A story that caught on after the Chinese spy balloon was shot down over the Atlantic off the east coast of the U.S. was that something similar happened multiple times during the Trump administration.
The attempts to deflect any blame from the Biden administration for allowing the Chinese balloon to float over the entire U.S. over the course of a few days stemmed from a Defense Department statement that included this:
Long before the shoot down, U.S. officials took steps to protect against the balloon’s collection of sensitive information, mitigating its intelligence value to the Chinese. The senior defense official said the recovery of the balloon will enable U.S. analysts to examine sensitive Chinese equipment. “I would also note that while we took all necessary steps to protect against the PRC surveillance balloon’s collection of sensitive information, the surveillance balloon’s overflight of U.S. territory was of intelligence value to us,” the official said. “I can’t go into more detail, but we were able to study and scrutinize the balloon and its equipment, which has been valuable.”
The balloon did not pose a military or physical threat. Still its intrusion into American airspace over several days was an unacceptable violation of U.S. sovereignty. The official said Chinese balloons briefly transited the continental United States at least three times during the prior administration.
Isn’t it strange how the Deep State that was churning out anything and everything to make Trump look bad when he was in office is only just now mentioning this after Biden’s display of weakness?
Those sudden claims had former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe spotting some fake news:
Here is former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, telling @MariaBartiromo the Trump-era Chinese balloon incursions claimed by an unnamed Biden administration official did not happen: https://t.co/741fPoaZ9A
— Byron York (@ByronYork) February 5, 2023
Additionally, former acting DNI under Trump, Richard Grenell, shot down the most recent spin obviously intended to soften the PR blow for Biden:
Ask yourself why @jonkarl would quote an anonymous official when every senior national security official in the Trump Administration is on the record saying Jon Karl is wrong. @abc has a serious credibility problem with Karl.
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) February 5, 2023
The media came up with anything and everything while Trump was president to try and show what a bad job he was doing, but the deep staters didn’t bring up this particular claim until just this week? Please.
And now they are changing story to it happened but nobody knew about it until after? That makes no sense. https://t.co/OpTJFly1qf
— 🇺🇸𝙹𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚎 𝚂𝚠𝚎𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚢🇺🇸 (@JesseASweeney) February 5, 2023
Would the people who helped push the “Russia collusion” story lie to us… again?
I'm sorry, but the idea that this happened multiple times during Trump and no one leaked it until just now is plainly ridiculous https://t.co/rSDHcZ0Nlq
— PoliMath (@politicalmath) February 5, 2023
SO true.
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Related:
Dr. Jill Biden praises her husband and the military for taking down the spy balloon safely
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