Wow, nobody has ever lied to congress before! And what are the chances their testimony pops up right after the introduction of a program incentivizing whistleblowers to come forward?

Wouldn't you expect their testimony to pop up after the incentive program independently of it's accuracy or truthfulness?

I wouldn't expect it to be independent of truthfulness. The Cobra Effect [0] suggests that offering a reward for something, in this case public airing of testimony, increases the likelihood of false testimony given the absence of any truthful testimony.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive#The_origina...

I'll just say that I regard the chances of the IG and congress being wrong about something as rather higher than that of an extraterrestrial civilization leaving artifacts on earth recovered only by the US Government. I mean, come on. I love alien stuff too but you need to put the bar for proof in a reasonable place, and this isn't it.

My point wasn't that there's a reasonable factual argument here (there clearly isn't) it's that the "reasonable" people jumping in to re-interpret it were also engaging in unfounded conspiracy paranoia (albeit one with a much more plausible hypothesis).