The Document
An email from Luis Elizondo to Neill Tipton had already been read by the public, in pieces, years before the Pentagon handed over its own copy. Elizondo, a former Department of Defense (DoD) counterintelligence official, sent it on September 25, 2017, at 11:23 a.m. Tipton was then Director for Defense Intelligence, Collection and Special Programs. Attached was a memo, also written by Elizondo, about transferring responsibilities tied to AATIP, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, a Pentagon effort that looked into reports of unidentified aerial phenomena.
A portion of the email’s wording appeared via Popular Mechanics in 2020, then again when Elizondo filed a complaint with the DoD Inspector General on May 3, 2021, accusing Tipton and two other officials of retaliation and giving the public false information. The New York Post reported on that complaint, and the email inside it, in 2022. Visible across those three appearances was Elizondo telling Tipton, on guidance from “SECDEF’s Front Office,” that he had drafted a memo “that helps you better assume the new responsibilities for AATIP,” and Tipton’s short reply days later that he was “getting spun back up” and would send thoughts shortly. The memo itself, attached but never quoted in any of those appearances, had not previously been made public.
The Incident
The Black Vault, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) research site run by John Greenewald, filed for the underlying records directly. The request, case 21-F-0964, went in on May 5, 2021, seeking communications between Elizondo and Tipton. At the DoD’s request, Greenewald narrowed it to keywords including “AATIP” and “UAP.” In December 2021 the Department replied that no responsive records existed. The Black Vault appealed, noting that the September 25, 2017 email already contained the word “AATIP” in its own body and should by itself have produced at least one document.
The release that followed carries a letter dated March 29, 2024. In it, the phrase referencing AATIP inside Elizondo’s email is blacked out, and the attached memo is withheld in full. Everything around those two items survives unredacted: sender, recipient, date and time stamp, subject header, and Tipton’s reply.
The Official Answer
The release letter cites FOIA exemption (b)(5), covering inter-agency or intra-agency memoranda that would not normally be available to a party in litigation, on grounds that they are deliberative, meaning part of internal discussion preceding a decision rather than the decision itself. That is the whole of the Department’s stated reasoning: no explanation of why this phrase or memo counts as deliberative, no date range for any such deliberation, and no detail about authorship beyond the unredacted header. This is the agency’s cited position, not a ruling from any appeals body or court.
The Ordinary Explanation, Tested
Exemption (b)(5) exists so staff can draft, argue, and reconsider internally without exposing unfinished thoughts before a decision is final. The Black Vault’s objection, raised in its appeal, is that this protection is built for material that stays inside the building. By 2024, the AATIP line from Elizondo’s email had already run in Popular Mechanics, inside a federal Inspector General complaint, and in the New York Post, across a span of four years. A deliberative-process exemption is generally understood to lose its footing once the underlying material is already public, since the harm it exists to prevent has already occurred. That is The Black Vault’s argument, not a finding adopted by the DoD or a court. The appeal against the redactions remains unresolved.
The Silence
The memo stays withheld in full. The record does not say whether it was addressed to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Pentagon’s second-ranking civilian official, or written on his behalf. Nor does it say what the “new responsibilities for AATIP” turned out to mean once Tipton took them on. These are not claims about the memo’s contents, only about what the released paperwork omits.
The Unreconciled Line
Set against that silence is a separate, repeated Pentagon position. In a May 7, 2019 email, Tipton stated that Elizondo, who had worked under him from 2010 to early 2012, “brought with him no responsibilities for AATIP,” and that Tipton himself was unaware the program existed at the time. A memo from Garry Reid, then Director for Defense Intelligence, went further, stating Elizondo had “aggrandized his role” and that, to the best of Reid’s knowledge, Elizondo “had no job responsibilities related to the AATIP,” noting the program had been terminated in 2012.
The September 25, 2017 email sits across from that position without either side addressing the other anywhere in the FOIA record. It was written by Elizondo, addressed to Tipton, and concerns helping Tipton take on AATIP responsibilities on the Secretary of Defense’s own guidance. Tipton’s reply did not dispute that premise. Nothing in the release reconciles the two; the gap is documented, not proof of what Elizondo’s actual role was.
Later Claims, Kept Separate
Elizondo has said publicly, outside this FOIA record, that he headed AATIP and wants its work disclosed without breaking his non-disclosure agreement. The Pentagon has told NewsNation, also outside this record, that he held no assigned role in the program. Former Senator Harry Reid, who describes himself as one of AATIP’s original sponsors, stated on April 26, 2021, that he could affirm “as a matter of record” Elizondo’s “involvement and leadership” in the program. The Black Vault itself has written that the redaction pattern “may indicate” an effort to obscure Elizondo’s role and AATIP’s existence, a line the outlet frames as its own speculation rather than something the documents establish.
None of these statements settles what the withheld memo says, or why a phrase already public for four years was blacked out under an exemption meant for material that never left the building. The memo remains in Pentagon files, marked exempt, with an appeal pending and no document on record that reconciles what Elizondo wrote in 2017 with what the Department has said about him since.