Waltz: Pentagon May Have Withheld Info on Chinese Balloons From Trump for Being ‘Too Aggressive’
Rep. Mike Waltz revealed that the Pentagon may have withheld information on Chinese spy balloons from 45th President Donald Trump because they believed he was “too provocative and too aggressive.”
On Saturday, a suspected Chinese spy balloon was shot down off the coast of South Carolina, after it had flown across the continental United States, including over sensitive military bases and nuclear missile silos in Montana.
Many Republicans, including former President Trump, had called for the suspected spy balloon, which the Chinese claimed was a civilian weather monitoring device, to be shot down, placing the blame for the Biden administration for their inaction.
Following the reports, Pentagon officials claimed without evidence that similar balloons flew over Florida and Texas during the Trump administration, with Rep. Mike Waltz confirming as such to CNN after Congress was briefed on the alleged reports.
Speaking to Stuart Varney on Fox News on Monday, Waltz claimed the Biden administration was engaging in “spin” to point out the alleged previous incidents, in order to justify “their dithering and inaction” when it came to the recent balloon.
Watch the clip on Spreely.video:
“Did the Pentagon under the Trump administration brief the Trump White House and give them the option to take action or did they decide not to brief them for whatever reason?” Waltz asked.
The Florida Representative revealed that there was speculation among former Trump administration officials that the Pentagon “deliberately” didn’t brief them about suspected Chinese spy balloons, “because they thought Trump would be too provocative and too aggressive.”
Over the weekend, President Trump claimed that the idea that Chinese spy balloons flew over America during his time in office was “fake disinformation” put out by the Biden regime, a sentiment echoed by Ric Grenell and John Ratcliffe, former National Intelligence Directors under Trump.
Mark Esper, who served as Secretary of Defense from July 2019, said he was “surprised” by the idea that there were balloons previously, and couldn’t “ever recall somebody coming into [his] office or reading anything that the Chinese had a surveillance balloon above the United States.”
Waltz noted that the “one person” he’s waiting to hear from is General Mattis, who served as Secretary of Defense before Esper. The Florida Congressman claimed that the supposed balloons existed during the time period that he was in charge of Department of Defense, and not Esper. “What did he know and what did he decide to pass on and brief to the president?” Waltz said.
In later statements, an official from the Biden administration claimed that the balloons were only discovered until after President Trump had left office, but refused to say how they were found out, or when it happened. “Did the Biden administration invent a time machine?” asked John Bolton, former national security advisor.
This news and commentary by Jack Hadfield originally appeared on Valiant News.
