A transcript of Ken Klippenstein’s explanation of the sources of his tips

For the written record, this is a transcript of part of Ken Klippenstein’s conversation on John Greenewald’s Twitter Space audio on 9th August 2023, concerning the Klippenstein’s article on David Grusch for The Intercept.

In it Klippenstein makes unambiguously clear that Intelligence operatives provided him with information on where to look for David Grusch’s records, and that these operatives are ‘people he knows’.

Klippenstein speaking:

I made a tweet during the hearing: if you have good or bad stuff about him, I didn’t want to bias it. That’s why I put out a request for tips, because if you only rely on people that you know there’s probably a selection bias of the types of people you are going to be friends with. So I just put out a call for tips, and actually got a lot of people who reached out with tidbits. Little pieces of information. And it was mostly negative, to be honest with you. To be totally straight, if there was positive stuff I would have put that in there too. There just wasn’t really. And so I think because of the way the story turned out everyone’s like you’re looking for a hit piece.

Again, being completely straight with you, I don’t believe the UFO stuff. I don’t have any insight into whether he believes it or not. I assume he believes what he’s saying. I’m not someone who thinks everyone is, you know, grifting. This word ‘grifter’ has become so used (inaudible). I don’t many any comment about his… (inaudible)

Interviewer speaking:

Was that tweet the root of what sparked you to go to that specific sheriff’s station?

Klippenstein speaking:

No. I knew people in the area. And so it was like I was getting bits and pieces from different people, stuff they were saying. So they were kinda like ‘Look into his’, they gave me, you know how the intel people they are vague? They’ll be ‘look into his background’. they are kinda hinting that it’s like, you know.

Umm. I’m trying to think about how to say it in a way that’s like rigorous. Umm.

Multiple people told me to just look at any run-ins with law enforcement that they had in the past. And it was vague. I think there’s this impression that it’s like oh my god someone planted this and they gave them the direct, it doesn’t, if it works, I mean. I understand why people think that because a lot of media is planted stories. I don’t blame people for thinking that. When you open the New York Times, most of those stories the Whitehouse put in there, or a committee chair in Congress gave it to them on a platter. But thats the, if you look through my past I’m not particularly well connected with super high ups. Even in the intel community most of the people I know, they are like rank and file types. They are kinda like Grusch. They’re like GS 15s, GS 12s. That kind of thing.