https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigati...rcna130991


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

Well of course he wanted to keep it secret. They threatened to cut off his allowance if not.

No more ice cream for YOU!

Quid pro quo?

Trump would have been impeached. But who cares?

Quote:As the final weeks of 2023 tick away, the escalation of absurdity continues. On that front, there is fresh news surrounding the Chinese spy balloon saga that captivated the nation back in February.

According to NBC News, the public revelation of the balloon ran contrary to a Biden administration plan to cover the entire thing up, including keeping its existence from Congress.

On a Friday evening last January, Gen. Glen VanHerck, the Air Force commander in charge of defending American airspace from intrusion, called President Joe Biden’s top military adviser, Gen. Mark Milley.

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 attempt to assess what it was.

Of note is the timeline and the location. The above call was made on January 27, while news reports didn't reveal the balloon to the public until February 2. The initial detection also took place over the Asia-Pacific. So not only did the Biden administration know about the balloon far earlier, they had ample chance to shoot it down over vast stretches of open ocean before it ever got close to the continental United States.

That flies in the face of claims made at the time that the balloon wasn't shot down until it flew over the entire United States, completing its mission, because doing so would endanger people on the ground. The fact that the balloon was over desolate, unpopulated areas of Montana had already largely disproven that excuse, but now we know that Biden had ample opportunity to shoot it down far sooner than that.

The big news here is the cover-up attempt, though.

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,” said a former senior U.S. official briefed on the balloon incident.

If the goal was to collect intelligence, why would the existence of the balloon need to be kept secret from Congress? Typically, national security issues are disclosed to the "gang of eight," a select group of lawmakers who offer a bridge between the administration and the broader group of representatives and senators. There would be no practical reason to hide the matter from Congress, which leaves only a political reason: Biden and company wanted to avoid the embarrassment of the public finding out that they let a Chinese spy balloon complete its mission without reacting.

Further, the balloon was set to self-destruct anyway.

After NBC News broke the story on Feb. 2, officials also arranged to brief other media outlets later that evening. Once the balloon’s existence became public, U.S. officials said it stopped transmitting data. Officials also assessed that China’s plan was to self-destruct the balloon, not return it back home.

In other words, Biden's supposedly heroic shoot-down was simply doing the bidding of China. They wanted it to be destroyed after it passed over the United States, likely to conceal whatever technology was being used.

The summary here is damning. The Biden administration knew about the balloon far earlier than reported, meaning they had ample time to destroy it safely before it got near the United States. The president then allowed it to fly over the entire United States with the intent to keep its existence a secret from elected officials. He then ordered it to be shot down off the coast of South Carolina, ultimately doing what China wanted him to do, which was destroy it before it could be recovered intact but after it gathered (and presumably transmitted) intelligence.

The Biden administration continues to be one of the most dishonest in history. The adults are back in charge? Hardly.

Link

Biden admin sought FISA order to surveil Chinese spy balloon as moved across US while downplaying significance: report

Quote:A new report has revealed that the Biden administration sought a court order through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) to collect intelligence on the Chinese spy balloon that traversed US airspace in early 2023.

The balloon made use of US internet service providers to navigate, and the Biden administration wanted access to the information on the balloon from those service providers. Though the administration sought the court order, they downplayed the balloon publicly.

According to NBC News, current and former US officials said that the admin sought the highly secretive order through the court, which was created through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, to collect intelligence while the balloon was over the US.

The order would have allowed US intelligence agencies to conduct electronic surveillance on the balloon as it sent and received messages to and from China during its path across the US, the officials said. It is unclear how the court ruled.

This would have included communications sent through an American internet service provider, to which the balloon connected to send and receive messages to its home country.

Officials told the outlet that the connection allowed the balloon to send burst transmissions, or high-bandwidth collections of data over short periods of time.

It was revealed earlier in December that the Biden administration had "the intention to study it and let it pass over and not ever tell anyone about it," a former administration official said.

A previously unreported phone call on Jan. 27 between Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck and Gen. Mark Milley revealed there was an eight-day-long fiasco within the Biden White House over what to do with the balloon.

Soon after the phone call the US military confirmed that it was a Chinese spy balloon outfitted with surveillance equipment.

Biden was informed only on Jan. 31, several days after the balloon had been spotted and confirmed to be coming from China. Soon thereafter, media reports broke about the balloon seen over Montana on Feb. 2.

China has continued to maintain that the spy balloon was a weather balloon that was blown off course, with Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, telling NBC News on Thursday, "As we had made it clear before, the airship, used for meteorological research, unintentionally drifted into US because of the westerlies and its limited self-steering capability."