On Friday, the White House launched PURSUE and released the first batch of UAP files. Hours later, David Grusch said the CIA and DIA were actively blocking the President’s team from accessing material.
By Sunday, Grusch’s claim had a name attached.
Liberation Times published a detailed investigation identifying Aaron Lukas, the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence and former CIA station chief, as a central figure in the resistance. Multiple intelligence and defense sources told journalist Chris Sharp that Lukas is working within ODNI in a way that protects CIA interests – and is actively undermining his own boss, DNI Tulsi Gabbard, in the process.
If accurate, it means the PURSUE portal may be releasing only what the intelligence community allows through – not what exists.
Who Is Aaron Lukas
Lukas is the second-ranking official at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. His official biography describes him as “a seasoned intelligence professional and former CIA Chief of Station” who has “managed sensitive clandestine programs that have significantly impacted US national security.”
He is certified in the CIA’s most advanced tradecraft and has conducted covert operations globally. But his career history has an unusual wrinkle: during his time at the CIA, he was described publicly as a “foreign service officer with the Department of State.” Official records show he was employed by the CIA from April 2004, first as an analyst and then as an operations officer.
That kind of dual cover is standard for clandestine officers. But it matters here because of what Lukas now oversees. The director of the Pentagon’s UFO office – the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) – reports to Lukas and Steve Feinberg, the Deputy Secretary of War. That means the official responsible for coordinating UAP transparency across the intelligence community is a career CIA operative whose professional life was built on secrecy.
Politico recently reported that Lukas is seen as a favourite to lead ODNI if Gabbard – who has publicly advocated for greater UFO transparency – leaves her position.
What Sources Are Alleging
Three separate source threads told Liberation Times that the Trump administration is facing resistance from figures linked to the CIA.
The sources specifically pointed to two CIA components as historically involved in UAP retrieval and analysis: the Weapons and Counterproliferation Mission Center and the Directorate of Science and Technology. These are the divisions that, in the sources’ account, have the most to protect.
Matthew Ford, host of The Good Trouble Show and a journalist who has been tracking the ODNI allegations for more than a year, gave Liberation Times a direct statement:
“Based on more than a year of reporting and multiple source threads with visibility into ODNI, Lukas is doing favors for senior CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency officers to block Trump officials, including his own boss DNI Tulsi Gabbard, from getting the UFO legacy program under control. He is literally undermining Tulsi. This is not slow-walking the file releases. This is the deep state in its purest form.”
Ross Coulthart called the allegations “gravely concerning.” Jeremy Corbell endorsed Sharp’s reporting as “accurate and powerful.”
The Quality Problem
Sources also told Liberation Times that the first PURSUE release fell short of what real disclosure would require.
An intelligence source familiar with collection systems said the videos released so far came from tactical military systems with lower security classifications. What has not been released, the source said, was collected by national systems controlled by the National Reconnaissance Office and the CIA – deployed in areas where no U.S. or allied presence is publicly acknowledged.
The source suggested that the CIA’s clandestine collection capabilities may have captured scientific data related to UFOs, and that more substantial material could come from space-based electro-optical reconnaissance platforms operated by the NRO.
Another source was frustrated by the lack of analytical context:
“These files do not include the finished intelligence analyses produced by various departments and agencies. Those finished analyses would be classified and require review by the original classification authority before release.”
In other words: the public is getting raw footage without the government’s own conclusions about what the footage shows. The analyses exist. They are being withheld.
The Surface vs. the Substance
Publicly, Lukas has said the right things. On Friday, he posted on X:
“A historic UAP declassification effort is underway thanks to @POTUS. We appreciate the Intelligence Community professionals, Department of War personnel, and others across the USG who are devoting their time and resources to this enormous, complex task.”
Sources say the reality is different. One told Liberation Times that the public, Congress, and the President “must take a stand by demanding greater transparency, while calling out those who resist such efforts.”
Another posed a broader question: “If the U.S. government is seeing all these strange things around the globe and cannot explain them, why are other nations, like the United Kingdom and Australia, not being up front with their own citizens? It’s clear now that there is a global cover-up.”
What This Means for PURSUE
The PURSUE portal drew nearly 500 million hits in its first 48 hours. The 46 classified UAP videos demanded by Congress are expected next week. Public demand is not the bottleneck.
The bottleneck, if these sources are right, is inside the intelligence community itself – specifically, a career CIA officer sitting between the President’s transparency directive and the agencies that hold the strongest material.
This is not a new pattern. Luis Elizondo has described officials inside the defense establishment who believed UAP were demonic and argued the government should not investigate them. He said that belief became an institutional barrier. Grusch has said legacy programs withheld data from his team at the NGA and from AARO for decades.
What is new is that someone has been named. The question now is whether the President, Congress, and Gabbard herself will act on it – or whether the rolling releases will continue to deliver tactical footage while the national-level material stays locked away.
Sources: Liberation Times investigation · Chris Sharp thread on X · Ross Coulthart on Lukas · Matthew Ford / Good Trouble Show · Corbell endorsement · Grusch on CIA/DIA blocking · PURSUE article · Lukas official biography · Politico on Lukas as potential ODNI head