New reporting reveals that the administration of President Joe Biden attempted to hide the Chinese spy balloon situation from the American public.
The report comes from NBC News.
It is titled, "The secret U.S. effort to track, hide, and surveil the Chinese spy balloon."
This is the same Chinese spy balloon situation that took place toward the end of January 2023.
It is the spy balloon that Biden allowed to float all the way across the United States - including over sensitive military sites - before Biden decided to allow the U.S. military to shoot the balloon down over the Atlantic Ocean - no doubt, long after the Chinese got what they were looking for.
NBC's report details a previously unreported telephone call that took place, last January, between Gen. Glen VanHerck - the Air Force commander in charge of defending American airspace from foreign intruders - and Gen. Mark Milley - Biden's top military adviser.
NBC reports:
U.S. intelligence officials had just notified the general that for roughly 10 days they had been tracking a mysterious — and enormous — object flying over the Asia-Pacific, VanHerck told Milley. The object had crossed into U.S. airspace over Alaska and VanHerck said he planned to dispatch military jets to fly alongside it and assess what it was.
This phone call, according to the outlet, "set off an eight-day scramble inside the Biden administration."
NBC goes on to report:
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.
The outlet further reveals that - despite what Biden and his administration claimed at the time - Biden knew that the spy balloon had "a large payload of surveillance equipment" soon after VanHerck's call with Milley.
Biden is said to have known about the ballon three days after the phone call. And, at this point, it was in his and the Pentagon's hands to determine whether or not to shoot it down. We know how this played out.
Another revelation made by NBC comes from the outlet's interview with VanHerck. He told the outlet that the Chinese spy balloon program continues and that the U.S. has failed to develop the means necessary to detect the balloons.
"Time is the opportunity to create deterrence options or, if required, defeat options," VanHerck said.
He added that the U.S. is still "not where we need to be."
