Lies! Lies! And more lies! On Sunday morning, Richard Grenell, the former acting Director of the United States National Intelligence (DNI) strongly denied a recent report published on Forbes alleging that Chinese Spy Balloons flew across the United States during Donald Trump’s presidency. The article was extremely vague and weakly sourced. In a tweet, Grenell bashed the Biden administration for propagating this fabricated news and urged Congress to demand that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin tell the truth.
Biden’s DoD is shamelessly using an anonymous source to say that Chinese balloons flew over the US under Trump – and the Trump team allowed it.
It is a lie. We never heard this – ever.
Congress should demand @SecDef tell the truth. Shame on @JakeSullivan46.
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) February 5, 2023
Ex-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe also refuted these claims while making an appearance with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News Sunday morning. He said that this never happened before and that its consequences are immeasurable. Paul Sperry, a journalist, echoed Ratcliffe’s sentiment via Twitter.
BREAKING: Former ODNI John Ratcliffe just denied Biden admin claims Chinese sent 3 balloons into US on Trump's watch: "I can refute it. It didn't happen." He said this was first time and "the damage is incalculable." He also suggested Biden & his nat'l security team "compromised"
— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) February 5, 2023
Joe Biden has been receiving praise for shooting down the spy balloon after it flew over South Carolina, but many people are unhappy with his inactivity prior to this event. Retired four-star general Jack Keane appeared on Fox News to express his outrage towards Biden’s negligence. Keane highlighted how America had enough time to prepare for this operation when it was skirting around the Aleutian Islands in the Pacific Ocean instead of waiting until it came close to US territory on its east coast route.
“Remember, this was approaching the United States over water,” Keane said. “It was approaching the Aleutian Islands over water. And we had plenty of opportunity to take it down then. And that’s when it should have happened. We had to be tracking it from mainland China across the Pacific Ocean, and we had plenty of warning to put together an operation that we are conducting now on the east coast that should have been done there.”
It’s even been said that Gen. Mattis knew and didn’t tell President Trump, but when asked about it, he too said that this was a lie.
It’s concerning how ill-prepared our government is against foreign threats due to their lack of response until it is too late and something must be done about this issue as quickly as possible for our own safety and security.