Former national security adviser John Bolton said that it would be problematic if alleged Chinese spy balloons transited over the United States under the Trump administration without federal officials being notified at the time.
There were a flurry of reports over the weekend, citing allegedly anonymous U.S. officials, that claimed Chinese balloons flew over the United States when former President Donald Trump was in office. However, Trump, Bolton, and other administration officials refuted those claims and said they were never alerted about such matters.
Later, anonymous officials told Fox News on Monday that those balloons weren’t detected until President Joe Biden took office. The Epoch Times has contacted several Department of Defense spokespeople for comment, while the Pentagon has not publicly commented on the recent allegations.
A so-called senior official told Fox that “U.S. intelligence, not the Biden administration,” assessed that Chinese military “surveillance balloons transited the continental U.S. briefly at least three times during the prior administration and once that we know of at the beginning of this administration, but never for this duration of time.” There were also claims of an alleged spy balloon crashing in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Hawaii about four months ago.
But on Monday, Bolton questioned those reports. “Well, if it wasn’t detected when it happened, how did we detect it more recently? Did the Biden administration invent a time machine?” he asked during a CNN interview on Monday.
“What is the basis of this new detection? Now, I understand the administration has offered to brief former national security officials from the Trump administration,” Bolton said.
If U.S. military officials did not alert staff in the Trump administration, it would be significant, he said.
“I will say this, if there was any actual knowledge that these balloons were over the United States and higher authority wasn’t told, that’s a serious problem,” he told CNN, also saying, “As far as I know, every Trump administration official who has been asked, has said they didn’t know anything about it.”
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