Harry Reid

Harry Reid was a U.S. senator from Nevada who led Senate Democrats. A Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) memo credits him and fellow senator Daniel Inouye with co-sponsoring the $10 million earmark in the July 2008 supplemental that launched AAWSAP. That DIA program paid Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies about $22 million to study future aerospace technology.

On 24 June 2009 Reid wrote to Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn asking that AAWSAP become a restricted special access program. The letter names neither Lockheed nor Skinwalker Ranch. James Clapper, then Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, recommended against it on 13 November, and the Pentagon declined (2009 AAWSAP SAP Request Denial).

In 2021 Reid said he had been "told for decades that Lockheed had some of these retrieved materials" and had sought Pentagon approval to look at them: "They would not approve that." What the Pentagon refused in 2009 was a new compartment. No document shows Reid being turned away from an existing one. David Grusch relayed the remark on a 2023 podcast (Grusch on Joe Rogan Experience).

An account that Lockheed tried to pass material to AAWSAP and that a CIA official vetoed the transfer is disputed: no agreement, meeting record or clearance file has surfaced (Lockheed-AAWSAP Material Transfer Veto).