UNOS leadership, follow up calls are initiated. Fellow board members report feeling pressured to vote in accordance with UNOS leadership. 59:10 Diane Brockmeier: To protect patients, I urge Congress and the administration to separate the OPTN functions into different contracts so that patients can be served by best-in-class vendors, to immediately separate the boards of the OPTN and OPTN contractors, and to ensure that patients are safeguarded through open data from both the OPTN and OPOs. 1:00:45 Barry Friedman: Approximately 23% of kidneys procured from deceased donors are not used and discarded, resulting in preventable deaths 1:00:55 Barry Friedman: Organ transportation is a process left to federally designated Organ Procurement Organizations, OPOs. Currently, they develop their own relationships with couriers, rely on airlines, charter flights, ground transportation, and federal agencies to facilitate transportation. In many cases, organs must connect from one flight to another, leaving airline personnel responsible for transfers. While anyone can track their Amazon or FedEx package, there is currently no consistent way of tracking these life saving organs. 1:01:45 Barry Friedman: Currently there is no requirement for OPOs to use tracking systems. 1:02:20 Barry Friedman: I also believe there's a conflict of interest related to the management of IT functions by UNOS, as the IT tools they offer transplant centers come with additional costs, despite these being essential for the safety and management of organs. 1:02:35 Barry Friedman: UNOS is not effectively screening organ donors so that they can be quickly directed to transplant programs. UNOS asks centers to voluntarily opt out of certain organs via a filtering process. As a result, OPOs waste valuable time making organ offers to centers that will never accept them. Time wasted equates to prolonged cold ischemic time and organs not placed, resulting in lost organ transplant opportunities. 1:03:10 Barry Friedman: Due to the limited expertise that UNOS has in the placement of organs, it would be best if they were no longer responsible for the development of organ placement practices. The UNOS policy making [process] lacks transparency. Currently OPTN board members concurrently serve as the board members of UNOS, which creates a conflict of interest that contributes to this lack of transparency. UNOS committees are formed in a vacuum. There is no call for nominations and no data shared with the transplant community to explain the rationale behind decisions that create policy change. 1:11:35 Dr. Jayme Locke: The most powerful thing to know about this is that every organ represents a life. We can never forget that. Imagine having a medication you need to live being thrown away simply because someone took too long to get it to you. Your life quite literally in a trash can. Organs are no different. They too have shelf lives and they are measured in hours. Discarded organs and transportation errors may sound abstract, but let me make this negligence real for you. In 2014, I received a kidney that arrived frozen, it was an ice cube you could put in your drink. The intended recipient was sensitized, meaning difficult to match. The only thing we could do was tell the waiting patient that due to the lack of transportation safeguard, the kidney had to be thrown in the trash, the final generous act of a donor in Maryland. In 2017, I received a kidney that arrived in a box that appeared to have tire marks on it. The box was squished and the container inside had been ruptured. We were lucky and were able to salvage the kidney for transplant. But why should luck even play a role? 1:12:45 Dr. Jayme Locke: In one week, I received four kidneys from four different OPOs, each with basic errors that led to the need to throw away those life saving organs. One due to a botched kidney biopsy into the kidneys collecting system, another because of a lower pole artery that had been cut during procurement that could have been fixed if someone involved had assessed the kidney for damage and flushed it before packing, but that didn't happen. Two others arrived to me blue, meaning they hadn't been flushed either. 1:13:15 Dr. Jayme Locke: Opacity at UNOS means that we have no idea how often basic mistakes happen across the country, nor can we have any confidence that anything is being done to redress such errors so they don't keep happening. 1:13:40 Dr. Jayme Locke: Women who have been pregnant, especially multiple times, are harder to match, contributing to both gender and racial disparities in access to transplant. This is a very real example of how a constrained pool of organs and high discards disproportionately hurt women and women of color, who are more likely to have multiple pregnancies. 1:14:25 Dr. Jayme Locke: Number one, immediately separate the OPTN board from any of the boards of any contractors. Number two, bring in real experts to ensure our patients are served by the best of the best in each field, separating out key functions of the OPTN, including policy, technology, and logistics. And number three, ensure that patients are safer by holding all contractors accountable through public adverse event reporting and immediate redressing of problems. 1:22:00 Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA): The system doesn't seem to be fair to racial minorities or people living in rural communities. So what are your efforts underway to understand the root causes and help make the system fairer to patients on the waiting list to explain the factors that result in the disparity for minorities in rural populations in the process? And how can the federal government address a problem if we have to be involved in addressing it? Dr. Jayme Locke: One of the most important things that we don't currently do is we don't actually account for disease burden in terms of examining our waiting lists. So we have no way of knowing if we're actually serving the correct people, if the correct people are actually making it to the waiting list. Disease burden is super important because it not only identifies the individuals who are in need of transplantation, but it also speaks to supply. So areas with high rates of end stage kidney disease burden, like the southeastern United States are going to have much lower supply. And those waiting lists predominantly consist of African American or Black individuals. So if you want to make a truly equitable organ system, you have to essentially get more organs to those areas where there are higher disease burdens. I think the other thing is that we have to have more focus on how we approach donor families and make sure that we have cultural competence as a part of our OPOs, and how they approach families to ensure that we're not marginalizing minority families with regard to the organ donation process. 1:30:00 Brian Shepard: The OPTN IT system that UNOS operates has 99.99% uptime. It is a highly reliable system. We are audited annually by HRSA.... Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD): My information shows it's had 17 days down since I think 1999. That's not correct? Brian Shepard: In 23 years, yes, sir. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD): Okay, well, every day there's a loss of life, isn't it? Brian Shepard: That's the total amount of time over the couse of -- Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD): I hope our national event system isn't down 17 days a year. Brian Shepard: The system has never been down for a day. And to my knowledge, and I have not been at UNOS since 1999, there's been maybe one event that was longer than an hour, and that was three hours. But the total amount of time since 1999 -- Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD): So you're satisfied with your technology? You think you have the right technology? You're satisfied with your tracking systems now? You think everything is okay? Brian Shepard: We constantly improve our technology. We're subjected to 3 million attempts a day to hack into the patient database and we successfully repelled them all. So we are never satisfied with our technology, but we do maintain 99.99% uptime. We disagree with the USDS analysis of our systems. 1:37:25 Brian Shepard: If you're asking whether UNOS can prevent an OPO from operating or for being an OPO -- Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH: Well not prevent them, but require them to do something .You don't have the ability to require them...? Brian Shepard: The peer review process has significant persuasive authority, but all the payment authority and all the certification and decertification authority live at CMS. 1:39:00 Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH: Do you think there should be tracking of organs in transit? Brian Shepard: I think that's a very beneficial thing. UNOS provides an optional service that a quarter of OPOs use. Many OPOs also use other commercially available trackers to do that. There is not a single requirement to use a particular system. 1:41:55 Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): Mr. Shepherd, you are the CEO of UNOS. We have documented these problems and you've received more than 1000 complaints in the last decade alone. So tell me, in the 36 years that UNOS has had the contract to run our national organ system, how many times has UNOS declared its OPO Members, any OPO members, not in good standing. Brian Shepard: Two times, Senator. 1:43:20 Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): How many times has UNOS put an OPO on probation? Brian Shepard: I don't know that number off the top of my head, but it's not a large number. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): It's not large, in fact it's three. 1:45:20 Brian Shepard: Approximately 10% of the budget of this contract is taxpayer funded. The rest of that is paid by hospitals when they list patients. 1:49:30 Sen. Todd Young (R-IN): Once an OPO is designated not in good standing, Senator Warren referred to this as toothless. It does seem toothless to me. I'll give you an opportunity, Mr. Shepherd, to disabuse me of that notion and indicate for me what penalties or sanctions are actually placed on an OPO when they are designated not in good standing. Brian Shepard: The statute does not give UNOS any authority to offer sanctions like that. The certification, decertification, payment authorities belong entirely to CMS. UNOS's statute doesn't give us the ability -- Sen. Todd Young (R-IN): So it is toothless in that sense. Brian Shepard: It is designed to be, by regulation and contract, a quality improvement process, in contrast to the oversight process operated by a federal agency. 1:51:15 Sen. Todd Young (R-IN): To what extent is UNOS currently tracking the status of all the organs in transit at any given time? Brian Shepard: UNOS does not coordinate transportation or track organs in transit. We do provide a service that OPOs can use to use GPS trackers. Some of the OPOs use ours and some use other commercially available products. Sen. Todd Young (R-IN): So why is it, and how does UNOS plan to optimize organ delivery if you don't have 100% visibility into where they are at any given time? Brian Shepard: I think that the GPS products that we offer and that other people offer are valuable, they do help in the delivery of kidneys. Only kidneys travel unaccompanied, so this is a kidney issue. But I do think that GPS trackers are valuable and I think that's why you've seen more and more OPOs use them. 1:52:50 Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR): Mr. Shepherd has said twice, with respect to this whole question of the power to decertify an OPO, that CMS has the power to do it. UNOS also has the power to refer an OPO for decertification under the OPTN final rule. That has been done exactly once. So I just wanted it understood with respect to making sure the committee has got what's really going on with respect to decertifying OPOs. 2:00:15 Dr. Jayme Locke: Obviously people have described that we have about a 25% kidney discard, so one in four. So if you look at numbers last year, these are rough numbers, but that'd be about 8000 kidneys. And really, I think, in some ways, these are kind of a victim of an entrenched and cumbersome allocation algorithms that are very ordinal, you have to go sort of in order, when data clearly have shown that introduction of multiple simultaneous expiring offers would result in more efficient placement of kidneys and this would decrease our cold ischemia time. 2:00:50 Dr. Jayme Locke: So if you take UNOS's organ center, they have a very rigid system, for example, for finding flights and lack either an ability or interest in thinking outside the box. So, for example, if there are no direct flights from California to Birmingham, Alabama, instead of looking for a flight from San Francisco to Atlanta, understanding that a courier could then pick it up in Atlanta and drive it the two hours, they'll instead put on a flight from SFO to Atlanta and allow it to go to cargo hold overnight, where it literally is rotting, if you will, and we're putting extra time on it. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR): Just to make sure everybody gets this. You're saying you've seen instances of something being put in cargo hold when it is very likely to rot? Dr. Jayme Locke: That is correct. So if the kidney arrives after 10pm at the Atlanta airport, it goes to cargo hold. We discovered that and made calls to the airlines ourselves and after several calls to the airlines, of course they were mortified, not understanding that that was what was happening and actually had their manager meet our courier and we were able to get the kidney out of cargo hold, but this went on before we figured out what was happening because essentially they fly it in, it sits in cargo hold, it comes out the next morning to catch the next flight. Instead of thinking outside the box: if we just get it to Atlanta, it's drivable to Birmingham. And those hours make a difference. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR): That sounds way too logical for what UNOS has been up to. 2:03:05 Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR): Miss Brockmeier, UNOS has developed this organ tracking system. Do you all use it? I'm curious what you think of it. Diane Brockmeier: Thank you for the question, Senator. We did use and participate in the beta pilot through UNOS and made the decision to not move forward using their product, and have sought a commercial alternative. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR): And why was that? Diane Brockmeier: Part of the issues were some service related issues, the lack of the interconnectivity that we wanted to be able to facilitate a more expedited visual tracking of where the organ was. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR): Was the tracking technology low quality? Diane Brockmeier: Yes, sir. 2:11:25 Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR): All right, let's talk for a moment about the boards that are supposed to be overseeing these, because it looks to me like there's a serious conflict of interest here and I'll send this to Ms. Brockmeier, and perhaps you'd like to get to it as well, Mr. Friedman. The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, which is the formal title of the organ network that operates under federal contract administered by HHS, and UNOS, which is the contractor that operates the network and controls information about the network, have the same boards of directors, despite efforts by the government to separate them. That means the people who look out for the best interests of UNOS, the multimillion dollar nonprofit, are the same people who look out for the interests of the entire organ transplant network. Sure sounds like a conflict to me. 2:12:55 Diane Brockmeier: I think there should be an independent board. I think the division of the responsibilities of the board and by the inherent way that they're structured, do pose conflicts. It would be like if you had an organization that was a supporting organization, you'd want to hold it accountable for its performance. And the current structure really limits that opportunity. 2:19:50 Dr. Jayme Locke: And if you think about IT, something as simple as having a system where we can more easily put in unacceptable antigens, this was a debate for many years. So for context, we list unacceptable antigens in the system that allows us to better match kidneys so that when someone comes up on the match run, we have a high probability that there'll be a good tissue match. Well, that took forever and we couldn't really get our unacceptable antigens in, so routinely people get offered kidneys that aren't going to be a match, and you have to get through all of those before you can get to the person that they really should go to. Those are simple examples. But if we could really have transparency and accountability around those kinds of things, we could save more lives. 2:23:10 Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR): Mr. Shepherd told Senator Warren that only 10% of UNOS funds come from taxpayer money and the rest comes from fees paid by transplant centers who add patients to the list. But the fact is, Medicare is the largest payer of the fees, for example, for kidneys. So we're talking about inefficiency, inefficiency that puts patients at risk. And certainly, taxpayer dollars are used to cover some of these practices. May 4, 2021 House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy Witnesses: Tonya Ingram, Patient Waiting for a Transplant Dr. Dara Kass, Living Donor and Mother of Transplant Recipient LaQuayia Goldring, Patient Waiting for a Transplant Steve Miller, CEO, Association for Organ Procurement Organizations Joe Ferreira, President, Association for Organ Procurement Organizations Matt Wadsworth, President and CEO, Life Connection of Ohio Dr. Seth Karp, Director, Vanderbilt Transplant Center Donna Cryer, President and CEO, Global Liver Institute Clips 5:15 Tonya Ingram: The Organ Procurement Organization that serves Los Angeles, where I live, is failing according to the federal government. In fact, it's one of the worst in the country. One analysis showed it only recovered 31% of potential organ donors. Audits in previous years found that LA's OPO has misspent taxpayer dollars on retreats to five star hotels and Rose Bowl tickets. The CEO makes more than $900,000. Even still, the LA OPO has not lost its government contract and it has five more years to go. 30:00 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): Unusual among Medicare programs, their costs are 100% reimbursed, even costs unrelated to care. So, extravagant executive compensation and luxury perks may be passed off onto the taxpayer. 46:55 Dr. Seth Karp: We have 10 hours to get a liver from the donor to the recipient, and about one hour to sew it in. For heart, we have about six hours. Time matters. 47:55 Dr. Seth Karp: Last year, I had the opportunity to co-write a viewpoint in one of the journals of the American Medical Association with TJ Patel, former Chief Data Scientist of the United States. In that article, we provided evidence that the metrics used to judge the performance of organ procurement organizations are basically useless. Until the recent OPO Final Rule, performance was self-reported, and OPO employees admitted to having gamed the system. When threatened with decertification, one of the OPOs themselves successfully argued that because the performance data were self reported and unaudited, they failed to meet a reasonable standard and the OPO should not be held accountable. In other words for decades, the metrics supposed to measure performance didn't measure performance, and the results have been disastrous, as you have heard. 49:45 Dr. Seth Karp: Whenever I, and quite frankly most everyone else in the field, gives a talk on transplantation, we usually make two points. The first is that organ transplantation is a miracle of modern medicine. The second is the tragedy that there are not enough organs for everyone who needs one. I no longer use the second point, because I don't believe it. Based on my work, I believe that there are enough organs for patients who require hearts, lungs, and probably livers, and we can make a huge improvement in the number of kidneys available. In addition to improving OPO performance, new technologies already exist to dramatically increase the organ supply. We need a structure to drive rapid improvement in our system. 54:00 Joe Ferreira: One common misconception is that OPOs are solely responsible for the entire donation and transplantation system, when, in fact, OPOs are the intermediary entity and their success is highly dependent on collaborations with hospitals and transplant programs. At the start of the donation process, hospitals are responsible for notifying any OPO in a timely manner when a patient is on a ventilator and meets medical criteria to be an organ donor. Additionally, transplant centers must make the decision whether to accept or decline the organs offered by OPOs. 57:55 Matt Wadsworth: As geographic monopolies, OPOs are not subject to any competitive pressure to provide high service. As the only major program in all of health care 100% reimbursed for all costs, we do not face financial pressures to allocate resources intelligently. 1:02:10 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): Mr. Ferreira, I'd like to turn to you. You run the OPO called the Nevada Donor Network. I have your OPO's 2019 financial statement filed with the CMS. It appears that your OPO spent roughly $6 million in 2019 on administrative and general expenses. Interestingly, in 2019, I see your OPO spent approximately $146,000 on travel meetings and seminars alone. And your itemization of Administrative and General has an interesting line item for $576,000 for "ANG". It took me a minute but that means you have an "Administrative and General" subcategory in your "Administrative and General" category. Very vague. Now Mr. Ferreira, I was informed by Mr. Wadsworth, a former executive of yours at the Nevada Donor Network, that your OPO has season tickets to the NHL's Las Vegas Golden Knights, isn't that correct? Joe Ferreira: That is correct, Mr. Chairman. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): And you also have season tickets to the Las Vegas Raiders too, right? Joe Ferreira: That is correct. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): And according to Mr. Wadsworth and others, your OPO took a board retreat to Napa Valley in 2018. Joe Ferreira: That is correct. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): And Sonoma in 2019, right? Joe Ferreira: That is correct. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): Mr. Ferreira, what you're spending on the Raiders, the Golden Knights, Napa Valley and Sonoma have one thing in common: they have nothing to do with recovering organs. 1:10:30 Dr. Seth Karp: In 2019, there were six heart transplants that were performed using donors after circulatory determination of death. And I don't want to get into the technical aspects of that. But in 2019, that number was six. In 2020, that number was 126. This is a new technology. This is a way that we can increase the number of heart transplants done in United States dramatically. And if we think that there were 500 patients in the United States waiting for a heart in 2020, 500 patients that either died or were delisted because they were too sick, and you think in one year, using a technology, we got another 100 transplants, if we could get another 500 transplants out of that technology, we could almost eliminate deaths on the on the heart transplant waiting list. That technology exists. It exists today. But we don't have a mechanism for getting it out to everybody that could use it and it's going to run itself through the system, it's going to take too much time. 1:24:05 Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA): You know, I'm a little disappointed that we're discussing race as a factor in organ transplant. We're all one race in my opinion; color makes no difference to me. We're the human race. And to me, the interjection of race into this discussion is very concerning. Discrimination based on race was outlawed almost 60 years ago through the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Now, I'm not a medical doctor, and I have very little knowledge of medicine. But last year, there was an article that came out in LifeSource and it says, "Does my race and ethnicity matter in organ donation?" And so my question here is for Dr. Karp. In your experience, would you agree that a donor's organs are more likely to be a clinical match for a recipient of the same ethnicity? Could you comment on that? Is that actually a factor, or not? I mean, we're all human beings, we all, you know, have similar bodies. Dr. Seth Karp: Yes. So there definitely are certain HLA types that are more common. That is race-based. So the answer to that question is yes. Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA): Okay. All right. And so if you have more of one particular race, more donations of one particular race, then naturally you would have more actual matches of that particular race. Is that correct? Dr. Seth Karp: That would tend to be the case. Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA): Okay. All right. All right. Okay, that's just a question that I wanted to clear up here. 1:34:20 Donna Cryer: We'd like to see investments in languages that are spoken by the community. Educational resources should be, as required by law, for those with limited English proficiency. They should be in the languages spoken by the community. They should be hiring diverse staff to have those most crucial conversations with families. The data shows, and certainly experience and common sense shows as well, that having people of color approaching families of color results in more donations. Executive Producer Recommended Sources Music by Editing Production Assistance

Do you hate hidden hotel, housing, airline, ticketing, banking, and other corporate fees? Do you want Congress to do something about them? In this episode, learn about the wide range of unreasonable fees being reported to Congress during hearings and examine what proposals could have bipartisan support. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: [email protected] Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or [email protected] Use your bank’s online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes FTC Authority Ronald Mann. Apr 23, 2021. SCOTUSblog. Supreme Court of the United States. April 22, 2021. Junk Fee Overview Ashish A. Pradhan. May 19, 2023. The National Law Review. Will Kenton. January 24, 2023. Investopedia. Brian Deese et al. October 26, 2022. White House Briefing Room Blog. October 20, 2022. Federal Trade Commission. Brian Canfield et al. July 7, 2021. Institute for Policy Integrity, NYU School of Law. Internet *Federal Communications Commission Healthcare August 8, 2022. Federal Trade Commission. Banking/Payments Lindsey D. Johnson. July 26, 2023. Consumer Bankers Association. July 11, 2023. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Newsroom. Offices of Consumer Populations and Markets. May 23, 2023. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. October 26, 2022. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Newsroom. September 28, 2022. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Newsroom. August 16, 2022. Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. August 16, 2022. U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Joe Valenti. March 30, 2022. * Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Blog. January 26, 2022. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Newsroom. December 7, 2020. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Newsroom. December 28, 2018. Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. Housing July 19, 2023. White House Briefing Room. March 14, 2023. National Consumer Law Center. Jennifer Ludden. January 13, 2023. WBUR. Airlines Reid Bramblett. Frommer’s. Suzanne Rowan Kelleher. Mar 7, 2023. Forbes. U.S. Department of Transportation. U.S. Department of Transportation. December 13, 2022. U.S. Department of Transportation. November 2022. Statista. Rosie Spinks. June 1, 2018. Quartz. May 2011. Jones Day. Hotels November 17, 2021. Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General. Christina Jelski. Mar 12, 2021. Travel Weekly. November 28, 2012. The Federal Trade Commission. Ticketing June 20, 2018. U.S. House of Representatives. Anne Bucher. June 13, 2018. Top Class Actions. “Susan Wang and Rene' Lee v. StubHub, Inc. Case” [No. CGC-18-564120]. The Superior Court of the State of California, County of San Francisco. Cars June 23, 2022. Federal Trade Commission. Laws Bills Audio Sources July 26, 2023 Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection Witnesses: Attorney General, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Director of Housing Advocacy, Atlanta Legal Aid Society Manager Director, Patomak Global Partners Clips Michelle Henry: In the consumer finance space, we recently filed a multi-state lawsuit against Mariner Finance, a Wall Street private equity-owned installment lender. Our lawsuit alleges that Mariner charged consumers junk fees for hidden add-on products that consumers either did not know about or did not agree to buy. These hidden add-on products, such as credit insurance and auto clubs, are typically low- or no-value products. Consumers left Mariner believing that they had entered into an agreement to borrow and repay over time a certain amount of money. In reality, because of these hidden junk fees, Mariner added hundreds to thousands of dollars to the total amount a consumer owed. The cost of the junk fees is staggering. For a random sample of loans originated in Pennsylvania in December of 2020, Mariner charged each consumer an average of $1,085 in junk fees for an average of $3,394 in cash borrowed. Michelle Henry: We also had a significant junk fee settlement in 2018 with Wells Fargo. This settlement stemmed from Wells charging its auto finance customers millions in junk fees. Despite evidence that many customers already had the required car insurance, Wells improperly charged more than 2 million accounts for force-placed insurance. To resolve the multi-state action, Wells agreed to pay states $575 million. Michelle Henry: In 2021, we announced the landmark junk fee settlement with Marriott International. For many years, travelers had been misled by the published rates offered by hotels for a night stay, only later to be hit with the mandatory resort fees when they were checking in. Thanks to our settlement, Marriott now has a policy in place to be upfront and transparent in the disclosure of mandatory fees, including resort fees, as part of the total price of a hotel stay, allowing consumers to compare total costs for hotels and find the one that is the best fit for them. Marriott was the first hotel chain to formally commit to the upfront disclosure of resort fees as part of the initial advertised price. We hope others will follow. Michelle Henry: In the end, what we are fighting here for is basic fairness and transparency. When consumers are shopping online or in person, they deserve to understand what a loan, a house, or a vacation will cost and exactly what key terms they're agreeing to. At the same time, all businesses deserve to compete on an even playing field, where the price is the price with no hidden surprise fees. Lindsey Siegel: My name is Lindsay Siegel and I'm the Director of Housing Advocacy at Atlanta Legal Aid, which provides free civil legal services to families with low incomes in the metro Atlanta area. Today, I will focus on the rental housing market and how predatory and hidden rental fees gouge families living in poverty and make their rent even more unaffordable than it already is. Miss Dixon is a single mother who found an online listing for an apartment in the fall of 2020. The advertisement said it rented for $1,400 per month. It did not list any other monthly fees she would be required to pay. She applied and paid $525 through the landlord's online portal, which covered her $50 application fee, a $175 moving fee, and a $300 screening fee, all of which were non-refundable. She was not able to see the lease or the apartment she'd be renting, but she knew if she did not pay sight unseen she would lose the apartment. And when her application was approved a few weeks later, the landlord charged her another $200 approval fee. She finally received and signed a copy of her lease just two days before she was slated to move in. It was 50 pages long and contained to eight different addenda. She had expected to pay her rent and for water. She didn't expect to be responsible for a package locker fee, a trash removal fee, a separate valet trash fee, a pest control fee, a technology package fee, an insurance fee, and a credit reporting fee. When the fees added up, $83 had been tacked on to her monthly rent. And to make matters worse, Miss Dixon's landlord did not accept the rent by cash, check, or money order. When she paid through the landlord's online portal she was charged another $72-per-payment convenience fee. The low income renters Atlanta Legal Aid represents have an extreme power imbalance with their landlords. The high demand for rental housing, especially at the more affordable end of the market, makes some landlords believe they can easily get away with unfair and deceptive lease terms and rental practices. The bait and switch Miss Dixon experienced where the landlord advertise the rent as one price only to raise it much higher with junk fees after she had spent hundreds of dollars up front is a far too common practice of many investor landlords in the Atlanta area. Low income renters like Miss Dixon become trapped. She couldn't afford to walk away from a predatory lease two days before she was supposed to move in, even if she realized it would be unaffordable. Of particular concern are the use of high application fees. They often far exceed the cost of running a report, and most renters have to pay them several times before finding a home to rent. We've heard reports that some institutional landlords even collect application fees after they've found a renter for an available home. Brian Johnson: The focus of the President's initiative has been on applying political pressure to companies to induce them to change their fee disclosure practices. In the process, the White House and supporting agencies have dismissed broad categories of fees as junk without ever providing any consistent definition of the term, which has created uncertainty as to which fees can be assessed by institutions without undue reputational or regulatory risk. Brian Johnson: The CFPB has been the most enthusiastic among regulators in heeding the President's call, indiscriminately attacking a growing list of common financial service fees, no matter that they are lawful and fully disclosed. Brian Johnson: The agency has publicly hectored companies about deposit account fees and used the implied threat of investigation to induce such companies to abandon these legal fees. Further, in addressing other fees, the CFPB appears appears to have violated its own regulations and laws governing how agencies proffer rules by disguising interpretive rules as policy statements in bulletins and issuing circulars that function as legislative rules. In another instance, under the guise of interpretation, the CFPB read a word into a statute to achieve its desired policy outcome. In still another, the agency treats the rulemaking process as a foregone conclusion, acting as though a still proposed rule has already taken effect, signaling that the agency has no interest in considering public comments, establishing an adequate evidentiary basis to support its conclusions, or considering potential changes to improve the rule. These examples demonstrate an abuse of power and the agency's disregard for process and the limits placed on it. Moreover, the CFPB's behavior subverts the authority of Congress to oversee the agency and legislate the legality of fees in our financial marketplace. Simply put, it's not playing by the rules. Lindsey Siegel: So I think the federal government does have a role to play. The CFPB could create best practices, investigate junk fees further -- especially those being charged for tenant screening reports -- could bring enforcement actions against debt collectors that engage in collection practices that violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act in their collection of rental debt especially includes collection of junk fees. And certainly, you know, HUD could further study and address the disproportionate impact of these practices on renters and rental applicants of color. Lindsey Siegel: Tenants living in Atlanta have a very hard time finding a rental, finding a home, that's not owned by a corporate landlord at this point. They have bought up many properties in the Atlanta area and they always seem to be working in lockstep so that once one institutional landlord is charging a certain kind of fee then another one tends to charge it as well. Just one example of this is the proliferation of landlords charging for insurance fees, and often tenants will think that these are renters insurance because they're often called renter's insurance. But it's not like traditional renter's insurance that protects the renter and their property if it's destroyed. What it does is protect the landlord and doesn't really provide a benefit to tenants at all. And we've seen that proliferate with investor landlords in particular. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC): I can't imagine any reasonable member of Congress not saying, "I want the person to know what their financial obligation is when they sign an instrument, not after they read page 10 in the fine print." Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC): I'm less caught up in whether or not a trash collection fee is appropriate or not, and more caught up in, does that renter know at the point in time they're signing a lease what they're expected to pay every month? Michelle Henry: We often see things bleed over state lines and boundaries, as you are well aware, and so it's important that we work together to enforce these matters. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA): How often do these kinds of cases cross state lines? And would having federal standards against these types of hidden fees make these cases easier to bring? Michelle Henry: Almost always. And I think that's critical. Where we have been most successful is joining with our fellow states, other attorneys general, partnering with them, and including the CFPB. In December of 2020, the CFPB, with all 50 states and the District of Columbia, filed enforcement action against Nationstar mortgage, again for deceptive practices, for not being transparent when they were servicing borrowers mortgages, and as a result of that joint effort we were able to obtain a settlement of $73 million and brought aid to 40,000 borrowers. Michelle Henry: You know, the reality is a lot of times consumers get misled. So they start, they're looking on the internet, they're trying to do due diligence and look for the best price, whether it's for a hotel, a vacation, and they're in there examining it, and they get led to a certain area of a certain website thinking that's the best price. And they go down this rabbit hole where they have no idea at the end of it that the price they thought they were going to pay for a hotel stay with their family is actually far larger because of fees that they weren't prepared, were not properly advised of, and at that point, they're so far in or they never discover it. So no, I don't think they understand exactly what to be aware of. We're trying to do our best to educate but far more work needs to be done, and I applaud this committee for working on it. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA): If more federal agencies had the authority to address these hidden fees, how would that affect your office's capacity? Michelle Henry: It would help tremendously. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA): Thank you so very much. Michelle Henry: If history is any lesson, we know that they can't be trusted to act in the best interest of consumers on their own. Look, they're in the business of making money for their shareholders and we need robust consumer protection rules and enforcement to ensure that. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC): So what we're talking about here is not the "what," it's the "how." And I for one do not think that the regulator's who have demonstrated pushing the boundaries of their authority, giving them more authority is a good idea if we're coming up with a real bipartisan sustainable solution. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC): The problem we have here too, when we transfer power out of Congress to another branch, yes, that changes every four years or so. So you may be thrilled with a regulatory regimen that comes out from the CFBP today, but because of the way they behaved, it'd be one of the first things I would work to repeal if the administration changed and withdraw it. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC): I'd like to submit for the record a letter from the Consumer Bankers Association on the subject. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC): Mr. Johnson, can you talk about the effect of the method that the CFPB is using to go after this and the impact that it can have, the negative implications that has? Is the CFPB's tendency to name and shame business institutions to avoid certain practices or adopt new ones effective regulation? They're not really thinking through the full impact and all the potential unintended consequences. Can you think of any example under this current leadership of the CFPB where they have taken that into consideration? Can you speak a little bit about the efforts and the length the CFPB goes in an effort to avoid judicial review and skirt the APA process? June 8, 2023 Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation: Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security Witnesses: Chief Executive Officer, National Consumers League Bruce Greenwald Professor of Business, Marketing Division, Columbia Business School George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia School of Law, George Mason University Clips 21:35 Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO): Simply put, these are fees that are disclosed to a consumer midway through or at the end of a transaction, or they're fees that serve no tangible purpose for a consumer, like a processing fee, and that they are mandatory or unavoidable. 28:00 Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN): The way I look at this issue, and the way many Tennesseans look at it, is this is another way for the FTC, the CFPB, DoT, and all these regulators to clamp down on businesses and try to micro manage businesses. 30:42 Dr. Vicki Morwitz: as a strategy where firms decide to divide a product's price into two or more mandatory parts, a base price for the main product and one or more mandatory surcharges, rather than charging a single all-inclusive price. For example, many hotels have a mandatory fee on top of the daily room rate. These are sometimes called resort fees, or facility fees, or destination fees and can range from $20 to over $50 a night. And many rental car agencies assess several mandatory fees on top of the daily rental rate, such as concession recovery fees, customer facility fees, energy recovery fees, and vehicle licensing fees. 31:20 Dr. Vicki Morwitz: In general, what research on partition pricing has shown is that when firms separate out mandatory surcharges consumers tend to underestimate the total price they'll have to pay and they're often more likely to complete the purchase. 31:50 Dr. Vicki Morwitz: With drip pricing, firms advertise only part of our products' price upfront and reveal other charges later, as shoppers go through the buying process. Drip fees can be mandatory or can be for optional items, but for today's testimony I'll focus on the dripping of mandatory surcharges. Drip pricing is commonly used in industries like the cable TV and the ticketing industries. When a consumer shops for a TV-Internet bundle from a cable television provider, they may first see an attractive base price offer for the bundle, but later learn there are also broadcast TV fees, set top box fees, regional sports fees, and TV connection fees that raise the price considerably. And a consumer shopping for a ticket for a live event, like a concert, a play, or a baseball game, typically first sees the price for different seats in the venue. After selecting a seat, as the consumer clicks through more webpages, they may come to learn there's also a mandatory booking fee, ticketing fee, venue fee, and delivery fee, even when the tickets are delivered electronically. Eventually, they see a total price that may be much higher than the first price they saw and they may be under time pressure to complete the purchase, as there might be a countdown clock that indicates they have to complete their purchase in just a few minutes. Or they may be told there's only two seats left at that price. 33:00 Dr. Vicki Morwitz: What research has shown is that when surcharges are dripped, consumers end up being more likely to buy a product that appears cheaper upfront based only on the base price, but that's more expensive and total given the drip fees. Consumers also tend to buy more expensive products than they otherwise would, such as a seat closer to the stage for a live event. 35:00 Dr. Vicki Morwitz: These policies will benefit consumers if they require that upfront stated prices must be all-inclusive. In other words, all mandatory fees must be included in the total price and that the total price should be seen upfront. This is what academic research suggests will be most beneficial to consumers. 39:20 Dr. Todd Zywicki: Everybody knows bags fly free on Southwest, everybody knows bags don't fly free on the legacy airlines, everybody knows there's going to be a fee for for bags on the other airlines and the like. Maybe there's ways you can disclose it, but nobody's fooled at this point. 42:45 Sally Greenberg: If consumers hate junk fees so much, why do companies large and small increasingly impose them? The answer is, unsurprisingly, because they are a substantial profit center. 43:20 Sally Greenberg: Late payment fees charged by banks and credit cards cost American families an estimated $12 billion annually. These fees, which can be as much as $41 for each Late Fee Payment, far exceed the cost to the issuer for processing and do little to deter future delinquent payments. 43:40 Sally Greenberg: Airlines are also poster children for junk fees. Globally, revenue from junk fees, ancillary fees in airline speak, brought in $102.8 billion in 2022. To put this in perspective, junk fees last year made up 15% of global airline revenues, compared to 6% only 10 years ago. 44:00 Sally Greenberg: Anyone who buys tickets to a concert or sporting event is well acquainted with the myriad fees. They're added at the end of the ticket buying process. We have the example that you showed, Senator Hickenlooper. Primary and secondary market ticketing companies charge service fees, order processing fees, delivery fees and other charges that increased ticket prices on average 27% for the primary market and 31% for the secondary market. 45:05 Sally Greenberg: Junk fees themselves are anti-competitive. They make comparing prices more difficult, distorting well functioning marketplaces. Honest entrepreneurs who invest in their businesses, innovate, and strive to create better value for their customers lose business. Action to address the consumer and competitive harm created by junk fees is urgently needed. 45:30 Sally Greenberg: First, we would urge you to support S. 916. It's the Junk Fee Prevention Act, which would require some of the worst abusers of junk fees to display the full price of services upfront, and they would bar excessive fees and ensure transparency. Second, we ask that Congress restore the FTC's ability to obtain strong financial penalties from wrongdoers. The Supreme Court, in 2021, overturned AMG Capital Management v. FTC, wiping out a critical enforcement tool for the commission. S. 4145, which is the Consumer Protection Remedies Act, would restore that ability to impose monetary relief to the commission. And finally, Congress must not allow businesses that trap consumers with unfair and deceptive fees to escape accountability through fine print in their contracts. To that end, we're proud to support S. 1376, the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act, which would prohibit pre-dispute arbitration agreements from being enforceable if they require arbitration in employment, consumer, antitrust, or civil rights disputes 44:35 Sally Greenberg: Renters, for example, tend to have lower incomes than those who own their homes. These consumers are also some of the most preyed upon by abusive junk fees. A 2022 survey conducted by Consumer and Housing Advocates found that 89% of landlords imposed some rental application fees[[ clare, 8/7/2023 2:09 PM couldn’t find this specific survey]], nearly as many renters paid excessive late fees and they also get hit with utility, administrative, convenience, insurance, and notice fees. 51:30 Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN): I'm not hearing from Tennesseans about junk fees. They're just not talking about. They are talking about real economic harm. And I think for some it's been kind of perplexing that we would focus on this issue. I even had one Tennessean say, "Well, what exactly is a junk fee? And what are the economic harms that come to people for fees for discretionary services?" 53:20 Dr. Todd Zywicki: I can't see any reason why people who pay their credit cards on time should have to subsidize people who pay their credit cards late. The evidence is clear on this from the that if you reduce late fees, more people pay late. The makes clear that if you reduce late fees, everybody ends up paying higher interest rates and, and lower income and higher risk borrowers get less access to credit. So most of what we see in the market is efficient. It prevents cross consumer subsidies and a lot of these things that are labeled as junk fees are actually just efficient multi-part pricing. 1:00:30 Dr. Vicki Morwitz: When a larger firm, or really any firm, uses hidden fees or surcharges, it doesn't only hurt consumers, but it hurts well intentioned, honest competitors like many of our country's small businesses that you're talking about. So when a larger firm makes salient a lower base price and only puts in small print or only reveals at the end of the shopping process that there are additional mandatory fees, their product offerings may appear, at least at first, to be cheaper than those of say a small business, an honest competitor who uses all inclusive prices, whose prices at least at first then, will appear more expensive, even if they're actually cheaper in total when the hidden fees of the large firm are added in. Now, research shows this is going to lead consumers to be more likely to even first consider the products and services of the larger firm who uses hidden surcharges because their products seem cheaper. In other words, their supposed low prices draw consumers in. But then having first consider their products consumers will also be more likely to stick with that firm and ultimately purchase their products, even when they're more expensive in total with the fees. So these hidden fees, they don't only hurt consumers by leading them to make purchases that are against their own self interest, but it also hurts honest competitors who are using transparent pricing practices. 1:04:10 Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN): One area of this high excessive fees is ticketing. We had the hearing earlier this year with the president of Live Nation/ Ticketmaster, and other witnesses and as you are aware, the facts are quite startling. It's being reviewed by the Justice Department, including 90% monopoly on ticketing for major NFL, NHL events, 80% for major arena events, and 70% monopoly when it comes to all ticketing. In addition to that, Ticketmaster now owns a number of venues and also locks in a number of other venues that they don't own with their services for in excess of seven years, which is a subject of a bill that Senator Blumenthal and I have introduced, because this locking in makes for even less competition. And then finally, Live Nation promotes the act. So it's like a three cornered monopoly. 1:12:30 Sally Greenberg: Yes, you may know that you have a baggage fee, but there are many people who are older, who have disabilities, who may have children with them; they cannot be carrying their bags onto the airplane. So they are forced to eat the cost of a $35 fee, something that used to be free before, and has jammed our airplanes full of luggage up top, creating hazards for flight attendants as well. 1:13:55 Sally Greenberg: We certainly support the Good Jobs for Airports Act. I think many consumers had no idea that a lot of these workers were not making minimum wage[[ clare, 8/7/2023 2:08 PM couldn’t find a source for this.]], were relying on tips. And many people who use the wheelchairs and the curbside baggage services did not know that people were living on tip wages and many people don't tip, as some of us who've been tipped workers know. Tipping is very up and down and certainly not a reliable source of income. So yes, we very much appreciate that legislation and it's long overdue. 1:21:20 Dr. Todd Zywicki: Junk fees is a meaningless term, but it's worse than meaningless. It's actually pernicious, which is that by sort of using this blanket conclusory label, it obscures the complexity of this, the difference between trip pricing, risk based pricing, multipart pricing, partition pricing, and that sort of thing, and it kind of sweeps into one bucket things that are legitimate, things that are aren't, things that might be partially legitimate. And now it's even got more confusing because if you look at the FTC rule, for example, on auto dealers, they take things like nitrogen filled tires, they charge more money for a claim that's a junk fee. The problem with that is not that it's a separate price for nitrogen filled tires. The problem, if there's a problem, is that nitrogen filled tires are garbage, right? There's nothing there. It doesn't matter whether it's disclosed separately or bundled in the price if it's a worthless product. And so when we talk about junk fees, we can end up confusing ourselves, lumping in things because we want to just apply this label to it, whereas I think it'd be much better to understand risk based pricing. What are things where they're pricing for something that you get no value from? What are the things where they're pricing things simply to extract wealth from consumers and the like? Executive Producer Recommended Sources Music by Editing Production Assistance

On June 21st, the House of Representatives censured Rep. Adam Schiff of California. The House has censured members just 24 times in our nation’s history, making Schiff the 25th. In this episode, we'll detail the actions outlined in the censure and let you decide for yourself: Is it a serious abuse of power? Is it a waste of time? Is it a deserved punishment? Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: [email protected] Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or [email protected] Use your bank’s online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes The History of Censure U.S. House of Representatives Office of History, Art and Archives. July 22, 2023. Wikipedia. The Durham Report John Durham. May 12, 2023. U.S. Department of Justice. FISA Warrants Rebecca Beitsch. July 21, 2023. The Hill. Andrew Prokop. February 24, 2018. Vox. February 5, 2018. U.S. House of Representatives The Whistleblower Julian E. Barnes et al. October 2, 2019. The New York Times. Julian E. Barnes and Nicholas Fandos. September 17, 2019. The New York Times. Kyle Cheney. September 13, 2019. Politico. Republicans Who Blocked the First Censure Jared Gans. June 16, 2023. The Hill. Senate Campaign Fundraising Jamie Dupree. July 17, 2023. Regular Order. Impeachment Mania Don Wolfensberger. July 10, 2023. The Hill. Alex Gangitano and Brett Samuels. July 1, 2023. The Hill. Rebecca Beitsch and Emily Brooks. June 29, 2023. The Hill. The Resolution Audio Sources June 21, 2023 House Floor June 21, 2023 House Floor Clips 1:15 Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL): With access to sensitive information unavailable to most Members of Congress, and certainly not accessible to the American people, Representative SCHIFF abused his privileges, claiming to know the truth, while leaving Americans in the dark about this web of lies. These were lies so severe that they altered the course of the country forever: the lie that President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 Presidential election revealed to be completely false by numerous investigations, including the Durham report; the lie that the Steele dossier—a folder of falsified and since completely debunked collusion accusations funded by the Democratic Party—had any shred of credibility, yet Representative SCHIFF read it into the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD as fact; the lies concocted and compiled in a false memo that was used to lie to the FISA court, to precipitate domestic spying on U.S. citizen, Carter Page, violating American civil liberties. 12:20 Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Mr. Speaker, to my Republican colleagues who introduced this resolution, I thank you. You honor me with your enmity. You flatter me with this falsehood. You, who are the authors of a big lie about the last election, must condemn the truthtellers, and I stand proudly before you. Your words tell me that I have been effective in the defense of our democracy, and I am grateful. 13:15 Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Donald Trump is under indictment for actions that jeopardize our national security, and MCCARTHY would spend the Nation’s time on petty political payback, thinking he can censure or fine Trump’s opposition into submission. But I will not yield, not one inch. The cost of the Speaker’s delinquency is high, but the cost to Congress of this frivolous and yet dangerous resolution may be even higher, as it represents another serious abuse of power. 14:50 Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): This resolution attacks me for initiating an investigation into the Trump campaign’s solicitation and acceptance of Russian help in the 2016 election, even though the investigation was first led not by me but by a Republican chairman. 15:10 Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): It would hold that when you give internal campaign polling data to a Russian intelligence operative while Russian intelligence is helping your campaign, as Trump’s campaign chairman did, that you must not call that collusion, though that is its proper name, as the country well knows. 15:30 Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): It would fine me for the costs of the critically important Mueller investigation into Trump’s misconduct, even though the special counsel was appointed by Trump’s own Attorney General. 16:00 Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): It would reprimand me over a flawed FISA application, as if I were its author or I were the Director of the FBI, and over flaws only discovered years later and by the inspector general, not Mr. Durham. In short, it would accuse me of omnipotence, the leader of some vast deep state conspiracy. Of course, it is nonsense. 16:50 Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): My colleagues, if there is cause for censure in this House, and there is, it should be directed at those in this body who sought to overturn a free and fair Election. 19:05 Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL): Representative SCHIFF used his position as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to mislead the American people by falsely claiming that there was classified evidence of Russia colluding with President Trump, which was not true. 22:15 Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY): SCHIFF repeatedly used the authority he was afforded in his position as chairman to lie to the American people to support his political agenda. Even after the Durham report discredited the Russia hoax, he continued to knowingly lie and peddle this false narrative. 24:45 Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY): ADAM SCHIFF has done nothing wrong. ADAM SCHIFF is a good man. ADAM SCHIFF has served this country with distinction. ADAM SCHIFF served this country well as a Federal prosecutor, fighting to keep communities safe. ADAM SCHIFF served this country well as the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, investigating people without fear or favor, including those at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue because he believes in the Constitution and his oath of office. ADAM SCHIFF served his country well as the lead impeachment manager during the first impeachment trial of the former President of the United States, prosecuting his corrupt abuse of power. Yes, ADAM SCHIFF served this country well in the aftermath of the violent insurrection. He pushed back against the big lie told by the puppet master in chief and participated as a prominent member of the January 6th Committee to defend our democracy. ADAM SCHIFF has done nothing wrong. He has worked hard to do right by the American people. The extreme MAGA Republicans have no vision, no agenda, and no plan to make life better for the American people, so we have this phony, fake, and fraudulent censure resolution. A DAM SCHIFF will not be silenced. We will not be silenced. House Democrats will not be silenced today. We will not be silenced tomorrow. We will not be silenced next week. We will not be silenced next month. We will not be silenced next year. We will not be silenced this decade. We will not be silenced this century. You will never ever silence us. We will always do what is right. We will always fight for the Constitution, fight to defend democracy, fight for freedom, expose extremism, and continue America’s long, necessary, and majestic march toward a more perfect Union. 29:10 Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC): Not only did he spread falsehoods that abused his power, he went after a man, Carter Page, who was completely innocent. Inspector General Horowitz found 17 major mistakes. 31:20 Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL): What really gnaws on the majority and what really bothers them is that Mr. SCHIFF was way better than anybody on their team at debate, at leadership, at messaging, and at legal knowledge. He kicked their ass. He was better, he was more effective, and that still bothers them. 35:40 Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA): Mr. Speaker, I opposed the original version of this resolution, not to defend Mr. SCHIFF’s lies, but to defend the process that exposed those lies. We must never punish speech in this House, only acts. The only way to separate truth from falsehoods or wisdom from folly is free and open debate. We must never impose excessive fines that would effectively replace the constitutional two-thirds vote for expulsion with a simple majority. This new version removes the fine and focuses instead on specific acts, most particularly the abuse of his position as Intelligence Committee chairman by implying he had access to classified information that did not exist and his placement into the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD of the Steele dossier that he knew or should have known was false. 42:35 Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT): The most important thing I can say is that I sat next to ADAM SCHIFF for years. He is a man of integrity and dignity. 49:45 Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX): ADAM SCHIFF is tough. ADAM SCHIFF is smart. ADAM SCHIFF gets the job done. ADAM SCHIFF holds the powerful accountable. 56:35 Rep. André Carson (D-IN): Mr. Speaker, what I do know is that ADAM SCHIFF defended the U.S. Constitution. He led an impartial investigation which followed the facts and led to the first of two impeachments of a former President. 1:00:20 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): Today, we are voting on a joke of a measure to censure ADAM SCHIFF, a true public servant and patriot. I urge a strong ‘‘no’’ against this resolution targeting a true American hero. 1:08:30 Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): The only advantage to all of this is that instead of reversing what we did on the IRA to save the planet or reversing what we did to reduce the cost of prescription drugs, we are wasting time. September 26, 2019 CNN Clips 9:05 Wolf Blitzer: As you know, Mr. Chairman, you're being severely criticized by a lot of Republicans for mocking the president during your opening remarks today at the committee. Was it a mistake to make light of the situation? Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Well, I don't think it's making light of a situation. And I certainly wouldn't want to suggest that there's anything comical about this. But I do think it's all too accurate, that this President, in his conversations with the President of Ukraine, was speaking like an organized crime boss. And the fact that these words are so suggestive that the President used of what we have seen of organized crime harkens back to me of what, for example, James Comey said when he was asked by the President if he could let this matter involving Flynn go, when Michael Cohen testified about how the President speaks in a certain code where you understand exactly what's required here. The point is that the President was using exactly that kind of language. And the President of Ukraine fully understood what he was talking about. Wolf Blitzer: Do you regret the, what you call the parody, the use of those phrases during the course of your opening statement? Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): No, I think everyone understood -- and my GOP colleagues may feign otherwise -- that when I said, suggested that it was as if the President said, "listen carefully, because I'm only going to tell you seven more times" that I was mocking the President's conduct. But make no mistake about this, what the President did is of the utmost gravity and the utmost seriousness, because it involves such a fundamental betrayal of his oath. September 26, 2019 House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Witnesses: Joseph Maguire, Acting Director of National Intelligence, Office of the Director of National Intelligence Clips 6:54 Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): President Zelensky, eager to establish himself at home as the friend of the president of the most powerful nation on earth, had at least two objectives: get a meeting with the president and get more military help. And so what happened on that call? Zelensky begins by ingratiating himself, and he tries to enlist the support of the president. He expresses his interest in meeting with the president, and says his country wants to acquire more weapons from us to defend itself. 7:30 Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): And what is the President’s response? Well, it reads like a classic organized crime shakedown. Shorn of its rambling character and in not so many words, this is the essence of what the President communicates. We’ve been very good to your country. Very good. No other country has done as much as we have. But you know what? I don’t see much reciprocity here. I hear what you want. I have a favor I want from you, though. And I’m going to say this only seven times, so you better listen good. I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent. Understand? Lots of it, on this and on that. I'm gonna put you in touch with people, not just any people, I'm going to put you in touch with Attorney General of the United States, my attorney general, Bill Barr. He's got the whole weight of the American law enforcement behind him. And I'm gonna put you in touch with Rudy, you're going to love Him, trust me. You know what I'm asking. And so I'm only going to say this a few more times, in a few more ways. And by the way, don't call me again, I'll call you when you've done what I asked. This is, in some in character, what the President was trying to communicate with the President of Ukraine. It would be funny if it wasn't such a graphic betrayal of the President's oath of office. But as it does represent a real betrayal, there's nothing the President says here that is in America's interest, after all. 1:14:40 Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH): While the chairman was speaking I actually had someone text me, "Is he just making this up?" And yes, yes he was. Because sometimes fiction is better than the actual words or the texts. But luckily the American public are smart and they have the transcript, they've read the conversation, they know when someone's just making it up. 1:19:45 Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): In my summary, the President's call was meant to be at least part in parody. The fact that that's not clear is a separate problem in and of itself. Of course, the president never said, "If you don't understand me, I'm gonna say seven more times." My point is, that's the message that the Ukraine president was receiving, in not so many words. September 17, 2019 Morning Joe on MSNBC Clips Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower. We would like to. But I'm sure the whistleblower has concerns that he has not been advised as the law requires by the Inspector General or the Director of National Intelligence, just as to how he is to communicate with Congress. And so the risk of the whistleblower is retaliation. Will the whistleblower be protected under the statute if the offices that are supposed to come to his assistance and provide the mechanism are unwilling to do so? But yes, we would love to talk directly with the whistleblower. March 28, 2019 CNN with Chris Cuomo Clips Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): One, there's ample evidence of collusion in plain sight and that is true. And second, that is not the same thing as whether Bob Muller would be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the crime of conspiracy. There's a difference between there being evidence of collusion and proof beyond reasonable doubt of a crime. March 24, 2019 This Week with George Stephanopoulos Clips George Stephenopolous: You have said though in the past there is significant evidence of collusion. How do you square that with Robert Muller's decision not to indict anyone. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): There is significant evidence of collusion, and we've set that out time and time again, from the secret meetings in Trump Tower to the conversations between Flynn and the Russian ambassador, to the providing of polling data to someone linked to Russian intelligence, and Stone's conversation with WikiLeaks and the GRU through -- George Stephenopolous: None of it prosecuted. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Well that's true. And as I pointed out on your show many times, there's a difference between compelling evidence of collusion and whether the Special Counsel concludes that he can prove beyond a reasonable doubt the criminal charge of conspiracy. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): We need to be able to see any evidence that this President, or people around him, may be compromised by a foreign power. We've of course seen all kinds of disturbing indications that this President has a relationship with Putin that is very difficult to justify or explain. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): It's our responsibility to tell the American people, "These are the facts. This is what your president has done. This is what his key campaign and appointees have done. These are the issues that we need to take action on." This is potential compromise. There is evidence, for example, quite in the public realm that the President sought to make money from the Russians, sought the Kremlin's help to make money during the presidential campaign, while denying business ties with the Russians. February 17, 2019 CNN with Dana Bash Clips Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Look, you can see evidence in plain sight on the issue of collusion, pretty compelling evidence. Now, there's a difference between seeing evidence of collusion and being able to prove a criminal conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt. August 5, 2018 Face the Nation Clips Margaret Brennan: Can you agree that there has been no evidence of collusion, coordination, or conspiracy that has been presented thus far between the Trump campaign and Russia? Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): No, I don't agree with that at all. I think there's plenty of evidence of collusion or conspiracy in plain sight. December 10, 2017 CNN Clips Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): But we do know this: the Russians offered help, the campaign accepted help. The Russians gave help and the President made full use of that help, and that is pretty damning whether it is proof beyond a reasonable doubt of conspiracy or not. November 1, 2017 MSNBC Clips Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): What is clear as this: the Kremlin repeatedly told the campaign it had dirt on Clinton and offered to help it and at least one top Trump official, the President's own son, accepted. Rachel Maddow: The Kremlin offered dirt to the Trump campaign. The President's campaign said yes to that offer. That's no longer an open question. All that stuff has now been proven and admitted to. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee today, using his time today, using his opening statement today to walk through -- ding ding ding, point by point -- what we've already learned in black and white, in written correspondence and public statements and in freaking court filings, about all the times the Trump campaign was offered helped by Russia to influence our election and all the times the Trump campaign said "Yes, please." March 23, 2017 The View Clips Jedediah Bila: Congressman, you made yesterday what some are deeming a provocative statement by saying that there is more than circumstantial evidence now that the Trump camp colluded with Russia. Senator John McCain was critical of that, others have been critical of that. Can you defend that statement? Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Yes. And I, you know, I don't view it as the same bombshell that apparently they did. Look, I've said that I thought there was circumstantial evidence of collusion or coordination, and that there was direct evidence of deception. And no one had an issue with that. And I don't think anyone really contested that, on the basis of the information we keep getting, I can say, in my opinion, it's now not purely circumstantial. We had the FBI Director testify in open session about this, acknowledge an FBI investigation. Obviously, this is now public. And I think it's fair to say that that FBI investigation is justified, that that wouldn't be done on the basis of not credible allegations. And so I think it's appropriate to talk in general terms about the evidence, but I don't think it's appropriate for us to go into specifics and say, "This is what we know from this piece of classified information," or "this what we know from this witness." But I do think, in this investigation where the public is hungry for information, it is important that we try to keep the public in the loop. That's why we're having public hearings. March 22, 2017 MSNBC Clips Chuck Todd: You have seen direct evidence of collusion? Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): I don't want to go into specifics, but I will say that there is evidence that is not circumstantial. March 19, 2017 Meet the Press Clips Chuck Todd: Collusion is sort of what hasn't been proven here between whatever the Russians did and the Trump campaign. In fact, the former Acting Director of the CIA, who was Mike Morell, who was a supporter of Hillary Clinton, he essentially reminded people and took Director Clapper at his word on this show who said, there has been no evidence that has been found of collusion. Are we at the point of -- at what point do you start to wonder if there is a fire to all this smoke? Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): Well, first of all, I was surprised to see Director Clapper say that because I don't think you can make that claim categorically as he did. I would characterize it this way at the outset of the investigation: there is circumstantial evidence of collusion. There is direct evidence, I think, of deception. Executive Producer Recommended Sources Music by Editing Production Assistance

Since May 2022, Congress has held three hearings looking into Unidentified Aerial Phenomena and the possibility of non-human intelligent life flying aircraft on Earth. In this episode, hear testimony from three Defense Department officials and three credible whistleblowers, whose testimony is often as contradictory as it is shocking. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: [email protected] Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or [email protected] Use your bank’s online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources Whistleblower Protections Clayton E. Wire. 2020. Ogborn Mihm LLP. Security Classifications Security Classification of Information, Volume 2. Principles for Classification of Information. Arvin S. Quist. Oak Ridge National Laboratory: 1993. UAP Background Brian Entin. June 6, 2023. NewsNation. Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal. June 5, 2023. The Debrief. May 16, 2021. 60 Minutes. Ralph Blumenthal. December 18, 2017. The New York Times. Helene Cooper et al. December 16, 2017. The New York Times. Independent Research and Development National Defense Industrial Association. SCIFs Derek Hawkins et al. April 26, 2023. The Washington Post. Kirkpatrick Response Letter D. Dean Johnson (@ddeanjohnson). Twitter. Audio Sources July 26, 2023 House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Witnesses: , Former Commanding Officer, United States Navy Ryan Graves, Executive Director, Americans for Safe Aerospace David Grusch, Former National Reconnaissance Office Representative, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, Department of Defense Clips timestamps reflect C-SPAN video 4:30 Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI): The National Defense Authorization Act of 2022 established the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office or AARO to conduct or to coordinate efforts across the Department of Defense and other federal agencies to detect, identify and investigate UAPs. However, AARO's budget remains classified, prohibiting meaningful oversight from Congress. 19:50 Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA): We know the Senate is taking up an amendment to their defense authorization bill which will create a commission with broad declassification authority and we should all agree that that is an important step. 27:40 Ryan Graves: Excessive classification practices keep crucial information hidden. Since 2021, all UAP videos are classified as secret or above. This level of secrecy not only impedes our understanding, but fuels speculation and mistrust. 27:55 Ryan Graves: In 2014, I was an F-18 Foxtrot pilot in the Navy fighter attack Squadron 11, the Red Rippers, and I was stationed at NAS Oceana in Virginia Beach. After upgrades were made to our jet's radar systems, we began detecting unknown objects operating in our airspace. At first, we assumed they were radar errors. But soon we began to correlate the radar tracks with multiple onboard sensors, including infrared systems, and eventually through visual ID. During a training mission in Warning Area W-72, 10 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach. Two F/A-18F Super Hornets were split by a UAP. The object, described as a dark gray or a black cube inside of a clear sphere, came within 50 feet of the lead aircraft and was estimated to be five to 15 feet in diameter. The mission commander terminated the flight immediately and returned to base. Our squadron submitted a safety report, but there was no official acknowledgement of the incident and no further mechanism to report the sightings. Soon these encounters became so frequent that aircrew would discuss the risk of UAP as part of their regular pre-flight briefs. 29:00 Ryan Graves: Recognising the need for action and answers, I founded Americans for Safe Aerospace. The organization has since become a haven for UAP witnesses who were previously unspoken due to the absence of a safe intake process. More than 30 witnesses have come forward and almost 5000 Americans have joined us in the fight for transparency at safeaerospace.org 29:20 Ryan Graves: The majority of witnesses are commercial pilots at major airlines. Often, they are veterans with decades of flying experience. Pilots are reporting UAP at altitudes that appear above them at 40,000 feet potentially in low Earth orbit or in the gray zone below the Karman Line, making unexplainable maneuvers like right hand turns and retrograde orbits or J hooks. Sometimes these reports are reoccurring with numerous recent sightings north of y and in the North Atlantic. Other veterans are also coming forward to us regarding UAP encounters in our airspace and oceans. The most compelling involve observations of UAP by multiple witnesses and sensor systems. I believe these accounts are only scratching the surface and more will share their experiences once it is safe to do so. 31:30 David Grusch: I became a whistleblower through a PPD 19 urgent concern filing in May 2022 with the intelligence community Inspector General following concerning reports from multiple esteemed and credentialed current and former military and intelligence community individuals that the US government is operating with secrecy above congressional oversight with regards to UAPs. My testimony is based on information I've been given by individuals with a long standing track record of legitimacy and service to this country, many of whom also have shared compelling evidence in the form of photography, official documentation, and classified oral testimony to myself and my various colleagues. I have taken every step I can to corroborate this evidence over a period of four years while I was with the UAP Task Force and do my due diligence on the individual sharing it. Because of these steps. I believe strongly in the importance of bringing this information before you. 33:30 David Grusch: In 2019, the UAP Task Force director asked me to identify all Special Access Programs and Controlled Access Programs, also known as SAPS and CAPS. We needed to satisfy our congressionally mandated mission and we were direct report at the time to the [Deputy Secretary of Defense]. At the time, due to my extensive executive level intelligence support duties, I was cleared to literally all relevant compartments and in a position of extreme trust both in my military and civilian capacities. I was informed in the course of my official duties of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program to which I was denied access to those additional read-ons when I requested it. I made the decision based on the data I collected to report this information to my superiors and multiple Inspectors General and, in effect, becoming a whistleblower. 35:20 Cmdr. David Fravor: We were attached to carrier 11, stationed onboard USS Nimitz and began a two month workup cycle off the coast of California. On this day, we were scheduled for a two v two air-to-air training with the USS Princeton as our control. When we launched off Nimitz, my wingman was joining out, we were told that the training was going to be suspended and we're going to proceed with real world tasking. As we proceeded to the West, the air controller was counting down the range to an object that we were going to and we were unaware of what we're going to see when we arrived. There, the controller told us that these objects had been observed for over two weeks coming down from over 80,000 feet, rapidly descending to 20,000 feet, hanging out for hours and then going straight back up. For those who don't realize, above 80,000 feet is space. We arrived at the location at approximately 20,000 feet and the controller called the merge plot, which means that our radar blip was now in the same resolution cell as a contact. As we looked around, we noticed that we saw some whitewater off our right side. It's important to note the weather on this day was as close to perfect as you could ask for off the coast of San Diego: clear skies, light winds, calm seas, no white caps from waves. So the whitewater stood out in a large blue ocean. All four of us, because we were in an F/A-18F F, so we had pilots and WSO in the backseat, looked down and saw a white tic tac object with a longitudinal axis pointing north-south and moving very abruptly over the water, like a ping pong ball. There were no rotors, no rotor wash, or any sign of visible control surfaces like wings. As we started clockwise towards the object, my WSO I decided to go down and take a closer look with the other aircraft staying in high cover to observe both us and the tic tac. We proceeded around the circle about 90 degrees from the start of our descent, and the object suddenly shifted its longitudinal axis, aligned it with my aircraft and began to climb. We continued down another 270 degrees, and we went nose low to where the tic tac would have been. Our altitude at this point is about 15,000 feet and the tic tac was about 12,000. As we pulled nose-on to the object within about a half mile of it, it rapidly accelerated in front of us and disappeared. Our wingmen, roughly 8000 feet above us, lost contact also. We immediately turned back to see where the whitewater was at and it was gone also. So as you started to turn back towards the east the controller came up and said "Sir you're not going to believe this but that thing is that your cat point roughly 60 miles away in less than a minute." You can calculate the speed. We returned to Nimitz. We were taking off our gear, we were talking to one of my crews that was getting ready to launch, we mentioned it to them and they went out and luckily got the video that you see, that 90 second video. What you don't see is the radar tape that was never released, and we don't know where it's at. 37:55 Cmdr. David Fravor: What is shocking to us is that the incident was never investigated. None of my crew ever questioned and tapes were never taken and after a couple days it turned into a great story with friends. It wasn't until 2009 until J. Stratton had contacted me to investigate. Unbeknownst to all, he was part of the AATIP program at the Pentagon led by Lue Elizondo. There was an unofficial official report that came out it's now in the internet. Years later, I was contacted by the other pilot Alex Dietrich and asked if I'd been contacted and I said "No, but I'm willing to talk." I was contacted by Mr. Elizondo, and we talked for a short period of time, he said we'd be in contact. A few weeks after that I was made aware that Lue had left the Pentagon in protest and joined forces with Tom DeLonge and Chris Mellon, Steve Justice, and others to form To the Stars Academy, an organization that pressed the issue with leading industry experts and US government officials. They worked with Leslie Kean, who is present today, Ralph Blumenthal, and Helene Cooper to publish the articles in the New York Times in 2017. It removed the stigma on the topic of UFOs, which is why we're here today. Those articles opened the door for the government and public that cannot be closed. It has led to an interest from our elected officials, who are not focused on Little Green Men, but figuring out where these craft are, where they are from, the technology they possess, how do they operate. It also led to the Whistleblower Protection Act in the NDAA. 39:45 Cmdr. David Fravor: In closing, I would like to say that the tic tac object we engaged in 2004 was far superior to anything that we had on time, have today, or are looking to develop in the next 10 years. If we, in fact, have programs that possess this technology and needs to have oversight from those people, that the citizens of this great country elected in office to represent what is best for the United States and best for the citizens. I thank you for your time. 40:20 Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI): Are your pilots, or pilots that you interact with as part of your organization, do you feel adequately trained and briefed on how to handle encounters with UAPs? Ryan Graves: No. Right now, military witnesses to UAP have limited options for reporting UAP. But more more concerning is that the commercial aviation sector has not adapted to the lessons that the military has implemented. The military and Department of Defense have stated that UAP represent a critical aviation safety risk. We have not seen that same language being used in the commercial markets, they are not acknowledging this. 41:05 Ryan Graves: Right now we need a system where pilots can report without fear of losing their jobs. There's a fear that the stigma associated with this topic is going to lead to professional repercussions either through management or perhaps through their yearly physical check. So having a secure system, reducing the stigma, and making this information available through the public is going to reduce the concerns that aircrew have. 41:30 Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI): Can you just give me a little idea the degree to which reports in the past are not made public right now? Ryan Graves: Well, I don't think there has been a proper reporting system to gather those reports and thus not report them. So to answer your question, I think there is a dearth of data due to the fact that the reporting has been limited up to this time. 41:45 Ryan Graves: There's certainly some national security concerns when we use our advanced sensors and our tactical jets to be able to identify these objects. However, there's no reason that the objects themselves would be classified. I would be curious to see how the security classification guideline actually spells out the different nuances of how this topic is classified from the perspective of UAP, not national security. 43:00 Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI): Mr. Fravor, the tic tac incident that you were engaged [in] occurred in 2004. What kind of reporting took place after that incident? Ryan Graves: None. We had a standard debrief where the back-seaters went down to our carrier intel center and briefed what had happened, and that was it. No one else talked to us. And I was in the top 20 in the battle group, no one came that the Captain was aware, the of Admiral was aware, nothing was done. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI): Did your commanding officers provide any sort of justification? Ryan Graves: No, because I was the commanding officer of the quadron. So no. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI): Was this incident the only UAP event that you encountered while you were a pilot? Ryan Graves: Yes, it was. 43:50 Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI): Do you believe UAPs pose a potential threat to our national security? Ryan Graves: Yes, and here's why: the technology that we faced was far superior than anything that we had, and you could put that anywhere. If you had one, you captured one, you reverse engineered it, you got it to work, you're talking something that can go into space, go someplace, dropped down in a matter of seconds, do whatever it wants and leave. And there's nothing we can do about it. Nothing. 44:20 Ryan Graves: I would also like to add from a commercial aviation and military aviation perspective, we deal with uncertainty in our operating space as a matter of our professional actions. Identifying friend from foe is very important to us. And so when we have identified targets and we continue to ignore those due to a stigma or fear of what it could be, that's an opening that our adversaries can take advantage of. 44:55 Ryan Graves: There needs to be a location where this information is centralized for processing and there needs to be a two-way communication loop so the operators on the front end have feedback and can get best practices on how to process information, what to do, and to ensure that their reporting is being listened to. Right now there is not a lot of back and forth. 46:25 Ryan Graves: When we were first experiencing these objects off the eastern seaboard in the 2014 to 2015 time period, anyone that had upgraded their radar systems were seeing these objects. So there was a large number of my colleagues that were detecting these objects off the eastern seaboard. They were further correlating that information with the other onboard sensors. And many of them also had their own eyesightings, as well, of these objects. Now, that was our personal, firsthand experience at the time. Since then, as I've engaged this topic, others have reached out to me to share their experiences both on the military side as well as the commercial aviation side. On the military aviation side, veterans that have recently got out have shared their stories and have expressed how the objects we are seeing in 2014 and 2015 continued all the way to 2019, 2020, and beyond. And so it became a generational issue for naval aviators on the Eastern Seaboard. This was something we were briefing to new students. This is something that was included in the notice to airmen to ensure that there was no accidents. And now with commercial aviators, they are reaching out because they're having somewhat similar experiences as our military brothers and sisters, but they do not have any reporting system that they can send this to. 47:55 Cmdr. David Fravor: It's actually, it's a travesty that we don't have a system to correlate this and actually investigate. You know, so if you took the east coast, there's coastal radars out there that monitor our air defense identification zone. Out to 200 miles, they can track these. So when you see them, they could actually go and pull that data and get maneuvering. And instead of just having the airplanes, there's other data sources out there. And I've talked to other government officials on this. You need a centrally located repository that these reports go to. So if you just stuck it in DOD, you wouldn't get anything out of the Intelligence Committee because they have a tendency not to talk. But if you had a central location where these reports are coming in, not just military, but also commercial aviation, because there's a lot of that going on, especially if you talk to anyone that flies from here to Hawaii, over the Pacific they see odd lights. So I think you need to develop something that allows you a central point to collect the data in order to investigate. 51:20 Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA): Mr. Grusch, finally, do you believe that our government is in possession of UAPs? David Grusch: Absolutely, based on interviewing over 40 witnesses over four years. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA): And where? David Grusch: I know the exact locations and those locations were provided to the Inspector General, and some of which to the intelligence committees, I actually had the people with the firsthand knowledge provide a protected disclosure to the Inspector General 52:15 Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): Mr. Graves. Again, I'd like to know, how do you know that these were not our aircraft? Ryan Graves: Some of the behaviors that we saw in a working area. We would see these objects being at 0.0 Mach, that's zero airspeed over certain pieces of the ground. So what that means, just like a river, if you throw a bobber in, it's gonna float downstream. These objects were staying completely stationary in category four hurricane winds. The same objects would then accelerate to supersonic speeds 1.1-1.2 Mach, and they would do so in very erratic and quick behaviors that we don't -- I don't -- have an explanation for. 55:50 Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): Mr. Fravor, do you believe that you witnessed an additional object under the water in relation to your encounter? Cmdr. David Fravor: I will say we did not see an object. There was something there to cause the whitewater and when we turned around, it was gone. So there was something there that obviously moved. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): Okay, it was not the same object, though, that you were looking at, correct? Cmdr. David Fravor: No, we actually joked that the tic tac was communicating with something when we came back, because the whitewater disappeared. 56:15 Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): We were, in another instance, told about the capabilities of jamming when there were some people chasing some of these objects. Did you experience any of that jamming, or interrupting your radar or weapon system? Cmdr. David Fravor: My crew that launched, after we landed, experienced significant jamming to the APG 73 radar, which was what we had on board, which is a mechanically scan, very high end system, prior to APG 79. And yes, it did pretty much everything you could do range, velocity, aspect, and then it hit the lock and the targeting pod is passive. That's when we're able to get the video on. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): I'm about to run out of time, but are you aware of any of our enemies that have that capability? Cmdr. David Fravor: No, no. 57:40 Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD): You've identified these as taking place on the East Coast. Is it just on the East Coast where these encounters have been reported? Ryan Graves: No. Since the events initially occurred, I've learned that the objects have been detected, essentially where all Navy operations are being conducted across the world. And that's from the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office reporting. 58:50 Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD): Are there common characteristics to the UAPs that have been sighted by different pilots? And can you describe what the convergence of descriptions is? Ryan Graves: Certainly. We were primarily seeing dark gray or black cubes inside of a clear sphere. Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD): I'm sorry, dark gray or black cubes? Ryan Graves: Yes, inside of a clear sphere where the apex or tips of the cube were touching the inside of that sphere. And that was primarily what was being reported when we were able to gain a visual tally of these objects. That occurred over almost eight years, and as far as I know, is still occurring. 59:45 Ryan Graves: I think we need both transparency and the reporting. We have the reporting, but we need to make sure that information can be propagated to commercial aviation as well as the rest of the populace. 1:05:00 Ryan Graves: In the 2003 timeframe, a large group of Boeing contractors were operating near one of the launch facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base when they observed a very large, 100-yard-sided red square approach the base from the ocean and hover at low altitude over one of the launch facilities. This object remained for about 45 seconds or so before darting off over the mountains. There was a similar event within 24 hours later in the evening. This was a morning event, I believe, 8:45 in the morning. Later in the evening, post sunset, there were reports of other sightings on base including some aggressive behaviors. These objects were approaching some of the security guards at rapid speeds before darting off, and this is information that was received through one of the witnesses that have approached me at Americans for Safe Aerospace. 1:06:15 Ryan Graves: I have not seen what they've described. This object was estimated to be almost the size of a football field, and I have not seen anything personally that large. 1:07:05 Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL): With the FAA, to your understanding, pilots that are seeing this, commercial airline pilots, are they receiving cease and desist letters from corporations for coming forward with information in regards to safety for potential air airline passengers? Ryan Graves: I have been made privy to conversations with commercial aviators who have received cease and desist orders. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL): So the American public should know that corporations are putting their own reputations ahead of the safety of the American people. Would you agree with that statement? Ryan Graves: It appears so. 1:08:15 Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL): So what about G forces? Let's talk about G forces in those vehicles. Could a human survive those G forces with known technology today? Cmdr. David Fravor: No, not for the acceleration rates that we observed. 1:08:45 Cmdr. David Fravor: So we got within a half mile of the tic tac, which people say that's pretty far, but in airplanes that's actually relatively close. Now it was perfectly white, smooth, no windows, although when we did take the original FLIR video that is out there, when you put it on a big screen it actually had two little objects that came out of the bottom of it. But other than that, no windows, no seams, no nothing. 1:09:05 Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL): Mr. Grusch, as a result of your previous government work have you met with people with direct knowledge or have direct knowledge yourself of non-human origin craft? David Grusch: Yes, I personally interviewed those individuals. 1:09:40 Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL): Do you have knowledge or do you have reason to believe that there are programs in the advanced tech space that are unsanctioned? David Grusch: Yes, I do. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL): Okay. And when you say that they're above congressional oversight, what do you mean? David Grusch: Complicated question. So there's some, I would call it abuse here. So congressional oversight of conventional Special Special Access Programs, and I'll use Title X, so DOD, as an example. So 10 US Code section 119 discusses congressional oversight of SAPS, discusses the Deputy Secretary of Defense's ability to waive congressional reporting. However, the Gang of Eight is at least supposed to be notified if a waived or waived bigoted unacknowledged SAP is created. That's Public Law. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL): I don't want to cut you off, but how does a program like that get funded? David Grusch: I will give you generalities. I can get very specific in a closed session, but misappropriation of funds. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL): Does that mean that there is money in the budget that is set to go to a program but it doesn't and it goes to something else? David Grusch: Yes, have specific knowledge of that. Yep. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL): Do you think US corporations are overcharging for certain tech they're selling to the US government and that additional money is going to programs? David Grusch: Correct, through something called IRAD. 1:12:45 Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-VA): Mr. Grusch, in your sworn testimony you state that the United States government has retrieved supposedly extraterrestrial spacecraft and other UAP related artifacts. You go so far as to state that the US is in possession of "non human spacecraft" and that some of these artifacts have circulated with defense contractors. Several other former military and intelligence officials have come forward with similar allegations albeit in non-public setting. However, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, the Director of AARO, previously testified before Congress that there has been and I quote, "no credible evidence" thus far of extraterrestrial act activity or "off world technology" brought to the attention of the office. To your knowledge, is that statement correct? David Grusch: It's not accurate. I believe Dr. Kirkpatrick mentioned he had about 30 individuals that have come to AARO thus far. A few of those individuals have also come to AARO that I also interviewed and I know what they provided Dr. Kirkpatrick and their team. I was able to evaluate -- Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-VA): Okay, I need to go on. David Grusch: Sure. 1:21:25 Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): Has the US government become aware of actual evidence of extraterrestrial or otherwise unexplained forms of intelligence? And if so, when do you think this first occurred? David Grusch: I like to use the term non-human, I don't like to denote origin, it keeps the aperture open scientifically. Certainly, like I've just discussed publicly, previously, the 1930s. 1:21:45 Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): Okay, can you give me the names and titles of the people with direct, first-hand knowledge and access to some of these crash retrieval programs and maybe which facilities, military bases that the recovered material would be in? And I know a lot of Congress talked about, we're gonna go to area 51. And, you know, there's nothing there anymore anyway, it's just you know, we move like a glacier. And as soon as we announce it, I'm sure the moving vans would pull up, but please. David Grusch: I can't discuss that publicly. But I did provide that information both to the Intel committees and the Inspector General. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): And we could get that in the SCIF, if we were allowed to get in a SCIF with you? Would that be probably what you would think? David Grusch: Sure, if you had the appropriate accesses, yeah. 1:22:30 Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): What Special Access Programs cover this information? And how is it possible that they have evaded oversight for so long? David Grusch: I do know the names, once again, I can't discuss that publicly. And how they've evaded oversight in a closed setting I could tell you this specific tradecraft used. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): Alright. 1:22:50 Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): When did you think those programs began and who authorized them? David Grusch: I do know a lot of that information, but that's something I can't discuss publicly because of sensitivities Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): Alright. 1:24:05 Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): Title 10 and title 50 authorization, they seem to say they're inefficient. So who gets to decide this, in your opinion, in the past? David Grusch: It's a group of career senior executive officials. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): Okay. Are they government officials? David Grusch: Both in and out of government and that's about as far I'll go there. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): Well, that leads to my next question, which private corporations are directly involved in this program? How much taxpayer money has been invested in these programs? David Grusch: Yeah, I don't know the specific metrics towards the end of your question. The specific corporations I did provide to the committees in specific divisions, and I spent 11 and a half hours with both Intel committees. 1:25:30 Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): Has there been an active US government disinformation campaign to deny the existence of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena? And if so, why? David Grusch: I can't go beyond what I've already exposed publicly about that. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): Okay, I've been told to ask you what that is and how to get it in the record. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL): What have you stated publicly in your interviews, for the Congressional Record? David Grusch: If you reference my NewsNation interview, I talk about a multi-decade campaign to disenfranchise public interest basically. 1:28:00 Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY): When it comes to notification that you had mentioned about IRAD programs, we have seen defense contractors abuse their contracts before through this committee. I have seen it personally, and I have also seen the notification requirements to Congress abused. I am wondering, one of the loopholes that we see in the law is that there is, at least from my vantage point, depending on what we're seeing, is that there are no actual definitions or requirements for notification, are there? What methods of notification did you observe? When they say they notified Congress, how did they do that? Do you have insight into that? David Grusch: For certain IRAD activities....I can only think of ones conventional in nature. Sometimes they flow through certain out of say SAP programs that have cognisant authority over the Air Force or something. And those are congressionally reported compartments, but IRAD is literally internal to the contractor. So as long as it's money, either profits, private investment, etc, they can do whatever they want. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY): To put a finer point on it, when there is a requirement for any agency or company to notify Congress, do they contact the chairman of a committee, do they get them on the phone specifically, is this through an email to hypothetically a dead email box? David Grusch: A lot of it comes through what they call the PPR, Periodic Program Review process. If it's a SAP or Controlled Access Program equity, and then those go to the specific committees. 1:30:40 Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY): For the record, if you were me, where would you look? Titles, programs, departments, regions? If you could just name anything. And I put that as an open question to the three of you. David Grusch: I'd be happy to give you that in a closed environment. I can tell you specifically. 1:35:40 Cmdr. David Fravor: Things are over-classified. I know for a fact the video or the pictures that came out in the 2020 report that had the stuff off the east coast, they were taken with an iPhone, off the east coast. A buddy of mine was one of the senior people there and he said they originally classified a TSS CI, and my question to him was what's TSS CI about these? They're an iPhone, right, literally off the vacates, that's not TSS CI. So they're over classified, and as soon as they do that, they go into the vault, and then you all have to look for them. 1:37:20 Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO): Has any of the activity been aggressive, been hostile in your reports? David Grusch: I know of multiple colleagues of mine that got physically injured. Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO): By UAPs, or by people within the federal government? So there has been activity by alien or non-human technology and or beings that has caused harm to humans? David Grusch: I can't get into the specifics in an open environment, but at least the activity that I personally witnessed, and I have to be very careful here, because they tell you never to acknowledge tradecraft, right. So what I personally witnessed, myself and my wife, was very disturbing. 1:38:20 Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO): You've said that the US has intact spacecraft. You said that the government has alien bodies or alien species. Have you seen the spacecraft? David Grusch: I have to be careful to describe what I've seen firsthand and not in this environment. But I could answer that question behind closed doors. Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO): Have you seen any of the bodies? David Grusch: That's something I've not witnessed myself. 1:40:45 Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO): These aircraft, have they been identified that they are being produced by domestic military contractors? Is there any evidence that that's what's being recovered? David Grusch: Not to my knowledge. Plus the recoveries predate a lot of our advanced programs. 1:48:05 David Grusch: I’ve actually never seen anything personal, believe it or not. 1:51:00 Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC): If you believe we have crashed craft, stated earlier, do we have the bodies of the pilots who piloted this craft? David Grusch: As I've stated publicly already in my NewsNation interview, biologics came with some of these recoveries. 1:51:15 Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC): Were they human or non human biologics? David Grusch: Non human and that was the assessment of people with direct knowledge on the program I talked to that are currently still on the program. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC): And was this documentary evidence video, photos, eyewitness like how would that be determined? David Grusch: The specific documentation, I would have to talk to you in a SCIF about that. 1:53:10 Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY): Commander Fravor, we've all seen the floating tic tac video that you engage with on November 14, 2004. Can you briefly talk about why you were off the coast of San Diego that day? Cmdr. David Fravor: Yeah, we were at a work up with all the battle groups. So we integrate the ships with the carrier, the airway with the carrier and we start working. So we were doing an air-to-air defense to hone not only our skills, but those of the USS Princeton, and when they had been tracking him for two weeks. The problem was, there were never manned aircraft airborne when they were tracking them. And this was the first day and unfortunately, we were the ones airborne and went and saw it. Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY): Do you remember the weather that day? It was a cloudy or windy or anything out of the ordinary on the Pacific coast. Cmdr. David Fravor: If you're familiar with San Diego, it was a perfect day. Light winds, no whitecaps, clear skies, not a cloud. For flying, it was the best. Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY): Now, is it true that you saw, in your words, a 40 foot flying tic tac shaped object? Cmdr. David Fravor: That's correct. Or for some people that can't know what a Tic Tac is, it's a giant flying propane tank. Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY): Did this object come up on radar or interfere with your radar or the USS Princeton? Cmdr. David Fravor: The Princeton tracked it, the Nimitz tracked it, the E2 tracked it. We never saw it on our radars, our fire control radars never picked it up. The other airplane that took the video did get it on a radar as soon as it tried to lock in to jam the radar, spit the lock and he's rapidly switched over to the targeting pod which you can do in the F/A 18 Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY): From what you saw that day and what you've seen on video. Did you see any source of propulsion from the flying object including on any potential thermal scans from your aircraft? Cmdr. David Fravor: No, there is none. There is no IR plume coming out. And Chad who took the video went through all the EO, which is black and white TV and the IR modes, and there's no visible signs of reflection. It's just sitting in space at 20,000 feet. Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY): In your career. Have you ever seen a propulsion system that creates no thermal exhaust? Cmdr. David Fravor: No. Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY): Can you describe how the aircraft maneuvered? Cmdr. David Fravor: Abruptly, very determinant. It knew exactly what it was doing. It was aware of our presence. And it had acceleration rates, I mean, it went from zero to matching our speed and no time at all. Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY): Now if the fastest plane on Earth was trained to do these maneuvers that you saw, would it be capable of doing that? Cmdr. David Fravor: No, not even close Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY): Just to confirm, this object had no wings, correct? Cmdr. David Fravor: No wings. Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY): Now the aircraft that you were flying, was it armed? Cmdr. David Fravor: No, never felt threatened at all. Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY): If the aircraft was armed, do you believe that your aircraft or any aircraft in possession of the United States could have shot the tic tac down? Cmdr. David Fravor: I'd say no. Just on the performance, it would have just left in a split second. 1:58:10 Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN): Is there any indication that these UAPs could be essentially collecting reconnaissance information? Mr. Graves? Ryan Graves: Yes. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN): Mr. Grusch? David Grusch: Fair assessment. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN): Mr. Fravor? Cmdr. David Fravor: Very possible. 1:59:05 Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN): Mr. Graves and Fravor, in the event that your encounters had become hostile, would you have had the capability to defend yourself, your crew, your aircraft? Ryan Graves: Absolutely not. Cmdr. David Fravor: No. 2:00:55 Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): I might have asked this before, but I want to make sure. Do you have any personal knowledge of someone who's possibly been injured working on legacy UAP reverse engineering? David Grusch: Yes. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): Okay. How were they injured? Was it something like a radioactive type situation or something we didn't understand? I've heard people talk about Havana syndrome type incidences. What what was your recollection of that? David Grusch: I can't get into specifics, but you could imagine assessing an unknown unknown, there's a lot of potentialities you can't fully prepare for. 2:02:10 Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): Are you aware of any individuals that are participating in reverse engineering programs for non terrestrial craft? David Grusch: Personally, yes. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN): Do you know any that would be willing to testify if there were protections for them? David Grusch: Certainly closed door, and assurances that breaking their NDA, they're not going to get administratively punished. 2:03:45 Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL): Referring to your news nation interview, you had referenced specific treaties between governments. Article III of the nuclear arms treaty with Russia identifies UAPs. It specifically mentions them. To your knowledge. Are there safety measures in place with foreign governments or other superpowers to avoid an escalatory situation in the event that a UAP malevolent event occurs? David Grusch: Yeah, you're referring to an actual public treaty in the UN register. It's funny you mentioned that, the agreement on measures to reduce the risk of outbreak of a nuclear war signed in 1971, unclassified treaty publicly available. And if you cite the George Washington University national security archives, you will find the declassified, in 2013, specific provisions in this specific Red Line Flass message traffic with the specific codes pursuant to Article Three and also situation two, which is in the the previously classified NSA archive. What I would recommend and I tried to get access, but I got a wall of silence at the White House, was the specific incidents when those message traffic was used, I think some scholarship on that would open the door to a further investigation using those publicly available information. 2:05:20 David Grusch: I have concerns, based on the interviews I conducted under my official duties, of potential violations of the Federal Acquisition Regulations, the FAR. 2:06:10 Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD): What was your general attitude or perspective on the UFO discussion before that happened? Cmdr. David Fravor: I never felt that we were alone with all the planets out there. But I wasn't a UFO person. I wasn't, I wasn't watching History Channel and MUFON and all that. Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD): And have you had any experiences or encounters since that happened? Cmdr. David Fravor: No. Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD): And so, have you formed any general conclusions about what you think you experienced then? Cmdr. David Fravor: Yes, I think what we experienced was, like I said, well beyond the material science and the capabilities that we had at the time, that we have currently, or that we're going to have in the next 10 to 20 years. 2:06:55 Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD): You've been able to answer in great detail on certain questions, and then other things you say you're not able to respond to. Can you just explain where you're drawing the line? What's the basis for that? David Grusch: Yeah, based on my DOPSR security review and what they've determined that is unclassified. Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD): I see, so you're answering any questions that just call upon your knowledge of unclassified questions, but anything that relates to classified matters you're not commenting on in this context? David Grusch: In an open session, but happy to participate in a closed session at the right level. 2:08:15 Ryan Graves: Certainly I think the most vivid sighting of that would have been near mid air that we had at the entrance to our working area. One of these objects was completely stationary at the exact entrance to our working areas, not only geographically but also at altitude. So it was right where all the jets are going, essentially, on the Eastern Seaboard. The two aircraft flew within about 50 feet of the object and that was a very close visual sighting. Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD): And you were in one of the aircraft. Ryan Graves: I was not. I was there when the pilot landed. He canceled the mission after. I was there. He was in the ready room with all his gear on with his mouth open. And I asked him what the problem was and he said he almost hit one of those darn things. Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD): He said he was 50 feet away from it? Ryan Graves: Yes, sir. Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD): And his description of the object was consistent with the description you gave us before? Ryan Graves: A dark gray or black cube inside of a clear sphere. Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD): Inside of a clear sphere. With no self evident propulsion system. Ryan Graves:: No wings, no IR energy coming off of the vehicle, nothing tethering it to the ground. And that was primarily what we're experiencing out there. April 19, 2023 Senate Committee on Armed Services Witnesses: , Director, All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office Clips 2:00:50 Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick: The AARO team of more than three dozen experts is organized around four functional areas: operations, scientific research, integrated analysis, and strategic communications. 2:01:25 Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick: Consistent with legislative direction, AARO is also carefully reviewing and researching the US government's UAP-related historical record. 2:02:05 Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick: AARO is the culmination of decades of DOD, intelligence community, and congressionally directed efforts to successfully resolve UAP encountered first and foremost by US military personnel, specifically navy and air force pilots. 2:03:15 Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick: However, it would be naive to believe that the resolution of all UAP can be solely accomplished by the DOD and IC alone. We will need to prioritize collection and leverage authorities for monitoring all domains within the continental United States. AARO's ultimate success will require partnerships with the inner agency, industry partners, academia and the scientific community, as well as the public. 2:04:15 Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick: I want to underscore today that only a very small percentage of UAP reports display signatures that could reasonably be described as anomalous. The majority of unidentified objects reported to AARO demonstrate mundane characteristics of balloons, unmanned aerial systems, clutter, natural phenomena, or other readily explainable sources. While a large number of cases in our holdings remain technically unresolved, this is primarily due to a lack of data associated with those cases. Without sufficient data, we are unable to reach defendable conclusions that meet the high scientific standards we set for resolution, and I will not close a case that I cannot defend the conclusions of. 2:06:00 Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick: AARO is a member of the department's support to the administration's Tiger Team effort to deal with stratospheric objects such as the PRC high altitude balloon. When previously unknown objects are successfully identified, it is AARO's role to quickly and efficiently hand off such readily explainable objects to the intelligence, law enforcement, or operational safety communities for further analysis and appropriate action. In other words, AARO’s mission is to turn UAP into SEP, Somebody Else's Problem. 2:07:30 Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick: I should also state clearly for the record that in our research, AARO has found no credible evidence thus far of extraterrestrial activity, offworld technology, or objects that defy the known laws of physics. In the event sufficient scientific data were ever obtained that a UAP encountered can only be explained by extraterrestrial origin, we are committed to working with our interagency partners at NASA to appropriately inform [the] U.S. government's leadership of its findings. For those few cases that have leaked to the public previously and subsequently commented on by the US government, I encourage those who hold alternative theories or views to submit your research to credible peer reviewed scientific journals. AARO is working very hard to do the same. That is how science works, not by blog or social media. 2:13:20 Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick: How are we going to get more data? We are working with the joint staff to issue guidance to all the services and commands that will then establish what are the reporting requirements, the timeliness, and all of the data that is required to be delivered to us and retained from all of the associated sensors. That historically hasn't been the case and it's been happenstance that data has been collected. 2:17:20 Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick: As of this week we are tracking over a total of 650 cases. 2:17:45 Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick: Let me walk everyone through what our analytic process looks like. We have essentially a five step process. We get our cases in with all the data, we create a case for that event. My team does a preliminary scrub of all of those cases as they come in, just to sort out, do we have any information that says this is in one of those likely categories? It's likely a balloon, it's likely a bird, it's likely some other object, or we don't know. Then we prioritize those based off of where they are. Are they attached to a national security area? Does it show some anomalous phenomenology that is of interest? If it's just a spherical thing that's floating around with the wind and it has no payload on it, that's going to be less important than something that has a payload on it, which will be less important than something that's maneuvering. So there's sort of a hierarchy of just binning the priorities, because we can't do all of them at once. Once we do that and we prioritize them, we take that package of data in that case and I have set up two teams, think of this as a Red Team Blue Team, or competitive analysis. I have an intelligence community team made up of intelligence analysts and I have an S&T team made up of scientists and engineers, and the people that actually build a lot of these sensors are physicists, because you know, if you're a physicist, you can do anything. But they're not associated with the intel community, they're not intel officers. So they they look at this through the lens of the sensor, of what the data says. We give that package to both teams. The intelligence community is going to look at it through the lens of the intelligence record, and what they assess, and their intel tradecraft, which they have very specific rules and regulations on how they do that. The scientific community, the technical community is going to look at it through the lens of "What is the data telling me? What is the sensor doing? What would I expect a sensor response to be?" and back that out. Those two groups give us their answers. We then adjudicate. If they agree, then I am more likely to close that case, if they agree on what it is. If they disagree, we will have an adjudication. We'll bring them together, we'll take a look at the differences, we'll adjudicate. Why do you say one thing and you say another? We will then come to a case recommendation that will get written up by my team. That then goes to a Senior Technical Advisory Group, which is outside of all of those people, made up of senior technical folks and intel analysts and operators retired out of the community. And they essentially peer review what that case recommendation is. They write their recommendations, that comes back to me, I review it, we make a determination, and I'll sign off one way or the other, and then that will go out as the case determination. Once we have an approved web portal to hang the unclassified stuff, we will downgrade and declassify things and put it out there. In the meantime, we're putting a lot of these on our classified web portal where we can then collaborate with the rest of the community so they can see what's going on. In a nutshell, that is the process. 2:27:10 Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick: There are emerging capabilities out there that in many instances, Russia and China, China in particular, are on par or ahead of us in some areas. So previously, I used to be the Defense Department's intelligence officer for science and technical intelligence. That was our job to look for, what does all that look like? And then my last several years of course, in Space Command, doing space. The adversary is not waiting. They are advancing and they're advancing quickly. If I were to put on some of my old hats, I would tell you, they are less risk averse at technical advancement than we are. They are just willing to try things and see if it works. Are there capabilities that could be employed against us in both an ISR and a weapons fashion? Absolutely. Do I have evidence that they're doing it in these cases? No, but I have concerning indicators. 2:43:45 Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick: So the vision is, at one point, at some point in the future, you should not need an AARO. If I'm successful in what I'm doing, we should be able to normalize everything that we're doing into existing processes, functions, agencies and organizations, and make that part of their mission and their role. Right now the niche that we form is really going after the unknowns. I think you articulated it early on, this is a hunt mission for what might somebody be doing in our backyard that we don't know about? That is what we are doing, but at some point, we should be able to normalize that. That's why it's so important the work we're doing with joint staff to normalize that into DoD policy and guidance. We are bringing in all of our interagency partners. So NASA is providing a liaison for us, I have FBI liaison, I have OSI liaison, I have service liaisons, half of my staff come from the [Intelligence Community], half of my staff come from other scientific and technical backgrounds, I have DOE. So what we're trying to do is ensure, again, as I make UAP into SEP they get handed off to the people that that is their mission to go do, so that we aren't duplicating that. I'm not going to go chase the Chinese high altitude balloon, for example. That's not my job. It's not an unknown, and it's not anomalous anymore. Now it goes over to them. May 17, 2022 House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Witnesses: , Deputy Director, Office of Naval Intelligence , Under Secretary of Defense Intelligence and Security, Department of Defense Clips 10:00 Ronald Moultrie: The NDAA for fiscal year 2022 has helped us to establish a dedicated office to oversee processes and procedures for the timely collection, processing, analysis, and reporting of UAP related data. 10:15 Ronald Moultrie: What are UAP? Put simply, UAP are airborne objects that, when encountered, cannot be immediately identified. 10:25 Ronald Moultrie: It is the department's contention that by combining appropriately structured, collected data with rigorous scientific analysis, any object that we encounter can likely be isolated, characterized, identified and if necessary, mitigated. 10:40 Ronald Moultrie: We know that our service members have encountered unidentified aerial phenomenon. And because UAPs pose potential flight safety and general security risks, we are committed to a focused effort to determine their origins. Our effort will include the thorough examination of adversarial platforms and potential breakthrough technologies, US government or commercial platforms, Allied or partner systems, and other natural phenomena. 11:15 Ronald Moultrie: We also understand that there has been a cultural stigma surrounding UAP. Our goal is to eliminate the stigma by fully incorporating our operators and mission personnel into a standardized data gathering process. We believe that making UAP reporting a mission imperative will be instrumental to the effort's success. 11:45 Ronald Moultrie: To optimize the department's UAP work, we are establishing an office within the Office of the Secretary of Defense. That office's function is clear: to facilitate the identification of previously unknown or unidentified airborne objects in a methodical, logical, and standardized manner. 13:50 Scott Bray: Since the early 2000s, we have seen an increasing number of unauthorized and or unidentified aircraft or objects in military controlled training areas and training ranges and other designated airspace. Reports of sightings are frequent and continuing. We attribute this increase in reporting to a number of factors, including our work to destigmatize reporting, an increase in the number of new systems such as quad copters and unmanned aerial systems that are in our airspace, identification of what we can classify as clutter (mylar balloons and other types of of air trash), and improvements in the capabilities of our various sensors to detect things in our airspace. 14:50 Scott Bray: The basic issues, then and now, are twofold. First, incursions in our training ranges by unidentified objects represent serious hazards to safety of flight. In every aspect of naval aviation, safety of our air crews is paramount. Second, intrusions by unknown aircraft or objects pose potential threats to the security of our operations. Our aviators train as they would fight, so any intrusions that may compromise the security of our operations by revealing our capabilities, our tactics, techniques or procedures are of great concern to the Navy and Department of Defense. 16:40 Scott Bray: The direct result of those efforts has been increased reporting with increased opportunities to focus a number of sensors on any objects. The message is now clear: if you see something, you need to report it. And the message has been received. 18:55 Scott Bray: As detailed in the ODNI report, if and when individual UAP incidents are resolved, they likely fall into one of five potential explanatory categories: airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, US government or US industry developmental programs, foreign adversary systems, or another bin that allows for a holding bin of difficult cases, and for the possibility of surprise and potential scientific discovery. 22:20 Scott Bray: If UAP do indeed represent a potential threat to our security then the capabilities, systems, processes and sources we use to observe, record, study, or analyze these phenomena need to be classified at appropriate levels. We do not want, we do not want potential adversaries to know exactly what we're able to see or understand or how we come to the conclusions we make. Therefore, public disclosures must be carefully considered on a case by case basis. 23:35 Rep André Carson (D-IN): This is the third version of this task force and, to be frank, one of Congress's concerns is that the executive branch, in administrations of both parties, has been sweeping concerns about UAPs under the rug by focusing on events that can be explained and avoiding events that cannot be explained. What can you say to give the American people confidence that you aren't just focusing our attention on low hanging fruit with easy explanations? Ronald Moultrie: Congressman, I'll start and then Mr. Bray, please feel free to weigh in. So the way that we're approaching it is with a more thorough, standardized methodology than what we have in the past. First and foremost, the Secretary Defense is chartering this effort, this is not someone lower in the Department of Defense, and he is assigned that task to the Office of Secretary of Defense's Under Secretary for Intelligence Security, that's me, because I'm responsible for looking at intelligence matters, I'm responsible for security matters, and this is potentially both. So we're concerning ourselves with the safety of our personnel, the safety of our installations and bases. There's no other higher power than what we have in actually getting after this. And as you have stated, we have been assigned that task to actually stand up an office, the AOIMSG, which I believe the name server will likely change, but we have moved forward in terms of moving to establish that office. We have, as of this week, picked the director for that effort, a very established and accomplished individual. 42:00 Scott Bray: I would say that we're not aware of any adversary that can move an object without discernible means of propulsion. The question then becomes, in many of these cases where we don't have a discernible means of propulsion in the data that we have, in some cases, there are likely sensor artifacts that that may be hiding some of that, there's certainly some degree of something that looks like signature management that we have seen from some of these UAP. But I would caution, I would simply say that there are a number of other events in which we do not have an explanation. There are a small handful in which there are flight characteristics or signature management that we can't explain with the data that we have. 43:40 Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): With respect to the second two videos showing the small triangles, the hypothesis is that those are commercial drones that because of the use of night vision goggles appear like triangles, is that the operating assessment? Scott Bray: Some type of drone, some type of unmanned aerial system, and it is simply that that light source resolves itself through the night vision goggles onto the SLR camera as a triangle. 47:55 Scott Bray: Allies have seen these, China has established its own version of the UAP task force. So clearly a number of countries have observations of things in the airspace that they can identify. Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH): And do we share data with some, with all? Are they sharing with us? Scott Bray: We share data with some and some share data with us. Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH): But not necessarily all that have publicly reported something? Scott Bray: That's correct. 52:25 Scott Bray: When I say we can't explain, I mean, exactly as you describe there, that there's a lot of information, like the video that we showed, in which there's simply too little data to create a reasonable explanation. There are a small handful of cases in which we have more data that our analysis simply hasn't been able to fully pull together a picture of what happened. Those are the cases where we talked about where we see some indications of flight characteristics or signature management that are not what we had expected. When it comes to material that we have, we have no material. We have detected no emanations within the UAP task force that would suggest it's anything non-terrestrial in origin. 59:35 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): There have been no collisions between any US assets and one of these UAPs, correct? Scott Bray: We have not had a collision, we've had at least 11 near misses though. 59:55 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): And there's been no attempt, there's no communications, or any kind of communication signals that emanate from those objects that we've detected, correct? Scott Bray: That's correct. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): And have we attempted to communicate with those objects? Scott Bray: No. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): So we don't we don't even put out an alert saying, you know, "U.S., identify yourself, you are within our flight path," or something like that? Scott Bray: We haven't said anything like that. We've not put anything out like that, generally speaking. For example, in the video that we showed earlier, it appears to be something that is unmanned, appears to be something that may or may not be in controlled flight, and so we've not attempted any communication with that. 1:00:55 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): And I assume we've never discharged any armaments against a UAP, correct? Scott Bray: That's correct. 1:01:05 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): How about wreckage? Have we come across any wreckage of any kind of object that has now been examined by you? Scott Bray: The UAP task force doesn't have any wreckage that isn't explainable, that isn't consistent with being of terrestrial origin. 1:01:20 Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL): Do we have any sensors underwater to detect on submerged UAPs, anything that is in the ocean or in the seas? Ronald Moultrie: So I think that would be more properly addressed in a closed session. 1:05:30 Ronald Moultrie: So one of the concerns that we have is that there are a lot of individuals and groups that are putting information out there that that could be considered to be somewhat self serving. We're trying to do what's in the best interests of, one, the Department of Defense, and then two, what's in the best interest of the public, to ensure that we can put factually based information back into the mainstream and back into the bloodstream of the reporting media that we have, so people understand what's there. It's important because we are attempting, as this hearing has drawn out to understand, one, what may just be natural phenomenon, two, what may be sensor phenomenology or things that were happening with sensors, three, what may be legitimate counterintelligence threats to places that we have or bases or installations, or security threats to our platforms. And anything that diverts us off of what we have with the resources that have been allocated to us, sends us off in the spurious chases and hunts that are just not helpful. They also contribute to the undermining of the confidence that the Congress and the American people have that we are trying to get to the root cause of what's happening here, report on that, and then feed that back into our national security apparatus so we are able to protect the American people and our allies. So it is harmful, it is hurtful, but hopefully, if we get more information out there, we'll start to lessen the impact of some of those spurious reports. Rep. Darin LaHood (R-IL): So just taking that a step further, that misinformation, false narratives, manufactured, what are the consequences? Are there legal consequences? Are there examples that you can give us where people have been held accountable by this misinformation or disinformation? Ronald Moultrie: I can't give you any examples where somebody has been legally held liable for putting something out there. Rep. Darin LaHood (R-IL): Well, what's the deterrent from people engaging in this activity? Ronald Moultrie: I don't know. I don't have that answer. That's something that [we] welcome the dialogue with Congress to talk about that with the members who helped legislate those laws to say what should be the legal ramifications that we could use to potentially hold individuals accountable, whether it be citizens or information that might be injected into our media by other other forces or other countries, if you will. 1:11:40 Ronald Moultrie: I think right now what's really important for us to protect is how we know certain things. So there are a lot of things that we know, whether it'd be about the thinking of other leaders around the world, the weapon systems that are being developed, or how we detect things that may be threats to us. Many of those things are the result of some of our most sensitive sources and methods. And we'll use those things not just for this effort, but those same sources and methods are used to help protect us from adversaries and from others who might mean to do us harm. There aren't separate UAP sensors, there's not a separate UAP processing computer, there's not a separate UAP dissemination chain or whatever. So it's the same processes, it's the same system that we have that helps us do all that. We need to protect that. 1:15:40 Rep. Rick Crawford (R-AR): Do we have an example, can you cite a specific example of an object that can't be explained as having been human made or natural? Scott Bray: I mean, the example that I would say that is still unresolved, that I think everyone understands quite well, is the 2004 incident from Nimitz. We have data on that, and that simply remains unresolved. Executive Producer Recommended Sources Music by Editing Production Assistance

The Chief Operating Officer and a board member of the PGA golf tour recently testified to the Senate as part of its investigation into the possible merger between the PGA and LIV golf tours. In this episode, hear a summary of their testimony which was about monopoly powers, labor rights, Saudi Arabian oil money, loyalty to country…. So much more than golf. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via Support Congressional Dish via (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: [email protected] Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or [email protected] Use your bank’s online bill pay function to mail contributions to: Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes PGA Tour 2022. Official 2022-23 PGA Tour Media Guide. Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund. February 24, 2021. BBC. LIV Golf Fergus Bisset. February 1, 2023. Golf Monthly. Doric Sam. August 1, 2022. Bleacher Report. LIV vs. PGA Tim Schmitt. February 17, 2023. Golfweek. PA Media. August 3, 2022. The Guardian. Mark Schlabach. July 11, 2022. ESPN. Yemen Ryan Grim. May 18, 2023. The Intercept. Bruce Riedel. January 27, 2023. Brookings. Shuaib Almosawa. March 16, 2022. The Intercept. Audio Sources July 11, 2023 Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Witnesses: Ron Price, Chief Operating Officer, PGA TOUR Jimmy Dunne, Board Member, PGA TOUR 2002 HBO Music by (found on by mevio) Editing Production Assistance