IF it happened, the administration was never notified.If it happened, then miraculously no pilot, weather observer, astronomer, ground photographer, air traffic controller, or any other star gazer saw it. Meanwhile, this time:
Posted on 02/06/2023 6:31:47 AM PST by Red Badger
Officials in the last administration denied that the airships had flown over the U.S. on their watch.
The Biden administration is willing to brief former Trump officials on newly discovered intelligence that China sent spy balloons into U.S. airspace during their time in charge.
The offer, described by senior Biden administration officials on Sunday night, comes as former President Donald Trump and senior members of his national security team say they were never briefed on such an incursion by a Beijing-sent aircraft.
“This information was discovered after the prior administration left. The intelligence community is prepared to offer key officials from the Trump administration briefings on [China’s] surveillance program,” one of the officials said. The official, along with several others, asked not to be named in order to discuss sensitive information.
Briefers would also be willing to discuss Beijing’s similar operations in East Asia, South Asia and Europe over the last several years, the official said.
The proposal to brief the Trump officials is the latest development following the military’s shootdown of a Chinese spy balloon on Saturday, seven days after it entered U.S. airspace. Republicans and former Trump officials said this week that they would have downed the airship as soon as it appeared, and criticized President Joe Biden for waiting until the balloon was over water before bringing it down.
Yet on Saturday, a senior Defense Department official said that Chinese spy balloons entered American airspace three times during Trump’s tenure and once before during the current administration. The administration officials didn’t detail how they learned of those events long after they happened.
Still, it helps explain why five senior Trump administration officials POLITICO spoke with on Sunday said they were never told of such incidents occurring when they were in office. “This never happened. It would have never happened,” Trump told Fox News on Sunday.
“I’m not aware of a single civilian national security leader from the Trump administration who heard of this,” a Trump administration national security official said.
But the difference between past instances and the one from last week, Defense Department officials said, is that those balloons never stayed above U.S. territory for a significant period of time. When pressed for specifics, such as the date, location and duration of those instances, Biden administration officials refused to provide them to POLITICO, citing the classified nature of that information.
Eye-witness videos show U.S. downing Chinese spy balloon
SharePlay Video Some officials did speak in generalities, however. DoD tracks “hundreds” of balloons every day, but they are typically not deemed a threat. Their presence close to or over the United States would not be brought to the attention of senior leaders unless their behavior was “completely out of the ordinary, like this one,” said one senior Pentagon official.
At lower levels, officials have tracked multiple instances of balloon activity over U.S. territories in recent years. One of the Trump-era balloons hovered over Guam, according to two U.S. officials. And in 2020, the intelligence community assessed that much smaller balloons detected off the coast of Virginia were Chinese radar-jamming devices, according to a former senior DoD official.
Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), a House Armed Services Committee member, tweeted Sunday that the Pentagon had informed his office that “several Chinese balloon incidents have happened in the past few years - including over Florida.”
“Why weren’t they shot down?” he added. “And according to several Trump Admin national security officials - they were never informed of these intrusions by the Pentagon.”
The other time a similar airship appeared with Biden in the White House was last February near Hawaii.
Those and potentially other events were seemingly not discovered in real-time. One senior administration official said the events went “undetected.”
“We’ve gotten better at detection over time,” a second senior Biden administration official said, noting that those responsible for surveilling Chinese spy balloons can remain in government even with a new president in the Oval Office.
Before the Biden administration’s new offer, Trump officials denied any of this ever happened. “I don’t ever recall somebody coming into my office or reading anything that the Chinese had a surveillance balloon above the United States,” Trump’s second Defense Secretary Mark Esper told CNN on Friday.
“This never happened in the first two years of the Trump administration,” a former senior DoD official said. A senior Trump intelligence official said nothing like what transpired over the past week happened during all four years of the previous administration.
Biden’s team has given no indication it will downgrade intelligence to make a public case that there were past examples of Chinese spy balloons above the U.S. from 2017 to 2021. At this point, all briefings will apparently take place behind closed doors.
In fact, all senators will receive a briefing on the just-downed vehicle’s flight on Feb. 15, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday.
Better late than never?....................
So Biden knew of the dangers ahead of time and still did nothing.
[[At this point, all briefings will apparently take place behind closed doors. ]]
And promptly leaked to the feckless msm
In the end what’s going to get us is the complete and utter lack of humility.
Despite being bankrupt in every conceivable manner, with every drop of moral authority fitting neatly in a teaspoon, the US continues to behave as a bipartisan “invincible” World Police. A paper tiger has now grabbed a bear by the tail with one hand and a dragon with the other.
The more I think about this balloon thing the more I think a message has been delivered. Things don’t always happen “over there”. Things can happen right here.
That is the key. IF it happened, the administration was never notified. This is simply further evidence that even national security information is contaminated.
WTH
NOW they tell them!
~~~
In other words, they know Trump was never briefed on them at the time.
I would have to ask why.
Either there were no balloons, or there were and we didn’t detect them when they were in our airspace, or someone dropped the ball notifying the President (or Trump just doesn’t remember, which I think is unlikely)
He would not have been the only one briefed on the matter, so they never did....................
“””But the difference between past instances and the one from last week, Defense Department officials said, is that those balloons never stayed above U.S. territory for a significant period of time. When pressed for specifics, such as the date, location and duration of those instances, Biden administration officials refused to provide them to POLITICO, citing the classified nature of that information.”””
never stayed above U.S. territory for a significant period of time.
How convenient that Biden’s spy goons cannot tell anyone the location of these ‘TERRITORIES’.
The USA has several ‘territories’ that are small islands in the vast South Pacific Ocean.
...newly discovered intelligence that China sent spy balloons into U.S. airspace during their time in charge.
If newly discovered somebody needs to be fired.
Trying to change the subject.
Correct. The intelligence agencies were either negligent in their duties, or were active participants in treason.
Yeah I believe pollutico. /eyeroll
Were the other balloons “as big as three school busses”?
The narrative keeps changing by the hour.
or they did not enter our airspace, or not for more than a mere instant. They (Biden Junta) certainly have changed their stories.
Now you know this is BS or the DoD has been bucking the CnC.
However, given this:
And the swirling mystery around Fort Detrick re: Sars Cov 2,its becoming difficult not to believe we may have a real problem.
IF it happened, the administration was never notified.If it happened, then miraculously no pilot, weather observer, astronomer, ground photographer, air traffic controller, or any other star gazer saw it. Meanwhile, this time:
I do believe this, the Trump administration was under fire from all sides pretty much 25/7. Trump made some very good decisions because he wasn’t part of the Groupthink, but he also had his share of misses. Going forward I think this points to the importance of being a serious person who pays attention to their briefings, and there can be no expectation that our current veep is such a person. That is one of the things departing staff have complained about, Kamala ignoring briefs, being unprepared, and then blaming the people who wrote the briefs that she ignored.
It’s a cover-up of the weekend lie by the Democrats and the media that got discovered.
Trump never heard about incursions over our airspace, and they are admitting it now.
What people don’t see here, maybe because the giant Chinese balloon is hiding it, is the real issue. The real issue is that ‘unnamed sources’ are the impetus for most of the hate against Trump, and most of those go on to be flagrant lies. This is just another example of the government, with the help of the media which they own and control, lying to the American public to attempt to save ‘face’ for Biden.
When are people going to recognize the pattern; Seth Rich, Russiagate, Hillary Clinton Servers, the Clintons in general, Russian collusion, Russian disinformation, Illegal immigration and open borders, devalue of currency, NO JOBS is good, Welfare spending is economy, drugs are ok and the war on drugs was racist, attacking police stoned out of your gord is ok and if you get hurt it’s the police fault, there isn’t a pedophile problem, there isn’t a sex trade problem, 115% voter turnout is great, the videos of people stuffing the ballot boxes are false, there was no deliberate change in the ballot size in Arizona to disenfranchise voters......
I can’t even name all of the media lies, or the idiots that repeat it (mostly supported by government money).
We have to control the Government. That starts by forcing them to control spending. We need a balanced budget Amendment, then all of the lies will be laid for all to see.
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