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Biden regime sought to hide truth about Chinese spy balloon from the public: report

December 24, 2023 | | Print Article

The Biden administration sought to conceal a Chinese spy balloon from the public around the beginning of the year, according to a new NBC News report.

Filed Friday, the report states that in January, the Air Force commander reportedly in charge of defending America’s airspace from intruders was informed by U.S. intelligence officials that they’d been tracking a giant balloon.

Gen. Glen VanHerck subsequently called Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Gen. Mark Milley on Jan. 27th, after which there was “an eight-day scramble inside the Biden administration to respond to” the balloon, NBC News notes.

Here’s the kicker: “Administration officials at first hoped to conceal the balloon’s existence from the public, and from Congress, according to multiple former and current administration and congressional officials.”

“Before it was spotted publicly, there was the intention to study it and let it pass over and not ever tell anyone about it,” a former senior U.S. official briefed on the matter revealed to NBC News.

The Biden administration has for its part denied this accusation.

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“To the extent any of this was kept quiet at all, that was in large part to protect intel equities related to finding and tracking. There was no intention to keep this from Congress at any point,” an unnamed senior administration official claimed.

Sometime soon after VanHerck’s call with Milley, the military determined that the balloon was in fact a Chinese spy balloon outfitted with surveillance equipment.

“VanHerck began sending emails every 12 hours to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Milley and other Pentagon leaders to update them on the balloon’s location, threat, projected flight path and likely intent,” NBC News notes.

“In one email, VanHerck wrote that he determined the balloon was not an imminent threat and did not have hostile intent, so he did not have the authority to shoot it down. That order would have to come from the Pentagon and the White House,” according to the outlet.

President Joe Biden for his part first learned of the Chinese spy balloon on Jan. 31st, three days after the call between VanHerck and Milley. Told that the balloon was flying over Canada and seemingly en route to the U.S., the president ordered the military to figure out ways to deal with it.

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The president’s military advisers responded by warning that it was unsafe to shoot down the balloon because of the debris field it’d produce.

A day later on Feb. 1st, NBC News reportedly told the administration that it’d learned of the balloon and was prepping to report about it to the public. It’s at this point that the administration began organizing briefings for members of Congress.

After NBC News formally broke the story one more day later, the administration began organizing briefings for other news outlets as well.

The fact that the administration initially sought to conceal the balloon from everybody, including Congress, isn’t sitting well with some:

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Republican lawmakers were also angered.

“The balloon sparked a political frenzy in Washington. Several Republican lawmakers expressed anger that they were not briefed on the balloon earlier, before it was over Montana. They also said it should have been shot down immediately after it entered U.S. airspace,” according to NBC News.

Democrat lawmakers meanwhile started sycophantically defending the administration’s otherwise troublesome response to the Balloon.

Watch:

Vivek Saxena
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