A top U.S. general said that the Pentagon did not detect previous Chinese spy balloons as they were in the air, after former President Trump & members of his administration vehemently denied a claim from defense officials that such balloons had flown over the U.S. at least 3 times during his presidency.
Gen. Glen VanHerck, the head of U.S. Northern Command, said Monday that the Defense Department “did not detect” the previous balloons, adding that the intelligence community was made aware of them through other means of information collection.
“We did not detect those threats,” VanHerck told reporters. “The intel community after the fact — I believe as has been briefed already — assessed those threats from additional means of collection & made us aware of those balloons that were previously approaching North America or transited North America.”
President Biden ordered the latest Chinese surveillance balloon, which spent days in U.S. airspace, to be shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday. The U.S. is currently trying to recover the debris, hoping to glean intelligence from the wreckage.
The clash between the Biden administration & Trump and his former officials prompted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to call for a probe into why Trump was not made aware of the balloons during his presidency if they were detected.
“If it’s true the Pentagon purposely did NOT tell President Trump of Chinese Spy Balloons during his administration then we had a serious breach in command during the Trump admin,” Greene said on Twitter.
Senior administration officials cited Sunday in Bloomberg reporting said that the U.S. didn’t learn about the previous balloons until after Trump had left the Oval Office.
#fail #failure #epicfail #pentagon #china #chinsespyballon #joebiden #donaldtrump #marjorietaylorgreene #chinesespying #xijinping #noexcuse #clusterfuck #generalvanherck #glenvanherck #taiwan #russia #canada #guam #costarica #hawaii #texas #florida #colombia #surveillance #intel #nuclearbase #montana #malmstromairforcebase #usmilitary
Source: The Hill
Follow Me
}