UPDATE ON DAVID GRUSCH FOIA LAWSUIT The Department of Justice (DOJ), representing the Department of Defense (AKA Department of War) today (September 21, 2026) filed a motion for summary judgment in federal court, which if granted by the judge would end David Grusch's federal FOIA lawsuit against the Department of Defense. In his March 2026 lawsuit (Grusch v. Department of Defense, No. 1:26-cv-607), Grusch has claimed that the Department of Defense conducted an inadequate search in response to his October 2024 FOIA request for certain documents related to a purported "unauthorized disclosure complaint" about Grusch, or related to any "unauthorized disclosure complaint" involving UAP/UFO, both of these being limited to the time period April 1 through December 31, 2023. In a legal memo filed today in support of its motion for summary judgment, the DOD claimed its search followed the terms of Grusch's request, was very thorough, and found 22 POTENTIALLY responsive documents totaling 6,632 pages. After review, 40 pages were released to Grusch on May 18, 2026. The cover letter that accompanied the 40-page release (shown below) said that "some information has been withheld" under FOIA exemptions involving the decision-making process, attorney-client and attorney-work-product privileges, and personal privacy; the letter contained no reference to withholding based on classification or any other justification. The public filings do not make it clear (or at least, not clear to me) what happened to the remaining 6,592 pages identified by the searches as "potentially responsive"--that is, how many were ultimately deemed nonresponsive to Grusch’s request, and whether any records deemed responsive were nevertheless withheld in full under FOIA exemptions, and if that occurred, under which exemptions. To my knowledge, Grusch has made public none of the 40 pages that were released to him in May in response to his FOIA request and lawsuit. Through my own FOIA request I obtained the 40 pages, but in heavily redacted form; I published the redacted documents via X on June 25, 2026. Today's DOJ/DOD memo asserts that the adequacy of the DOD search is the only issue that remains to be resolved in this lawsuit. Today's memo contains no discussion of the justifications for any withholdings or redactions. The 40-page release that I obtained in June included a copy of a letter dated November 1, 2023, to Congressman Tim Burchett (R-TN), from Mark D. Dupont, Principal Deputy and Senior Intelligence Oversight Official, Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Privacy, Civil Liberties, and Transparency, shown below. In that letter (sent in response to an inquiry from Burchett's office, also shown below), Dupont related that an unnamed Air Force Intelligence Oversight (IO) officer had "raised concerns" about Grusch, but also that the same officer "subsequently contacted IOD [Intelligence Oversight Directorate] and informed IOD that the information in question had been properly coordinated so there was no unauthorized disclosure, and no follow-on action was necessary. At no point did anyone from the Air Force file a complaint with IOD and IOD took no actions with respect to these conversations." Grusch described the Air Force review incident very differently in an interview on May 5, 2026, in which he claimed, "And the Air Force, I think, was very afraid when I went public....I have a FOIA lawsuit in the Eastern District of Virginia, because it's come to my attention that when I went public in June 2023, the Department of the Air Force filed an unauthorized disclosure Espionage Act complaint against me." To my knowledge neither Burchett nor Grusch had ever made the November 1, 2023 Dupont letter public, despite Grusch having made public claims about Air Force retaliation in various places over the last several years. The Dupont letter became public only after I obtained it via FOIA and published it in June. Grusch's lawyers have until October 12, 2026 to file an opposition brief to today's DOJ/DOD motion and memo. Most of the key documents in the Grusch FOIA lawsuit can be downloaded for free from Court Listener at courtlistener.com/docket/723…

@emmatuckerWSJ: This is not complicated. Mellon alleges a scientist’s words were used to support a conclusion about material he wasn’t discussing, and that correction requests went unanswered. @joel_schectman can explain the reporting. You can explain the editorial decision to stand by it. @WSJPR: publish the answer. It is 2026. UAP transparency commands bipartisan attention in Congress and scrutiny from former military and intelligence officers, attorneys, and business leaders with the expertise and resources to sustain it. The record will preserve what you published—and what you chose to do when its accuracy was challenged.