Eli Crane To Experts: Has The FBI 'Dropped The Ball' On Anomalous Health Incidents Investigation?

7 months ago

During a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) spoke about the FBI's investigation into anomalous health incidents.

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Transcript

00:00 Thank you Mr. Chairman. This next question is for Mr. Zaid and Ed Green. Are either of

00:11 you aware of any individuals who have AHI symptoms have passed away from their ailments?

00:19 I do. I do. Do we know how many that you're aware of? Do we need to discuss that some

00:29 where else? For the privacy of the families, it's a small community. Right. Mr. Chairman,

00:37 are we going to be able to move into a classified setting at some point? Or at another time?

00:43 I think that possibility will exist at a later time. Thank you Mr. Chairman. There's concerns

00:50 that the FBI has totally dropped the ball on this investigation. Would the panelists

00:55 agree with that assessment? I would. And I would say that a great question for you to

01:03 ask is to the FBI, how many people did you have assigned to this? They're going to come

01:09 back with a big number. And then you're going to ask, how many people were assigned to this

01:13 full time? And then you're going to see the looks on their faces. Because by my accounts,

01:19 I had roughly two officers from the field office. I had a GS-15 at headquarters and

01:24 an analyst. The best one out of all of them was the analyst. And I'll say they all had

01:31 additional duties. That wasn't their main job. They were doing things like looking at

01:36 January 6th, looking at terrorism threats here in DC. So it's been very small. It hasn't

01:42 been resourced properly. And any time you work with the FBI, and this is fascinating

01:47 because I did my whole career abroad, it's easier. They put things into a black box.

01:51 And one of the main problems we had is they had on a criminal hat, crim as they say in

01:57 the FBI, and not a CI hat. Gotcha. Do you believe that Homeland Security investigations

02:04 should get engaged in this investigation? Absolutely, because they were cut out. You

02:09 only had, I believe, my time there, one Homeland Security officer. She was an analyst for Secret

02:15 Service. Homeland Security investigation should be involved. Have any of you three panelists

02:23 ever seen one of these weapons? I have seen a 1991 version of the weapon, and it looks

02:31 like a satellite dish with a unit this size attached to it. Of course, over the years,

02:39 militarization has been possible. Obviously, there's a limitation to how miniaturized it

02:45 can be because of the antenna size, which is always related to the wave. But still,

02:50 it is something that can be well contained in the trunk of a car or even a large backpack.

02:56 Is this a type of weapon that could be cobbled together once foreign operatives are on our

03:01 own soil, or is this something that would have to be manufactured in a nation state?

03:09 My experience shows that it can be cobbled together. It's something that can, a rough,

03:16 crude version of this that would probably require longer exposure than the more advanced

03:21 version that has been tested, as we see from this document, can be put together inexpensively.

03:29 But again, I would abstain from commenting further, lest I encourage people to try it

03:34 at home. That would make this weapon and this tactic

03:38 even more dangerous, wouldn't it, Mr. Khrosev? Correct.

03:43 Can you tell us, sir, about this contract you discovered for these weapons?

03:50 The contract was an award by the Institute for Prospective Military Studies, an annual

03:58 award that means that this was the best development for a unit, research and development achievement

04:06 for a unit whose goal is to encourage the production and manufacturing and discovery

04:11 and invention in the area of new weapons, both lethal and non-lethal.

04:17 I know that this same commander won the award of this institute two years in a row. We're

04:25 only privy to one of his devices, to one of his achievements. We don't know what subsequent

04:30 years delivery from him was. But again, I mention this in order for you

04:37 to understand that the perceived value, the perceived merit by the Kremlin of this particular

04:43 award, of this particular achievement, was high enough for it to be the only award for

04:49 the year and for this person to achieve a political placement, a position that is not

04:56 usual for a security operative. And this is the value of our finding. This was a very

05:04 momentous moment for the Kremlin, this particular achievement.

05:08 Mr. Chairman, can I have 30 more seconds? I think it was you, Mr. Khrosev, who said

05:12 that in your investigation you were able to conclude that one of these units was operating

05:20 on our soil, was found near individuals that contracted these illnesses. How were you able

05:27 to confirm this unit's proximity to individuals who experienced these injuries?

05:33 We've used over the years an amalgamation of data sources from the Russian market of

05:41 data, which is a unique phenomenon. We've obtained border crossing data. We've obtained

05:49 ticketing data, hotel reservation data, and telephone communication data for essentially

05:55 60 members of this unit that we've identified over the years.

05:59 Have any of them been apprehended, Mr. Khrosev? Several of them have been indicted. Four of

06:05 them are – six of them are indicted in Bulgaria over – including the person that we just

06:10 referred to, the engineer who discovered the acoustic weapon or delivered it. They're

06:17 indicted, but they're obviously hidden, well hidden in Russia and cannot be apprehended.

Eli Crane To Experts: Has The FBI 'Dropped The Ball' On Anomalous Health Incidents Investigation?

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