Ep. #135 – New FOIA Release Highlights Redactions in Key AATIP Correspondence: What is the Pentagon Hiding?

Through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) originally filed in June 2021, The Black Vault has just obtained the official release of an email chain involving Luis Elizondo, the alleged former head of the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), and Neill Tipton, a defense official who previously worked as the Director of Defense Intelligence, Collection and Special Programs.

The post Ep. #135 – New FOIA Release Highlights Redactions in Key AATIP Correspondence: What is the Pentagon Hiding? first appeared on The Black Vault.

Episode Transcript

John Greenewald (00:32):
That's right, everybody. As always, thank you
so much for tuning in and makingthis your live stream of choice.
I'm your host, John Greenewald,Jr, founder and creator of the
black vault. And today we'rediving into some new documents
that I got, surprise, surprise,this time from the Department of
Defense. And they are about atip. Now, there's not a whole
lot of them. So it's not goingto take a whole lot of time to

(00:53):
go over the documentsthemselves. And in fact, if you
pay attention, you may have seenthem before. But what's more
interesting is on the side ofthe Pentagon, the action they
took by redacting what they didin this particular four year
release. And that was thespecific mention of a tip now
why that is, I'll give you theirreason. But as you can imagine,

(01:15):
I'm fighting it, simply becauseI just don't agree with them. I
don't believe that this issomething that they should be
redacting number one, but numbertwo, we discovered a new
document that hasn't been outbefore in this four year
release. So that's kind of cool.The bad thing, it's completely
redacted from top to bottom. Solet's just go ahead and get into

(01:37):
it and kind of start dissectingthis to see where we end up.
Now. As I mentioned, this is allabout an email that came out.
It's been out for a few years,actually, that mentioned a tip.
Now this goes all the way back.Let me get my screen here. This

(01:59):
goes all the way back to 2020.February 14, to be exact, when
the Popular Mechanics articlecame out and titled inside the
Pentagon's secret UFO program.Now the reason why I like to
give this history is because Iwant to see I want to show I
should say how this all unfoldedfor all of you and kind of

(02:19):
what's what spawned the FOIArequest that I did, and put it
in a little bit of chronologicalorder for you guys. So this
particular article, which cameout in February of 2020, was a
very lengthy article all aboutexactly what it says what it
labeled the Pentagon secret UFOprogram, general public more

(02:41):
accurately refers to that as atip. I know it's controversial
and whether or not as a tip wasa big program a real program and
official program did it studyUFOs Look, that's a again
different videos in itself. Butthis particular article
dissected that dissected LuisElizondo story and showed us a

(03:01):
lot of new material. You'll seehere in the screenshot, let me
just pull up the laser pointerhere. You'll see here in the
actual screenshot from thePopular Mechanics article, the
performance review or at leastone of them of Luis Elizondo. So
again, we were seeing newdocuments that have never been
seen before. So kudos to TimMcMillan for this 2020 articles

(03:24):
simply because there was a lotof new stuff. Generally you
don't see that you see a lot ofrehash of the same exact thing.
Copy and Paste journalism isrampant out there. But this
particular article gave quite afew things, including this. Now,
it was a very interestingscreenshot because as you can
tell, it wasn't even a, youknow, a screenshot of the actual

(03:48):
document, it seemed to be aphotograph of the document. And
then you had all these strangeredactions in it. Now it was
sorted to an anonymous source.As you can imagine, there were a
few that were cited in thisarticle, and one of which gave
Tim McMillan slash PopularMechanics, this particular
document to publish. This wasgiven to them to support Luis

(04:12):
Elizondo in his role in a tip.Now obviously, this was really
intriguing to me. Anybody whowatches this channel, you know
that I'm not a huge fan ofanonymous sources. So although I
take that material, I alwaysjust kind of cringe when I see
the word anonymous. Now fastforward to 2020. For sure, you
can imagine who that anonymoussource is, but hey, I'll let you

(04:35):
guys decide that one. But thisanonymous source gave Popular
Mechanics this email and saidthe following per sec def or the
Secretary of Defense, frontoffice guidance to you and me, I
took the liberty of drafting amemo then there was some
redacted lines there. That helpsyou better assume the new
responsibilities for a tip atyour convenience. Please review

(04:57):
it's very short on purpose andLet me know if you want me to
put more meat on it. You kind ofhave another redaction here on
the document that thatessentially cuts off the first
part of this. And then you cankind of see in authorship in
authorship, just want to makesure we answer the mail for the

(05:18):
front office. And that was whereit kind of cut off. And that's
what we see in this PopularMechanics article. So I think
there was a little bit of addeddrama here with this particular
screenshot and picture sadly,you know, I think it was a
little bit for I think Mystique,if you ask me. And look, that's
that's all fine. Well and dandy,but some some questions here, as

(05:41):
more was revealed, kind ofsurfaced. And you'll see that in
a moment when we see more ofthis email. But I wanted to kind
of give you guys the route ofwhere this came out. In that
Popular Mechanics article. Nowfast forward, that again, was
February 2020. In June of 2021,after me doing some digging,
asking questions, you know,pushing various people that I

(06:03):
speak with, finally figured outa little bit more detail that I
could use and provably use onthe email that allowed me to
then structure a FOIA request togo after it, because while I
wanted it, and I wanted to seewhat else was there, because as
you just saw, that screenshotwas fairly, you know, minimal
and there was quite a bitredacted. And at that point, you

(06:25):
don't know how long that thatthat email was, how big that
email was. So I went after it,and then specifically filed what
ultimately became case 21 F1154. sparing you all the legal
jargon that's just moreboilerplate on my end. the brunt
of the request was thefollowing. I respectfully
request a copy of an emailthread with the subject line of

(06:47):
quote, draft DEP sec, defletter, unclassified unquote,
dated circa October 3 2017,which was between Luis Elizondo,
former OSD employee and NeilTipton. He actually still is,
but worked with an O Usdi, whichis now Oh, USD ins. Also see

(07:10):
seed was Brendan mckernon, theUnited States Navy. Now, if you
don't know Brendan mckernon 'sname. This one has finally been
revealed publicly as connectedto the UAP taskforce effort.
Brendan mckernon from the USNavy politico was the first one
I believe that publishedBrendan's name, it had been

(07:31):
bantered about I had FOIAs abouthim, but I did not essentially
really advertise it becausethere's not really a whole lot
known about what his role is.And those those requests are
largely still open on my end andhave been for a couple of years.
But that's who Brendan mckernonwas and so I had found out that
he was CC ID on this email aswell. So in 2017, October,

(07:53):
Brennan was involved. LuisElizondo wrote the email, and
Neil Tipton with Oh USD ins nowin June of 2022, okay, so just
to put this in chronologicalorder for you guys, the New York
Post published the IG complaint,the Inspector General complaint,

(08:15):
filed by Luis Elizondo now wehad heard about this, already
quite a bit through variousinterviews that Luis Elizondo
had done. Politico again hadhighlighted it. So so this
finally kind of dropped, had afew redactions quite a few, but
rightfully so they wereprotecting the identity of some
people that weren't known in thepublic sphere. However, some

(08:37):
names were were essentiallyrevealed, one of which was,
again, Brendan mckernon. Butthis was the full email that I
was going after. And so now thegeneral public can see what Luis
Elizondo had put in his IGcomplaint. And this particular
section here was what thatscreenshot was on the New York

(08:59):
Post, or excuse me on PopularMechanics, but now we see it
thanks to the New York Post. Soyou can see what I have already
read to you. With the additionnow of greetings, Neil
perspectives front officeguidance to you and me, I took
the liberty of drafting a memoat the unclassified level that
helps you better assume the newresponsibilities for a tip at

(09:20):
your convenience. Please review,it's very short on purpose. And
let me know if you want me toput more meat on it. Brennan,
same with you, please. No prideand authorship, just want to
make sure we answer the mail forthe front office standing by
Lou. So now we saw the wholething. So now you kind of get an

(09:41):
A better idea. Now it's in thepublic realm. We know who it was
to who was the seed. Now it'sall verifiable. In addition, we
now see this October 3 2017.Email. The one in question that
we were just talking about. Thatwas September 25 2017. Now in
October Third Tipton respondsgetting spun back up. We'll read

(10:03):
and get thoughts back today ortomorrow at Fort Meade half the
day today. So now we see theresponse.
So more of the pictures beingrevealed. Now I love this kind
of stuff because it's likepiecing together a puzzle. And
this is reinforces my long heldbelief. FOIA is not everything

(10:24):
because you do find these bitsof pieces of evidence, thanks to
various investigativejournalists, media, and you got
to put it all together. I knowsome people think I say FOIA is
everything. I assure you. I'venever said that. And this is why
is because you get these piecesof the puzzle to work with build
off of and then able tointegrate that into FOIA

(10:46):
requests and use it because Ican cite places like New York
Post and so on. But what wasalso interesting to learn from
the IG complaint and again, someof this was kind of out there
being bantered about but puttingthe puzzle pieces together, Neil
Tipton, who Elizondo wasessentially passing the a tip
reins to was named in thecomplaint as somebody that was

(11:09):
committing wrongdoing allegedwrongdoing that Luis Elizondo
had highlighted. Now I've readthe whole complaint numerous
times. I have zero idea whatNeil Tipton did wrong. None
zero. I have asked, and I'llmake this point quick. But I
have asked Luis Elizondo throughhis attorney, Todd McMurtry, who

(11:30):
fields a lot of those questionson Mr. Elizondo his behalf and
couldn't get an answer. I haveno idea. This particular
question was met with an answerthat maybe more will be revealed
in his book, and that was theanswer that I got. So I'm not
really sure what Tipton did, buthe was one of the three
individuals that that LuisElizondo had complained about

(11:54):
the other being Susan golf. Thatis the Public Affairs official,
which oddly the Public Affairsofficial that actually issued
the statement about Elizondo andhis lack of responsibilities on
a tip was not Susan golf, it wasactually Christopher Sherwood.
He was not actually made. Partof this complaint. He was
mentioned in it, but he was notthe one that had alleged

(12:17):
wrongdoing. No idea why they arethe third person being Gary
Reed, everybody's favoritevillain in this whole saga. So
those were the three individualsthat he had complained about to
the IG that had allegedwrongdoing. Neal Tipton was one
of them. So it was reallystrange because when you look at

(12:38):
the fact that it was the daythat Luis Elizondo resigned from
the Pentagon, this was the sameday that Neil Tipton responded
to that September email, maybejust a coincidence, I don't
know. But it was like Neil tipsand says, Okay, great. I'm what
we found out through a differentFOIA request was actually out on

(12:59):
vacation, Neal tips and says,Okay, great. I'll go ahead and
take a look at this. Gettingback spun back up, I'll get back
to you today or tomorrow. Thatwas the same day Elizondo said
nope, I'm done. Now, we didn'tknow about this resignation
letter. There was a second onethat was published. That one
actually was submitted onOctober 4. FOIA brought out the

(13:19):
real one that was submitted onOctober 3, I say the real one
because that was the first onehe had already resigned. A
second letter popped up thatnext day, that's the one that we
all know about. No realexplanation there. I'm sure
there's probably a good reasonfor it. But regardless, this was

(13:40):
same day. Here is the signatureby what what I've determined was
was likely Elizondo hisimmediate boss John Garrity. So
you have some very interestingtime coincidences here that
Tipton says yep, Elizondoresigns on the exact same day.
One thing to point out, too,when I said that there were some

(14:01):
interesting questions now, whatwe've seen more of the puzzle is
the fact that Popular Mechanicsand or the anonymous source, you
pick, decided to redact and hidefrom all of you that the memo
that they're talking about wasat the unclassified level. I
don't know why that would be. Soyou know, just something to

(14:22):
point out that that was one ofthe redactions that they didn't
want to show. And then obviouslythis line down here was Brennan
same with you I can understandhiding Brennan McKinnon's name,
especially around that time and2020 we he wasn't even known I
don't think I don't remember theexact date that his name kind of
came out but regardless I thatI, I totally understand but at

(14:46):
the unclassified level to me,I'm not I'm not really sure
about that. So just something toto point out though, but last
month, I had published anarticle and I posted out this on
social media about how the a tipsaga was gonna get weirder. And

(15:06):
I think I've talked about it onthis channel, but I'll say it
again in this video, I usuallyonly tease an article on the
same day it comes out. I'm not abig fan of teases. But I do like
to kind of alert people outthere, there's there's quite a
few different media outlets thatyou'll notice will cover
documents that I get inside andoutside the UFO genre. So a lot

(15:29):
of times I will post thosethings out and just kind of
alert, you know, those who careabout watching the documents.
There's a story coming. I knownot everybody cares for teases
myself included. But there's areason why I kind of do that.
But then I had to cancel thestory. Delay is a much better
word for that. I didn't cancelit. But delay because something

(15:51):
that I was led to believe inthis particular story was not
necessarily true. So I had toreally come back and I learned
that in the double and triplechecking process right before I
drop an article to ensure thatI'm as accurate as possible.
Everybody makes mistakes. I'vemade a ton of them. I'm sure. My

(16:11):
wife will tell you all about mymy mistakes in life. But joking
aside, look, we're all human,but I do try and be as accurate
as possible. So I had to delaythe story because I was waiting
for another tidbit that I had tocomplete the story. It ended up
where I had to splice it into acouple of different ones. So

(16:31):
what I had published in thisspecific story was the fact that
the DoD had released multipleemails that Luis Elizondo sent
to Susan Goff in an effort tohave her slashed the Department
of Defense changed their stanceon him. And in these three

(16:55):
particular pages was banter backand forth between Luis Elizondo,
and Neil Tipton. We've alreadygone over Neal Tipton, but there
was one strange thing. We knowthat in the big complaint, these
three pages were also there. Nowin the interest of time, I'm not
going to read you all threepages, but I wrote about them at
length, and I'll link in theshow notes below. But what was

(17:18):
absent? Was the ATypI mail. Theone email the only one I should
add, that mentioned a tip. Nowthat was really strange to me,
because if you're trying to getthe Department of Defense Public
Affairs Office, to change yourstance on a tip, and the reason
you you wanted to do that wasbecause you directed a program

(17:40):
called a tip, and you had anemail that referenced a tip and
how you were transferring theresponsibilities that you had to
someone else. That to me is yoursmoking gun to prove that this
was something that needed to bechanged. So when I got the foyer
response of Elizondo is email toSusan golf, and I also found

(18:04):
when did Christopher Sherwoodand the attachments it took
quite some time and I had tofight for him. They originally
they wouldn't give them to me.Finally got them.
The email that said a tip wasmissing. I confirmed with the
Department of Defense that thesethree pages were the only ones
there. So I said to myself, whywould you not do this is the DoD

(18:27):
lying, I would totally buy that.So I went to Luis Elizondo and
again through his attorney, andspecifically asked him, Is there
a reason that only three of thefour pages that were in your IG
complaint in this particularsection and banter between Neal
Tipton and Elizondo and passingthe reins so to speak of a tip?

(18:47):
Why that wasn't there? Andhere's the response that I got
on the record. It is quote, itis no surprise Mr. Elizondo does
not trust the Pentagon's Piooffice or Public Affairs Office,
due to their history of wafflingand providing false information.
Mr. Elizondo is not surprisedyou received a comment like that
from the same people who havebeen at inaccurate in the past.

(19:10):
There is a difference betweenthe Pentagon saying to you that
they didn't receive it, andactually receiving it but
claiming they didn't. Thisshould be no surprise to you,
saying that DOD confirmed to meversus DoD told me are two
different things. Not sure whyyou still believe them. When
even you have admitted they havea tendency to be wrong and

(19:31):
misleading. It's perplexing whyyou trust the Pentagon on
certain things, but then admityou don't trust them with other
things. Why is this anydifferent other than the fact
that deals with my client? Thefact remains that the email is
legitimate, and the DOD has acopy of it. If you see up here,
I never I never endorsed the DoDs position. For the sake of the

(19:54):
audio version, I'll read youexactly what I asked. The DoD
confirmed to me that thedocuments attached To Mr.
Elizondo his email to Susan golfdid not contain that the that
the following email, which isthe only that which is the only
that mentions a tip forgive mystuttering there. I put the
screenshot at the bottom of thisemail for reference. Arguably
this would be the most importantsince it talked about a tip

(20:17):
responsibilities to Neil Tipton.However, the DoD said it was
never sent in Mr. Elizondo 'semail to golf, is there a reason
he only sent three of the fourpages to golf that he later put
in his IG complaint? It seemsthe ATypI mail is the most
important one, if he was tryingto get golf to change the DoD
stance about his role on a tip.That's not an endorsement but a

(20:40):
question framed to the onlyevidence that I had available
available to me. If he wanted tocome back and say it wasn't
true. Great, I would publishthat. I published 100% of the
statements that that came to me.So clearly, I didn't really got
an answer to that other than theemail was legitimate. I didn't
say it wasn't nor to the DoD atthat point. But that's, sadly

(21:03):
where we ended up. Now, whatthey did say and this may be the
root of it was this document isan attachment to email
correspondence from a privatecitizen to a DOD employee. The
DoD cannot validate theauthenticity of the material
contained in this document,personal information has been
redacted to protect the privacyof individuals contained in the
document. So when they releasedthose three, they released them

(21:27):
as attachments that LuisElizondo sent to golf, but then
said that they wouldn't verifythe authenticity. This to me is
completely unorthodox and out ofthe ordinary 100%. And why that
is, I don't know. Generally,when you have a situation like
this, they'll they'll they'llsearch for the emails, I mean, I

(21:49):
asked them to specifically giveme the attachments that Mr.
Elizondo had sent in. Eventhough they're marked as
unclassified, you would thinkthat the Department of Defense
would ensure that they areunclassified, instead of just
looking at them, not verifyingthe authenticity, scratching out
some names to protect privacy,but releasing all of the the

(22:11):
information that remained that,to me didn't make sense from a
national security perspective,through FOIA. Again, even though
it was marked unclassified, itdidn't matter. They didn't
verify the authenticity. So howdo they really know it's
unclassified? So it really justdidn't make sense. Again,
removing myself from the storyfrom the outside looking in from

(22:32):
that legal slash FOIA side. Itjust didn't make sense. So why
they did that? I don't know. Buton top of that, it just got
even, like, more confusing onLook, can you tell me if you
just sent that fourth page,which sadly, I never got the
answer to. But I did get told itwas legitimate. And that's fine.

(22:53):
That's great. We know that now.But why it wasn't sent? I'm not
really sure. So now that waslast month, this month. This was
the other piece of that storythat I had to shelve, because I
knew that I had this open FOIArequest for specifically, that a
tip tipped in email. So I onlyhad to touch on it a little bit

(23:13):
in April. And then now I finallygot the response. I had to push,
I had to keep following up. It'ssometimes insane how long these
things go. This was two pages.That's it. And I was waiting for
almost three years for twopages. So that fact, alone is

(23:36):
insane. But what happened whenthey finally released it made
everything even more weirder. Sothis is the foyer response
letter. For those taking notes.This was the final response for
21 F 1154. This was me goingafter specifically that a tip
tipped in email. They locatedtwo pages, which were the email

(23:57):
thread and an attachment. I'mgoing to read to you why they
made the redactions they did.The redacted withheld
information is exempt fromrelease parts pursuant to five
USC Section 552. B five, interand intra agency memorandum
which are deliberative innature. This exemption is
appropriate for internaldocuments, which are part of the

(24:20):
decision making process andcontain subjective evaluations,
opinions and recommendations andbe six information which, if
disclosed, would constitute aclearly unwarranted invasion of
the personal privacy ofindividuals. Please note that we
have considered the foreseeableharm standard when reviewing
records and applying exemptionsunder FOIA and the processing of

(24:41):
this request. I invite you topause the video watch or read
all the other legal jargon notimportant for the sake of this
video. But here was that emailnow we got a little bit more of
the thread not much, but it wasElizondo is response response of
perfecto also sent on October 3,The day he resigned responding

(25:02):
to Tipton saying I'll get backto you today or tomorrow
Elizondo never note and hey, bythe way, I'm quitting today. So
yeah, I won't be here. It wasjust great, you know, thanks.
And he was awaiting hisresponse. So that was kind of an
interesting but weirddevelopment again all the day he
quit, but look down here. Themost important email the

(25:24):
Pentagon decides to redact theline about a tip they redacted
so that's B five, which theyconsider a deliberative process
that that doesn't make sense tome whatsoever. Because it's not
deliberative process forElizondo to be making the claim.
I'm taking the a tipresponsibilities and giving them

(25:44):
to you the be six redactedredaction here we know is
Brennan's name, I get that eventhough Brennan's name is in the
public sphere now, thanks tomainstream media, Politico to be
exact. Why they're redacting? Idon't really know. But be that
as it may, they redacted hisname. Here's a comparison of the

(26:08):
email that was from thecomplaint. And the one they
released, the exact redactionhelps you better assume the new
responsibilities for a tip. Idon't find that as a be five
redact double line. It's notdeliberative. This was
essentially according toElizondo more of a fact that he

(26:28):
was passing the reins to Tiptonto take responsibility for a
tip. The tip, so I've foughtthis. And even though we know
what it says, it's like, well,why are you fighting John? Like,
who really cares? It's becauseof this,
the memo that was referenced inthat email was entirely

(26:52):
redacted, under, it might behard to see on your screen, but
B five, and B six. So theprivacy redaction, which those
are admittedly very, very toughto argue. But rightfully so. I
mean, you're they're protectingpeople's identity. So that's
fine. But B five, not so much inthe four year world. A lot of
times we call this the redactedif you want to exemption. And

(27:16):
what essentially that means is,is if it doesn't fall into the
other eight exemptioncategories, essentially, they
will go ahead and use B five.And when they use B five, it's
very hard to to fight becauseyou don't really know what
you're fighting. You know, ifit's B one, and it's national
security, well, you know, youcan sometimes create an argument

(27:37):
for that. If it's various otherexemptions, you can sometimes
make an argument for that. Butwhen it comes to B five, it's
like, well, how do we know thatit's deliberative in nature, you
don't really know. So that's whythey call it the B five redacted
if you want to exemption,because it is often thought
about in the courts. Itdefinitely needs work. It needs

(27:58):
a revamp, it needs new language.So it is something that is a
problem for us FOIA requesters.But you can see here that it was
entirely withheld. So we don'tknow what this letter was that
Louie cielo that Louise Elizondodrafted now, where they may have

(28:19):
some kind of legal argument inthis look, it stinks, I hate
even pointing this out. But inthe interest of full
transparency, they may fightback on my appeal and deny it,
at least for that particularpage. Because if they consider
it a draft, draft documents arenot technically subject to FOIA.
But agencies can use theirdiscretion to release documents

(28:42):
that they consider draft if it'sin the public interest. And
maybe we'll help with let's saytransparency a little bit. So we
know it's unclassified. Sure,redact some names, if there's
names, phone numbers, SocialSecurity bank card, and what
bank account numbers, whatever,that you want to consider
personal information. I'm jokingwith the bank account numbers,
but that's what you see on Bsix, and those are our

(29:04):
rightfully done. So, but a Bfive on the whole thing. I don't
see it. So I'm fighting it,we'll see what actually happens
to you know, get this. So thosewere the two pages that came up.
Now, obviously, the reaction thereaction by the general public
was, you know, pretty wideranging. And then it's it's very

(29:27):
interesting for me, becauseobviously, I report everything
I've done so for for 2728 yearsnow. I give everything out. But
what's interesting to me ispeople's perception of FOIA
because when when for you, andthis isn't true for everybody,
but for a lot of people and alot of noisy people that that
and a lot of people are on myhaters list, that if for you

(29:49):
produces something that theydon't like, right? All of a
sudden they just they absolutelyhate me. They hate FOIA. They
think it's useless. They thinkit's a tool They believe and
this actually has gone on quitea bit in the last couple of
months even though I've had theaccusation for years. It's
really ramped up in the lastcouple of months that I work for

(30:12):
the US government that theyorchestrate these releases
through me and then I put themout to the masses in some kind
of disinformation campaign I'vebeen accused of collecting a
paycheck from the US governmentit's just insane what the
conspiracies are when for yourproduces something that they
don't like however, those samepeople when something like this

(30:33):
comes out, and an email whichyou know, admittedly some of
them may not even know that itwas published before they come
out and they see what I publishand they see the central cover
up. I mean, look, I'll call itthat and I don't know why
they're covering this up. I haveno idea but they see that and
they go Ah, see John, you oweElizondo an apology you need to

(30:56):
do a man a Coppola you need tofall down to your knees and
apologize to everybody. Why? Allof a sudden FOIA is like the
gold standard does the sameexact people that make an
accusation that I'm like somehowworking for the government. And
for me, I can't help but laughbecause it's that selective
belief system that if for yourproduces something you don't

(31:17):
like, then the guy that broughtit to you is the devil it for
you. It produces something thatyou do like then all of a sudden
it's it's unchallengeable. Likethis is black and white proof
that Elizondo led a tip. Now,look, I don't believe that this
is vindication for anybody, anyside of any part of the story.

(31:38):
I'm sorry. And here's why I sayit because if you look at the
actual emails, and you look atthe back and forth, even Neil
Tipton himself, had absolutelyno idea what he was inheriting.
He even says, Thanks, Lou. Allgood, although at some point, I
need to know what this actuallyis. Meaning he was confused. I
won't read it all to you. But Iinvite you guys to do so. In

(32:02):
these emails that I got betweenElizondo and Neil Tipton.
Elizondo was speaking incrediblyhighly of Neil Tipton, that he
was the guy to inherit the reinsof a tip that he was perfectly
suited to do the job. So to seehis name, then after you read

(32:22):
these emails, wind up in the IGcomplaint, it was really bizarre
because there was nothing thattipped and did, as outlined in
the complaint that I saw anyway,that that showed that he was you
know, doing this wrongdoing. Butyou look at the banter back and
forth. And in fairness, this wasin August. So a little bit prior
to some of the the latter banterthat we've gone over in this

(32:43):
video. He didn't even know whatLuis Elizondo was essentially
talking about like, what isreally there, like, what is it
that you're trying to pass on?What is it that is with this
program, because these emailsnever mentioned a tip at all? So
I don't think that he was quiteon board. And it wasn't until
that later email in lateSeptember, that that the acronym

(33:06):
A tip popped up, and then tippedand said, okay, that he would
look things over. So again, justvery kind of bizarre when it
came to this material that thatit's not vindicate. Again, I go
back to are you going toapologize to everybody? It's not
about that, because I don't knowwhat it proves at this point,
other than the Pentagon as beingincredibly ridiculous with their

(33:30):
redactions. And to have them dothat. The question now is why
why did they consider thatdeliberative in nature? There's
got to be some kind ofexplanation for that. Because
this is already in the publicsphere. It's already been out
for what's 2024. Now. I had tolook at my calendar to figure

(33:54):
out what year it was. I shouldsleep more, but it's 2024. Now
it originally appeared in early2020. You're talking about more
than four years this is floatedaround, including the Department
of Defense inspector generalgetting it in a complaint to
them. What is up with that? Ireally have zero answer for

(34:15):
that. So again, it's it's notvindicating anybody at this
point. It just means thatwhatever Luis Elizondo was doing
with whatever he labeled as atip, he was passing it on to
Neil Tipton, and somewherebetween October 3, and the point
that Luis Elizondo submitted hisIG complaint, tipped and did

(34:37):
something bad, like Tipton didsomething wrong. What that is
like, again, I wish that Mr.Elizondo through his attorney
would have let me know because Iwould have published that last
month. But I've asked thatquestion quite a bit over the
years since the IG complaintcame out. What do you do? I
don't know. So its bottom linethough, is It's incredibly

(35:01):
interesting to see these emails,it's one piece to a much, much
bigger puzzle that we are stilltrying to put together together.
I, I am so amazed at the amountof time that these take and the
amount of trouble that it hasbeen to get answers. And I know

(35:21):
that people think that I pick onLuis Elizondo and and target
him. I mean, I'm here to tellyou that when you look at the
totality of the FOIA requestsI've done on this topic, both
sides of this, both sides havebeen equally as confusing and
equally as responsible formuddying the waters. I don't

(35:47):
know why that is, we should havethis a little bit more clear,
because here's yet moreinformation that says, Oh, this
is all unclassified. Right? Thatthis is all the things that
essentially, they can banterabout an open channel. So does
that doesn't mean that they canjust release it to the general
public. But that means it shouldbe accessible through FOIA much

(36:08):
easier than it is. So on onehand, you have the Pentagon that
is doing these silly redactions,in some cases, top to bottom
pages saying nope, sorry, eventhough it's unclassified, we
can't give you a single word.And then on the other side, you
have people that don't want toanswer questions. And that's not
just unique to Luis Elizondo,because there are some some
outstanding questions. There'squite a few actually, to this

(36:30):
day, but others that have comeout in that particular group as
well. So why is it that youcan't get straight answers from
either side,
I really don't know. But I amhappy to see some of my haters
love for you, at least thismonth, this week, this today.
And we'll see when they comeafter me next, when FOIA may
produce something they don'tlike, I don't really know. But

(36:53):
regardless, I'll send it all toyou, I will post everything I do
so in an unedited raw form. Andof course, in some occasions
have articles attached. But youcan only see those documents.
Thank you all for watching, Ihave a blast with these live
streams. I can't believe that,you know, approaching 3000
people at one time, we'rewatching this. So those are big

(37:17):
numbers I didn't expect. Sothank you for your support.
Thank you for listening in. Ihave a lot of fun doing these
types of videos and helping youall kind of decode these
documents. And I'm alwaysinterested in your feedback as
well. So please let me knowwhether you're watching on
YouTube in the show notes belowor on x. I'm also streaming this

(37:39):
on Facebook, let me know whatyou think I love reading those
comments, I always try andrespond to can't respond to them
all. But I definitely try andread them all thank you for
doing that. I will drop this asan audio format as well. So if
you don't know that I do thatwith some of the live streams,
you can go ahead and subscribeto any podcast platform. So you

(37:59):
know Spotify, whatever you use,just search for the black vault
radio. And then that's where Idropped some of these feeds as
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visuals, you'll be able to hearit. I know a lot of you prefer
that in lieu of watching. Soknow that that's available. And
if you're listening to the audiopodcast version, and didn't know
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(38:21):
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Again, thank you all forlistening and or watching. This
is John Greenewald Jr signingoff, and we'll see you next time