The Chinese spy balloon debacle was the latest in a long list of Biden administration embarrassments. Curiously, soon after Biden allowed the spy balloon to traverse the United States and inspect military sites, the Pentagon claimed, citing an anonymous official, that “Chinese balloons briefly transited the continental United States at least three times during the prior administration.”
The allegation came out of nowhere and was, of course, immediately suspicious. The news media was eager to jump on the article and cite it as evidence that Republicans who have criticized Biden’s impotence in handling the Chinese spy balloon were hypocritical. Then, of course, there were the comparisons of Biden’s “transparency” compared to the apparent secrecy of the Trump administration.
But the Biden administration failed to count on multiple former Trump officials coming forward to dispute the claim — including John Bolton, who is hardly a Trump fan these days. The Biden administration, once again, looked foolish. So naturally, the administration’s claims evolved, and they issued a clarification to say that this had only been discovered after Trump left office.
“The Biden administration official now says the incidents were not discovered until after the Trump administration had already left,” CNN reported. “But the official did not say how those incidents were discovered or when.”
So, we’re expected to believe that the Biden administration “discovered” these alleged balloons that had flown “near” Florida and Texas only after Trump had gone, and yet won’t say how they know this? Are we really expected to believe that this happened and that it was never leaked before last week’s incident? According to CNN, Congress was reportedly briefed on the alleged balloon incidents during the Trump years on Sunday. I’m skeptical of the claim but if we take it at face value for argument’s sake, what the Biden administration asserts happened is deeply troubling and suggests that the deep state resistance to Trump was very much real.
Also for our VIPs: You Knew the Deep State Was Bad. Did You Know It Was This Bad?
Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) says that the Pentagon may have kept the alleged spy balloon incidents secret.
“My office has been briefed by the office of the Secretary of Defense of the current Pentagon that it happened over Florida, it happened over Texas and that it’s happened before,” Waltz told Fox News. “We have more detailed questions but what is unclear … did the Pentagon under the Trump administration brief the Trump White House and give them the option to take action or did they decide not to brief them for whatever reason?”
“And there is some speculation, I talked to Trump White House officials over the weekend, that the Pentagon deliberately did it because they thought Trump would be too provocative and too aggressive,” Waltz added.
If the spy balloon incidents occurred under Trump and they were kept secret from pretty much all Trump officials to prevent the Commander-in-Chief from taking any action, that’s extremely troubling. In a way, it would be preferable that the Biden administration is lying in a foolish attempt to make Biden look better. It’s juvenile, yes, but knowing that the Pentagon would keep such things a secret in order to prevent an aggressive response is worse.
