Liberals rushed to defend President Joe Biden’s willingness to allow a Chinese spy balloon to trespass the entire continental United States by doing — what else? — blaming Donald Trump.
And instead of admitting and taking responsibility for this incredible security breach, the Biden administration is doubling down.
In true anti-Trump fashion, they’re not saying who whipped up the left’s frenzy against Trump over alleged previous Chinese spying, and left a four-star Air Force general dangling in the breeze.
To recap, the giant inflatable sphere’s lazy visit to America ended on Saturday after a meet-up with an F-22’s Sidewinder missile. A member of Team Biden immediately rushed to point out that such balloons had meandered over U.S. airspace under President Trump.
In the news: Sen. Marco Rubio Says Espionage Aimed At Our Country Has Become “Intense” And “Brazen”
During a press briefing on Saturday, an unnamed “senior defense official” claimed this happened three times under Trump, including a pass over Florida.
Not only did multiple Trump officials staunchly deny this, as The Free Press reported, but then Gen. Glen VanHerck, commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, was forced to admit he is bad at his job.
“We did not detect those [earlier] threats. And that’s a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out,” VanHerck told reporters on Monday in trying to explain what happened during Trump’s tenure.
VanHerck also shared that the Defense Department learned about the balloons from the intelligence community after the fact — this would be the same intel community that leaked everything about Trump but yet kept these three instances of intrusion into U.S. airspace quiet until he was out of office for two years and Biden is culpable for the current debacle.
In the news: VIDEO: Pentagon Says US Collected Valuable Intel Waiting To Shoot Down Chinese Spy Balloon
Sounds fishy, and got even fishier.
“The Department of Defense won’t identify the Pentagon official who this weekend told reporters that the Trump administration let three Chinese spy balloons fly over the country without noting the critical fact that these incidents went undetected by the military,” Washington Free Beacon reporter Chuck Ross reported on Monday.
The unnamed “senior defense official” essentially made VanHerck walk the plank on Monday by not saying anything about the military missing the Trump-era balloons.
And the media did not seem overly curious initially.
The press conference on Saturday included reps of CNN, the Associated Press, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CBS, Fox News, and Reuters.
None of their follow-up questions concerned Trump’s alleged inaction.
But the lack of transparency is telling, Ross argued.
In the news: Trump’s Former Top Diplomat Said Balloon Episode Shows China Is Eager To Challenge Biden
“The administration was forced to acknowledge the balloon only after a newspaper in Billings, Mont., spotted it last week,” he wrote.
“The identity of the senior defense official could signal whether the Pentagon is also helping Biden combat the public relations crisis over the balloon. A Pentagon spokesperson denied the Washington Free Beacon’s request to identify the senior official or say whether the individual is a political appointee or career employee.”
“As the briefing was conducted on background, we are only attributing remarks to a senior defense [official] and senior military officials,” a Pentagon spokesperson told Ross.
In other words, NeverTrump swamp business as usual.
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