UAP Whistleblower David Grusch Files Lawsuit In Response to Smear Campaign Intended to Discredit Him

UAP Whistleblower David Grusch has filed a lawsuit against the Loudon County Sheriff’s Department in response to the department’s release of confidential medical records pertaining to a mental health episode Grusch experienced in 2018. The lawsuit argues that the release of these records was not only a breach of Grusch’s personal privacy, but the move may have also violated Virginia state privacy laws.

Obtained under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Loudon County Sheriff’s Office, the records in question were featured in an August 9, 2023 article posted in The Intercept that was described as “a smear campaign” by former CIA Staff Operations Officer Tracy Walder. The records, consisting of a series of police reports, outline two incidents, one in 2014 and another in 2018 that involved police being dispatched to the Leesburg, Virginia address where Grusch was residing at the time.

The 2018 incident led to Grusch receiving treatment for severe depression brought about by a combination of combat-related PTSD, and the then-recent death of a close friend. For his own part, Grusch did not keep his previous struggle with mental health secret: aside from having received treatment for his condition and subsequently being cleared for both duty and a high security clearance, he disclosed this episode of his life to Coulthart in the weeks before his claims of a long-running campaign to illegally hide UAP-related programs from Congressional oversight were made public on June 5, 2023 by The Debrief and NewsNation.

“I served in Afghanistan and I had a friend that committed suicide after I got back,” Grusch said in a NewsNation segment aired on August 8, 2023. “I dealt with that for a couple years and I’m proud as a veteran not to become a statistic. Totally took care of that issue in my life and it doesn’t affect me anymore.”

Filed on July 16, 2024, the $2.1 million lawsuit contends that in releasing private records that contained personal information, the Loudon County Sheriff’s Office was in violation of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, of which states that “recordings, records, reports, and documents” such as the ones obtained and published by The Intercept“shall not be subject to the Virginia Freedom of Information Act,” according to section 37.2-818 of the Code of Virginia’s Commitment hearing for involuntary admission.

“David Grusch and his lawyer clearly believe that the Loudon County Sheriff’s Department had no business releasing what was essentially David’s private health information,” investigative journalist Ross Coulthart remarked during a July 31 video on NewsNation. Coulthart went on to point out that “all US citizens have very important privacy rights in law under the HIPAA Privacy Rule: it sets a very clear standard that someone’s private medical records—protected health information—must not be disclosed without authorization.

“This privacy right should have been taken into account when the details of David’s mental trauma and personal health issues and treatment were considered for release under the FOI laws, and that failure is likely to be the key issue that will be tested in David’s multi-million lawsuit against the police officers that made the decision to release his private health treatment records without proper authorization.”