Politics

(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration expressed a federal judge’s ruling striking down the Biden administration’s asylum policy that established a “rebuttable presumption” of asylum ineligibility.

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said he disagreed with the court’s ruling.

“It does not limit our ability to deliver consequences for unlawful entry,” he said. “Do not believe the lies of smugglers. Those who fail to use one of the many lawful pathways we have expanded will be presumed ineligible for asylum and, if they do not have a basis to remain, will be subject to prompt removal, a minimum five-year bar on admission, and potential criminal prosecution for unlawful reentry.”

Shortly after the decision was handed down, the Justice Department said it stood by the policy.

“We remain confident in our position that the Circumvention of Lawful Pathways rule is a lawful exercise of the broad authority granted by the immigration laws,” a spokesperson for the Justice Department said.

Immigration advocates, however, see the ruling as a victory.

“The ruling is a victory, but each day the Biden administration prolongs the fight over its illegal ban, many people fleeing persecution and seeking safe harbor for their families are instead left in grave danger,” said Katrina Eiland, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, who argued the case. “The promise of America is to serve as a beacon of freedom and hope, and the administration can and should do better to fulfill this promise, rather than perpetuate cruel and ineffective policies that betray it.”

Just hours after Judge Jon Tigar’s ruling on Tuesday blocking the administration’s asylum restrictions, the Justice Department filed a motion to stay the order pending appeal and an emergency motion to shorten the time to grant that stay. The court punted ruling on the emergency motion for another day, saying that the Justice Department did not demonstrate good cause for the court to issue a ruling before the plaintiffs had the chance to voice their opposition and gave them until July 26 at 5 pm to file their response.

Tigar’s Tuesday night ruling found the policy to be “contrary to law” and ordered the policy be ended in two weeks.

“The severity of the agencies’ errors in this case counsels strongly in favor of vacatur. The Rule is both substantively and procedurally invalid. The agencies cannot adopt the same rule on remand; as described above, the Rule is contrary to law,” Tigar, an Obama appointee, wrote.

In the wake of the rollback of Title 42, the Trump administration policy which expelled migrants along the border under the auspices of the pandemic, the Biden administration rolled out a new asylum policy which limited the number of claims that were made at the southern border.

The policy, which took effect after Title 42 ended on May 11, mandated that migrants apply for asylum in the counties that they passed through before reaching the United States. Additionally, migrants would have to use the CBP One App to apply for asylum to control the flow of migrants at the border, according to the administration. It would be in effect for only two years.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 144,571 encounters at the southwest land border in the month of June, marking the lowest monthly total in fiscal year 2023.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration on Tuesday said it was canceling $130 million in federal debt for 7,400 students who went to a Colorado college that the government says lied about its successes.

“These borrowers were lied to, ripped off and saddled with mountains of debt,” President Joe Biden said in a statement.

It’s not the first time the administration has canceled federal loans for people whom the government believes were misled or short-changed by for-profit colleges: So far, the Department of Education has forgiven $14.7 billion in such debt, spread across nearly 1.1 million borrowers, including for those who attended Corinthian Colleges and ITT Technical Institute, both of which are now defunct.

Tuesday’s debt relief will be automatic and covers Colorado students of CollegeAmerica who attended between 2006 and July 1, 2020.

The effort also comes on the heels of debt relief actions for people who participated in programs like the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and income-driven repayment loan plans, both of which, the Department of Education has acknowledged, were not working as intended for borrowers.

CollegeAmerica had three locations in Colorado and closed down completely in 2021 after a successful lawsuit brought by the state, according to the Department of Education. (Center for Excellence in Higher Education subsequently appealed.)

“CollegeAmerica knowingly took advantage of students by luring them into high-priced, low-quality programs with promises of high-earning potential and job placement that it knew were not attainable,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a Tuesday news release.

“Protecting borrowers from predatory lending and helping Coloradans navigate through student loan burdens will continue to be a priority for our office,” he said.

The Center for Excellence in Higher Education, which operated CollegeAmerica, could not be reached for comment. The organization sued the Department of Education last year, claiming that the federal government improperly targeted their schools and illegally withheld funds such as reimbursements for student financial aid. The Department of Education is seeking to dismiss the suit.

“While my predecessor looked the other way when colleges defrauded students and borrowers — I promised to take this on directly, and provide borrowers with the relief they need and deserve,” Biden said in his Tuesday statement, swiping at former President Donald Trump. “As long as I am president, we will never stop fighting to deliver relief to borrowers, hold bad actors accountable, and bring the promise of college to more Americans.”

According to the Department of Education, among other misrepresentations, CollegeAmerica was advertising that students would earn high salaries post-grad, when, in fact, graduates earned just $25,000, on average, five years out of school — less than the salaries of high school graduates.

CollegeAmerica also advertised “inflated and falsified job placement rates” of 70%, though the Department of Education said the actual rate was just over half that — 40%.

“This included counting a business administration graduate working as a produce clerk and a medical specialties graduate working as a waiter as successful placements,” the Department of Education said.

In two other examples, according to the department, CollegeAmerica falsely maintained from 2006 to 2010 that one of its programs could “lead to EMT certification” even though “it never offered EMT classes at its Colorado campuses” that would qualify for the state’s certification test. And from 2007 until 2017, CollegeAmerica described a financial assistance program, EduPlan, as “affordable” despite knowing “students were unable to afford [the] loans,” the department said.

The debt relief comes after a multiyear government investigation.

Borrowers will have their federal loans canceled regardless of whether they have filed a borrower defense to repayment application, the Department of Education said. That application is a form people can fill out to report schools for misleading their enrollees.

People will begin to be notified in August if they are approved for cancellation related to CollegeAmerica and see any remaining loan balances zeroed out as well as credit trade lines deleted, the department said, and any payments they made to the department will be refunded.

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(WASHINGTON) — In a shocking moment on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was unable to finish his opening remarks during his weekly press conference — and briefly left the event but later returned to take questions from reporters.

McConnell, 81, approached the microphone and began a sentence about the National Defense Authorization Act before trailing off for about 20 seconds, staring blankly forward without blinking.

“In a string of–” he began before stopping mid-sentence.

After 20 seconds, he was approached by Sens. Joni Ernst and John Barrasso. McConnell felt light headed, an aide told ABC News.

Barrasso, a doctor, was heard saying, “Are you OK, Mitch? Is there anything else you want to say to the press or should we just head back to your office?”

McConnell then stepped back from the microphone. At first he seemed insistent upon staying, but shortly thereafter he was escorted back to his office by Barrasso.

McConnell returned to the microphone within a few minutes and, after his colleagues finished speaking, he took a variety of questions from reporters that he responded to clearly, sometimes with lengthy answers.

When a reporter asked him to describe what occurred, he responded only, “I’m fine.”

Asked later Wednesday afternoon about McConnell freezing up during his press conference, Ernst told reporters, “As far as I know, everything’s OK.”

Asked for comment, McConnell’s office referred to his “fine” remark and declined to answer any other questions about his health or whether he will see a doctor.

Barrasso, who escorted McConnell off, said that during a luncheon right before, McConnell “spoke” and “led the discussion.”

McConnell was treated for a concussion in March after he fell at a hotel in Washington. Days later, he was discharged from the hospital, and his communications director said he would head to an inpatient rehabilitation facility for physical therapy.

“I was concerned when he fell and hit his head months ago and was hospitalized,” Barrasso told reporters on Wednesday. “And I think he’s made a remarkable recovery. He’s done a great job leaving our conference and was able to respond to every question that the press asked him today.”

Barrasso said he has “no new concerns” about McConnell’s health.

In early June, McConnell had difficulty answering several questions, a challenge his office attributed to difficulty hearing at the time.

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(WASHINGTON) — A former intelligence community official testified Wednesday on an alleged covert government program to recover and reverse engineer crashed alien spacecraft.

David Grusch, a member of a previous Pentagon office tasked with investigating unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, said he was informed of the alleged multi-decade program through his official duties, but was denied access to additional information.

The Pentagon said last month it hadn’t found “any verifiable information to substantiate” the claims about crashed alien spacecraft.

“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 have shared compelling evidence in the form of photography, official documentation and classified oral testimony to myself and many various colleagues,” Grusch told lawmakers, stating he was driven to share it by a “commitment to truth and transparency.”

“I am asking Congress to hold our government to this standard and thoroughly investigate these claims,” he said. “But as I stand here under oath now I am speaking to the facts as I have been told them.”

The remarks came during a bipartisan hearing held by the House Oversight Committee’s national security subcommittee. The three witnesses include Grusch, David Fravor, a former commanding officer in the U.S. Navy, and Ryan Graves, executive director of Americans for Safe Aerospace.

Members of both parties stressed the need for greater clarity on UAPs. Many voiced concerns that unidentified aerial objects pose to national security.

“Today we are not just debating the existence of UAPs, we are deliberating on the principles that define our republic, which is a commitment to transparency and accountability,” said Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wisc., who chaired the hearing.

Grusch asserted the U.S. government first became aware of non-human intelligence in the 1930s. When asked by Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., if he has met people with direct knowledge of non-human-origin craft, Grusch said yes.

However, he told the committee he could not publicly disclose the names of those with firsthand knowledge and access to the alleged crash retrieval program, though he said that information was provided to the intelligence committees and the inspector general.

Grusch also said he couldn’t publicly state when the supposed program began and who authorized it, stating much of that information is classified.

Lawmakers expressed a desire to talk with Grusch and other officials behind closed doors, such as in secured facility, to learn more.

When asked who the committee should call to testify in their next hearing, Grusch said he could provide a “cooperative and hostile list of individuals in the government who you should talk to.”

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., highlighted previous congressional testimony provided by Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, who leads the Defense Department’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office tasked with examining UAPs, in which he said they did not find any evidence of extraterrestrial activity or off-world technology.

“This contradiction is a perfect example of why we need to inject transparency into our government,” Foxx said.

Kirkpatrick recently told ABC News the vast majority of UAP sightings are readily explainable, with just 2% to 5% of reports containing unexplained anomalies. Also, he downplayed the existence of a secret program he may not be aware of.

“A number of these [whistleblowers] believe and have stated — and we believe them now — that they have seen something. And we are investigating,” Kirkpatrick said.

Grusch was joined on Capitol Hill by two former Navy pilots: Fravor, who had a firsthand encounter with a UAP, and Graves, who created an organization aimed at increasing government transparency on UAPs.

Fravor described to the committee a 2004 episode where he and others spotted a small white object that looked like Tic Tac candy “moving very abruptly over the water like a ping pong ball.” The encounter was captured in a 90-second video. Fravor said the incident was never investigated.

“What concerns me is there is no oversight from our elected officials on anything associated with our government processing or working on craft believed [to be] not from this world,” Fravor said.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., made a guest appearance in the hearing to discuss a tip his office received about a UAP sighting at Eglin Air Force base, located in his congressional district in Okaloosa County. Gaetz said after a disagreement with military officials, he was allowed to see an image of four supposed UAPs in a diamond formation and speak to a pilot who saw it.

“One of the pilots goes to check out that diamond formation and sees a large, floating what I can only describe as an orb. Again, like I said, not have any human capability that I’m that aware of,” Gaetz said.

Gaetz called on Pentagon officials to release that image and other details about that UAP sighting to the Oversight Committee.

ABC’s Lauren Peller and Arthur Jones contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — In a closed-door meeting with House Republicans on Wednesday morning, Speaker Kevin McCarthy reiterated to his conference that an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden is on the table but suggested it is not yet imminent, according to multiple sources in the room.

McCarthy, who earlier this week floated the possibility of an impeachment probe of the president, took time at the conference meeting to explain how that inquiry would differ from an impeachment vote, describing the investigation as an escalated formal probe that would give Republicans more tools to examine the president and his family, sources said.

This is the furthest the speaker has gone on this issue, but it is still extremely vague.

As recently as last month, McCarthy suggested he didn’t see value in impeachment-related proceedings because “we’re already having investigations.”

Last fall, before winning the speakership, he said impeachments are unpopular when “used for political purposes” and “if anyone ever rises to that occasion, you have to, but I think the country wants to heal and … start to see the system that actually works.”

In an interview on Fox News on Monday, however, McCarthy pointed to subsequent testimony from two Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers as well as an FBI report containing unverified corruption claims from an anonymous source. “We’ve only followed where the information has taken us. … This is rising to the level of impeachment inquiry, which provides Congress the strongest power to get the rest of the knowledge and information needed,” he said, charging the president with using the government to “benefit his family.”

The White House has denounced Republican-led probes as politically motivated and baseless.

“Instead of focusing on the real issues Americans want us to address like continuing to lower inflation or create jobs, this is what [the House GOP] wants to prioritize,” White House spokesperson Ian Sams tweeted this week. “Their eagerness to go after [Biden] regardless of the truth is seemingly bottomless.”

McCarthy has not indicated what his threshold would be for launching an impeachment inquiry and he has not given any timeline for when it could happen.

As speaker, he presides over a five-seat majority in which in any single member can force a vote to oust him. McCarthy also deals with different wings of his party: both the hard-line members pushing him forward on Biden investigations and the more cautious moderates who don’t want to rush into a sensitive and potentially explosive proceeding without concrete evidence.

Sources told ABC News that Republicans have realized they have a lot of ongoing House investigations and not a lot of time — with the next elections now slightly more than a year away.

Some members have privately called on McCarthy to focus on an impeachment of Biden over any other administration official.

“There are still some things we need to get information on that this administration has been stonewalling on,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise maintained on Wednesday. “An inquiry gives us more ability to find out the facts, to get those facts out to the American people.”

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(WASHINGTON) — A former intelligence community official testified Wednesday on an alleged covert government program to recover and reverse engineer crashed alien spacecraft.

David Grusch, a member of a previous Pentagon office tasked with investigating unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, said he was informed of the alleged multi-decade program through his official duties, but was denied access to additional information.

The Pentagon said last month it hadn’t found “any verifiable information to substantiate” the claims about crashed alien spacecraft.

“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 have shared compelling evidence in the form of photography, official documentation and classified oral testimony to myself and many various colleagues,” Grusch told lawmakers, stating he was driven to share it by a “commitment to truth and transparency.”

“I am asking Congress to hold our government to this standard and thoroughly investigate these claims,” he said. “But as I stand here under oath now I am speaking to the facts as I have been told them.”

The remarks came during a bipartisan hearing held by the House Oversight Committee’s national security subcommittee. The three witnesses include Grusch, David Fravor, a former commanding officer in the U.S. Navy, and Ryan Graves, executive director of Americans for Safe Aerospace.

Members of both parties stressed the need for greater clarity on UAPs in opening remarks.

“Today we are not just debating the existence of UAPs, we are deliberating on the principles that define our republic, which is a commitment to transparency and accountability,” said Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wisc., who chaired the hearing.

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(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump’s one-time personal attorney Rudy Giuliani won’t contest that he made “false” statements about two Georgia election workers in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

The mother-daughter tandem of Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss are suing Giuliani for defamation, follow remarks he made accusing the pair of fraudulently manipulating ballots on Election Day in Fulton County, Georgia.

In a court filing on Tuesday, Giuliani stated that he “does not contest the factual allegations” made by Freeman and Moss regarding his statements, but that his statements were “constitutionally protected.”

Giuliani said in the filing that he won’t contest their claim that he falsely accused the election workers of manipulating ballots, in order to “avoid unnecessary expenses in litigating what he believes to be unnecessary disputes.”

As a result of the concession, there’s no need for “any additional discovery or sanctions” in the case, Giuliani said in the filing.

“Mayor Rudy Giuliani did not acknowledge that the statements were false, but did not contest it in order to move on to the portion of the case that will permit a motion to dismiss,” Giuliani’s adviser, Ted Goodman, told ABC News in a statement.

“This is a legal issue, not a factual issue,” Goodman said. “Those out to smear the mayor are ignoring the fact that this stipulation is designed to get to the legal issues of the case.”

In the days after the election, Freeman and Moss became the subjects of a Trump-backed conspiracy theory that was later found to be “false and unsubstantiated,” according to an investigation by the Georgia Elections Board. Giuliani, in an appearance before a committee of the Georgia state legislature, told lawmakers that a video circulating online showed “Ruby Freeman and Shaye Freeman Moss … quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports, as if they’re vials of heroin or cocaine.”

Last year Freeman told ABC News’ Terry Moran that she subsequently received so much harassment from conspiracy theorists that for a time she was forced to leave the suburban Atlanta home where she had lived for 20 years. The pair gave similar testimony when they appeared before the House selection committee investigating the events of Jan. 6.

The investigation by the Georgia Elections Board cleared Moss and Freeman of all wrongdoing last month.

“This serves as further evidence that Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss — while doing their patriotic duty and serving their community — were simply collateral damage in a coordinated effort to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election,” the attorney representing Freeman and Moss said in a statement following the release of the elections board’s report.

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(PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea) — Lloyd Austin’s arrival in Papua New Guinea on Wednesday marked the first time that an American Defense Secretary has visited the island nation reflecting its growing strategic importance as the U.S. tries to rein in China’s growing influence in the South Pacific.

That competition with China has escalated American efforts to increase security cooperation with Papua New Guinea (PNG) as China has been making security inroads with the neighboring Solomon Islands and increasing its economic ties with other Pacific Island nations.

Austin is the latest senior American leader to visit Papua New Guinea, highlighting the importance the United States is placing on its relationship with the country located just north of Australia.

The visit will build on the Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) worked out between the U.S. and Papua New Guinea earlier this year that will increase security cooperation between the two countries.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited in May to sign the cooperation agreement when he took the place of President Joe Biden who had to cancel a stop in Papua New Guinea so he could return to Washington for negotiations on the debt limit.

It is not just the United States that sees the importance of Papua New Guinea in checking China’s influence in the region, however.

Later this week, France’s President Emmanuel Macron will make history as he becomes the first French president to visit the island nation.

On Thursday, Austin will meet with PNG’s Prime Minister James Marape, Defense Minister Win Badri Daki and other top military leaders from the island nation.

U.S. officials are also looking towards a possible expansion of a recent “boatrider” agreement that will allow Papua New Guinean military personnel to ride along U.S. Coast Guard vessels as they track unregulated fishing.

The Defense Cooperation Agreement has yet to be ratified by PNG’s parliament and Prime Minister Marape has faced domestic criticism and protests from Papua New Guineans concerned that it might infringe on the country’s sovereignty.

But U.S. officials see the agreement as a major milestone and that expanding military cooperation between the two countries will improve security in the region, increase U.S. training opportunities for Papua New Guinea’s military and help the U.S. respond to humanitarian and regional crises.

The security agreement is part of a broad U.S. effort to improve relations with island nations in the region in the wake of a security agreement signed last year between the Solomon Islands and China.

That agreement has been seen as a major driver in the broad U.S. effort to reach out to Pacific Island nations that also have tight economic ties with China.

“The U.S. has been playing catch-up in the South Pacific since the China-Solomon Islands security deal was leaked last year,” Mihai Sora, the project director for the AUS-PNG Network at the Lowy Institute, told ABC News.

“China is still on the look-out for opportunities to expand its relationships with Pacific countries in the security space,” said Moha.

“Pacific countries value their economic relations with China. Some, like PNG, are happy to take security assistance support from the U.S., but will not want to jeopardize economic relations with China,” he added.

Acknowledging the fine line the U.S. must tread in its outreach to island nations in the South Pacific, a senior U.S. defense official made clear that the U.S. is not asking them to have to choose between the U.S. and China.

“Our approach is to demonstrate value and to demonstrate the ways in which we can contribute meaningfully to a long term mutually beneficial security relationship,” said another U.S. defense official. “And that’s what we’re seeking to do, not just with PNG but with the whole region.”

U.S. officials have stressed that the agreement does not mean that American troops will be stationed on the island which saw a sizable U.S. presence during World War II. Though it is possible that after it is ratified, the U.S. and Papua New Guinea might begin talks about a rotational U.S. military presence.

“It certainly changes the status quo for Papua New Guinea’s security cooperation with other countries in that the Defense Cooperation Agreement lays out extensive U.S. access to PNG territory,” said Sora.

Sora believes the United States moved too quickly in working out the agreement and will have to work to gain support while it is being implemented.

“It moved extremely fast to get that signature, which has caused some frictions in the region,” said Sora. “And asking for too much, too soon will ultimately be counterproductive to U.S. influence and access-building efforts in the Pacific.”

Papua New Guinea is one of only three Pacific island nations that has a military, the other two are Fiji and Tonga.

Troops from all three nations are participating for the first time in the Talisman Sabre exercise being held in Australia this year — the largest version of the exercise to date with 30,000 troops from 13 countries joining in the exercise held every two years.

After his visit to Papua New Guinea, Austin will travel to Brisbane, Australia, where he will join Blinken for an annual meeting with their Australian counterparts.

The annual meetings have taken on a greater significance in recent years as the U.S. and Australia have developed closer security ties to counter China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and provocations towards Taiwan.

That includes the rotational presence of up to 2,500 U.S. Marines for regular training exercises in northern Australia.

Ahead of this weeks’ meetings, U.S. defense officials signaled an expansion of those bilateral security agreements that could lead to additional rotations involving different military services and capabilities.

Later in the week, Austin and Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles will observe U.S. and Australian troops participating in the Talisman Sabre exercise.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Departments of Commerce and Defense signed a memorandum of agreement on Wednesday in an effort to strengthen information sharing and coordination in doling out CHIPS incentive funds — a move top U.S. officials say will shore up national security as China attempts to overtake the United States in semiconductor production.

The agreement signed on Wednesday ensures the Defense Department and Commerce Department coordinate on what the defense sector needs and ensures that it has the CHIPS to keep America safe, according to the Commerce Department.

“This agreement is an important step forward in increasing the capacity and resiliency of our domestic semiconductor industrial base,” said Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy Laura Taylor-Kale, who signed the MOA on behalf of the Department of Defense. “It is essential for DoD and DoC to consult one another to ensure we are making complementary investments that support a robust semiconductor industrial base. Both Departments are working together to expand domestic semiconductor production capacity in a coordinated fashion.”

The agreement also allows for a national security review and ensures that semiconductors are made in America and used by the defense industry.

“Advancing U.S. national security is a top priority. Our Departments must work together and align on where and how we are making investments to strengthen the U.S. industrial base,” said CHIPS Program Office Director Michael Schmidt, who signed the MOA on behalf of the Department of Commerce. “This agreement will enable our teams to coordinate the national security review of applications, produce semiconductor chips in America that our military relies on, and bolster our domestic supply chain resiliency.”

Experts compare semiconductors to the brain for any machine with a computer system. Their prevalence in everyday items from cell phones to cars to microwaves and more means that production of these semiconductors is a lucrative industry — and one with broader implications for international relations. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has repeatedly said producing semiconductors in the U.S. is vital not only to the domestic economy, but also to national security, saying in a 2022 letter to congressional leaders that China, which has spent hundreds of billions of dollars developing its own semiconductor production, “is both determined to become the global leader in the industries of the future and has the means and resources to do so if we are not on our game.”

“Over the last two years, China has produced more than 80% of new global capacity for certain mature chips, and their market share is growing. … And the brutal truth is that, without manufacturing strength in the U.S., and the innovation that flows from it, we are at a clear disadvantage in the race to invent and commercialize future generations of technology,” Raimondo said in February at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in remarks applauding the CHIPS and Science Act.

The CHIPS and Science Act, signed in 2022, provided nearly $53 billion in funds to “support the domestic production of semiconductors and authorize[d] various programs and activities of the federal science agencies.” The act, intended to address a nearly two-year global chip shortage that stemmed from supply chain issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic, also tasked the Department of Commerce with doling out funding to kickstart CHIPS manufacturing in the United States.

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(WASHINGTON) — House lawmakers will examine unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs — better known as UFOs — in a rare bipartisan hearing on Thursday.

“We’re not going to bring you in a saucer or a little green man. That’s not what it’s going to be about,” Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett, one of the two Republicans running the House Oversight Committee’s inquiry into UAPs, said earlier this month. “But the reality is the American public deserves to know.”

“We’re interested in the why: Why are they doing this? Why won’t they tell the American people? Yes, it’s a national security issue. Of course it is. Can’t we tell the Americans it isn’t China, it isn’t Russia? And if it is — then if it is, then it is even more questionable that other governments have this technology,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida, the top Democrat on the subcommittee, said at a press conference last week, previewing the hearing.

Lawmakers have promised to look deeper at UAPs following unproven allegations from a former intelligence official that the U.S. military has recovered crashed alien spacecraft.

The former intelligence community official, David Grusch, will testify at Thursday’s hearing and claims the federal government has found alien vessels. Other witnesses will include David Fravor, a former commanding officer in the U.S. Navy, and Ryan Graves, executive director of Americans for Safe Aerospace.

Grusch will testify that, as part of his duties, he became aware of an alleged covert government program to recover and re-engineer crashed alien spacecraft.

“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,” Grusch will say in his opening statement.

But Grusch will also acknowledge he does not have firsthand knowledge of this alleged program.

A spokesperson for the Pentagon said last month that the Department of Defense’s UAP task force, reorganized since 2022 as the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), “has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate” the claims about crashed alien craft.

“My testimony is based on information I have been given by individuals with a longstanding track record of legitimacy and service to this country — many of whom also shared compelling evidence in the form of photography, official documentation and classified oral testimony,” Grusch will tell lawmakers.

“This isn’t some good old boy who had too much to smoke or drink in the woods and thinks he spotted something. These are trained pilots,” Burchett recently said on Fox News when asked about the witnesses.

Fravor plans to describe an encounter with UAPs and how, he will say, it was not investigated properly.

“What concerns me is that there is no ‘oversight’ from our elected officials on anything associated with our government possessing or working on craft that we believe are not from this world. This issue is not about full public disclosure that could undermine national security, but it is about ensuring that our system of checks and balances works across all work done in our government using taxpayer funds,” Fravor will tell the committee, according to his opening statement.

Graves will address his own concerns about UAPs — which he says he has witnessed as a Navy pilot — as a “national security and an aviation safety problem,” according to his opening statement.

“The bottom line is, why are we allowing objects in our sky, particularly objects displaying advanced technology, to go unidentified? I believe we should pursue these questions about the nature of UAP with a scientific method and an open mind,” Graves plans to say.

Lawmakers are promising that the hearing will only be the start of what is expected to be a long back-and-forth with the Pentagon in seeking new details on UAPs.

The subcommittee’s members have already clashed with the Department of Defense. Reps. Burchett and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., traveled to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida and had an argument with military officials over potential UAP evidence.

The Pentagon denied the lawmakers’ request to see any video and to speak with the pilots who may have shot it because of the lawmakers’ security clearances, a source told ABC News.

“We were stonewalled,” Luna contended at a news conference last week, with Burchett adding: “We were told there were pictures available which we still haven’t seen.”

In a statement to ABC News, Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek said the lawmakers, during their visit, had requested a “briefing focused on” UAPs but Burchett and Luna could not receive some classified information.

“Not being members of a congressional defense committee, [they] did not possess the access required. … We are committed to timely, transparent, and candid dialogue with members of Congress and their staffs,” Stefanek said, in part.

The top Pentagon investigator looking into UAPs, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, told ABC News in a recent interview that “nothing has been denied us” and played down the possibility of a covert program.

Kirkpatrick said the majority of the hundreds of reported UAPs, dating back decades, have been found to be “readily explainable” and attributed to birds, for example, or drones.

However, Kirkpatrick said, “A number of these [whistleblowers] believe and have stated — and we believe them now — that they have seen something. And we are investigating.”

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