You may not be familiar with the name of Garry Reid since he rarely pops up in the headlines, but he is – or perhaps was – the Pentagon’s Director for Defense Intelligence in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security OUSD(I&S). It’s an important position inside the Pentagon and Reid was assigned many weighty responsibilities. But he’s also gotten himself into a considerable amount of trouble and controversy in recent years. An exclusive report last week from investigative journalist Tim McMillan carried the provocative title, “Sex, Lies, and UFOs: Pentagon’s Head of Counterintelligence and Security Ousted.” In it, McMillan offers details of multiple Inspector General investigations into Reid’s affairs. These include allegations of sexual harassment and claims that he engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a female staffer who reported to him. He was also identified as the person in charge of designing America’s disastrously botched withdrawal from Afghanistan last year. The “UFOs” portion of the title refers to a separate IG investigation suggesting that Reid was responsible for blocking information on the Pentagon’s secretive UFO investigation program from senior officials at the Pentagon and possibly from Congress as well. And he is further accused of seeking to undermine the reputation and threaten the security clearance of former AATIP honcho Lue Elizondo. As a bonus, he was also found to have used his private email account for official government business. All of this supposedly led to his being “ousted” from his position.
Now, in an exclusive, The Debrief has learned that Reid was recently dismissed from his duties within the U.S. government.
Before his ousting, Reid had been the subject of a nearly two-year-long investigation by The Debrief. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, multiple current and former Pentagon employees told The Debrief Reid had engaged in wide-ranging misconduct and corruption for years.
In the past four years, the DoD’s Inspector General’s Office had investigated Reid on numerous allegations, including maintaining a sexual relationship with a subordinate employee, sexual harassment, and fostering a hostile work environment.
You can download and read the full results of one of the IG investigations into Reid here. From the sound of the IG’s findings, there was plenty not to like about Reid. He was clearly not a fun person to have as a boss and many of the people who reported to him gave him poor grades as a supervisor. Many cited what appeared to be a possible sexual relationship with one woman in the office and inappropriate touching, hugging, and kissing of another. (Shades of Andrew Cuomo come to mind.) But both women denied ever being in a sexual relationship with him and the second one said she really wasn’t all that offended.
As to the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, there should be no question that it was a disaster, and Reid was directly involved with the planning. But how can the Pentagon lay all the blame on one man when he was given very little time to plan and execute a massive and complicated operation like that? As to the undermining of Elizondo, not many confirmed details are provided. But people who have been following our coverage of AATIP and Elizondo here for the past four years or more will likely be nodding their heads and thinking, that makes sense.
READ RELATED: Is the Korean war about to heat back up?
But is all of this enough to justify firing him? The tone of the IG report sounded more as if some sort of reprimand or lower level of corrective action might have been in order. And that assumes that he actually was fired at all. McMillan uses a variety of words such as “removed” and “ousted” or “relieved of his duties.” But was Reid actually shown to the parking lot with all of his office trinkets in a box or is he still there? I decided to find out so I went straight to the Pentagon seeking a comment on his current employment status. Here’s the initial response I received on Friday afternoon.
Mr. Garry Reid is currently the Director for Defense Intelligence (Counterintelligence, Law Enforcement and Security) in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security.
That seems pretty straightforward, right? So contrary to what Tim McMillan reported, he hasn’t been removed from his position at all. But wait… the plot thickens from there. Curiously, unlike most of my requests to the DoD, this one was provided on background. No name was attached as being the source. Why would that be? We’re talking about a basic human resources question here. He either still works at the Pentagon in his old job or he doesn’t. Also, I was mystified by the almost total lack of any other mainstream media outlets covering a story of this potential significance, particularly when it potentially includes “Me Too” angles, sexual innuendo, and even UFOs. And yet the only other major outlets I’ve seen covering it a week later is Politico. And even Politico wouldn’t say he was fired, instead choosing to use the phrase “relieved of his duties.”
Nothing was adding up so I took another run at the Pentagon last night asking for someone to go on the record as to their previous statement about Reid still being in his old job. (Yes, I was working on Easter night. That’s how much this has been bugging me.) The response was even more short and simple than the first one. “Jazz: We have nothing further to offer at this time. ” (And it was still on background.)
So what’s really going on here? What sort of game is the Pentagon playing, assuming that’s what’s going on? If Tim McMillan somehow got the details of Reid’s final disposition incorrect and this can be documented definitively, I’m positive that he will update and correct his article. He’s a stand-up guy. But I’m having a hard time trusting the Pentagon spokespeople at the moment and I’m not confident enough to reach that conclusion. Reid is (or was) a highly placed official in the Department of Defense who draws a paycheck on the taxpayer’s dime. If he’s still drawing that paycheck or if he has been sent packing, the public is entitled to know about it. We’re not talking about any sort of classified information here. This is strictly a Human Resources Office question. And you all deserve to know. We’ll keep chasing them in the meantime and see if there is any additional, provable information available.
Source:
