On Monday, we learned from three unidentified Biden administration officials confirmed that the Chinese spy balloon was permitted to fly over the U.S. for an entire week and was able to acquire and send secret intelligence to Beijing regarding a number of military bases in “real time.” And now the White House is in damage control mode.
The Chinese spy ballon spent several days traveling across the United States as the U.S. refused to shoot it down, allegedly over concerns about civilian casualties. However, Biden had an opportunity to shoot it down over U.S. territorial waters near the Aleutian islands without any such risk yet failed to do so. The balloon was eventually shot down off the coast of South Carolina. The Biden administration was widely criticized for how it handled the spy balloon crisis; a majority of Americans believe Biden mishandled it.
The officials explained that China was able to acquire sensitive information from various American military sites primarily through electronic signals, including communications from base personnel and weapon systems. The spy balloon had the ability to linger over military installations such as Malmstrom Air Force Base, which houses a significant number of Air Force personnel and operates a considerable portion of our ground-based nuclear deterrent.
It was a shocking and disappointing revelation, proving that the Biden administration essentially allowed China to gather valuable intelligence. But, according to the White House, it was no big deal.
During Monday’s broadcast of Elizabeth Vargas Reports on NewsNation, John Kirby, White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications, responded to Monday’s report and essentially shrugged it off as much ado about nothing.
Kirby claimed that while the material from the balloon is still being analyzed, the Biden administration is confident that China did not obtain any significant information. “We’re confident because we knew where it was going, we were confident that it didn’t discover anything really additive to what they could have gotten from other intelligence sources.”
New reports indicate a Chinese spy balloon was able to gather intelligence as it hovered over the U.S. "It didn't discover anything really additive to what they could've gotten from other intelligence sources," John Kirby tells @EVargasTV.#VargasReports pic.twitter.com/kQH7Klr06J
— NewsNation (@NewsNation) April 3, 2023
Wow, feel better? I sure don’t. The Biden administration’s handling of this situation has been awful from the start. They knew about the balloon for days, but it wasn’t until a civilian discovered it in the sky that the public ever found out about it. Further, in order to appear proactive after the spy balloon was shot down, the administration got extremely trigger-happy and started shooting unidentified flying objects, reportedly using multi-million dollar missiles to shoot down harmless weather balloons and civilian drones.
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